Feel the Wrath of Rod

MNT was back up to the maximum 32 entrants today as a star-studded line-up showed up.  Ramma Jamma was back from his international tournaments, ready to reclaim his crown.  However, Rod’s been pretty dominant in Ram’s absence, and this was going to provide an extra edge to last night’s MNT.

Not forgetting the other contenders:  Martinho Correia has proven to be a classy opponent, Gabriel Vasilache was fresh off the back of a strong showing at GB9, Daria Siranchuk has been performing really well having come third in the Norway Open, and pre-tournament favourite, Dan “the Destroyer” Suh, was feeling confident having fared well at Total 9 Ball and beating Paz on Saturday by an unprecedented 3 sets to 0, winning all sets 5-0!  (I wasn’t allowed to mention it at the club yesterday). 

Moving into the first round, and there was one match that was full of quality and drama.  Two newbies to the ranks entertained the crowd with a display that showed that either player might well progress to the latter stages.  Michael Sagar from the Netherlands fought hard against Kuwaiti, Nasser Alomani, and in the end it was Nasser who ended up disappointed, losing 5-4.  Nasser told the press afterwards, “I’ll be back next Monday, and there’s no doubt I will win the tournament”.

Another significant match was how Daria turned up the heat on Mariusz with a 5-0 drubbing, demonstrating how well she’s been playing lately.

The second round saw one match go to hill-hill, and that was between the mighty Ciprian Dandu and Rod “the God” Altes.  Cip might not be playing as much, but he has the ability to put gods in their place, but Rod isn’t just a god, he’s “the God”.  Despite Cip’s efforts, Rod put his foot on the accelerator and held his nerve to progress to the quarter.

Other significant results saw Ahmad Jomaa get whitewashed by Gabriel, and the Destroyer get completely rinsed by Michael Sagar, who perhaps was fully focused on beating Tooting’s most intimidating opponent.    

The quarters saw two epic battles.  Firstly, the conqueror of the Destroyer came up against the silky Martinho.  This was a tense match, where both players had to really use their wits.  Some great tactical play from Michael and Martinho, but it was Martinho’s experience that finally shone through to win 5-4.  The other absolute monster battle was between Rod the God and Ramma Jamma.  Rod had been sufficiently wound up throughout the evening, as comments from the crowd could be heard by the local deity.  During the pre-match interview, Rod said “I keep hearing people saying that Ram’s my arch-nemesis, or my Achilles Heel, but that’s just not the case.  The media are hyping this whole thing up.  I’ll trust my game and show that there’s no such thing as an Achilles Heel.” 

5-4 to Rod.  No media hype.  Job done.  Just another win.  Onto the semi-finals.

In the other quarters, Gabriel continued to show fine form by beating Joe Granville 5-0, whilst Daria suffered a bit of a scare against Alexander Vilmanis, but her game is really getting good under pressure, and she went through to the semis with a 5-3 win.

The semi-final between Daria and Gabriel proved to be the most dramatic.  Both players playing well, both players determined to win, and the crowd were treated to a tight and tense affair.  Absolutely no surprise to see this one go to hill-hill, and Gabriel called upon his many years of experience to snatch the win at the death.

The other semi was between Rod and Martinho.  Rod was in the mood to put the pedal to the metal and ran out 5-2 winner.  The emphatic win brought us to the final, between two in-form players.  Gabriel “the Hitman” Vasilache, and Rod “the God” Altes.  This was going to be a battle of wills, but fired up from the media stories and crowd comments, Rod went to another level to earn another MNT win. 

In the press conference, Rod went on to say “to all those who doubted me and to all those claiming that the return of Ram would affect me, you have felt my wrath and power.  To everyone who made such false claims, you are forgiven.  Peace be with you.”

Strong words from the Tooting deity indeed, and proved his doubters wrong.  A massively deserved victory and a very high quality night of action at London Snooker Tooting.  Rod is fast-catching Ram, but the big question is whether Rod can overtake Ram before the end of the year, and claim top prize?

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Written by Dan Suh

Category: Home

Published: 22 November 2022

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Rod's Got the Shiniest Balls

If you enjoy watching grown men get hypnotised by shiny balls, last night’s MNT was the place to be.  Before the tournament started, contravening every health and safety rule relating to hanging wires, a pool ball cleaning machine appeared at the rear of the club.  For an entire hour before the tournament started, grown men stared at the spinning balls, getting totally hypnotised by watching balls get cleaned and shinier by the second. Honestly speaking, there’s nothing like watching grown men look at brand new toys to play with.

Last night’s tournament was a cracker.  More drama, lots of head-shaking, and one exceptionally hungry co-organiser.  Before the tournament started, Muhammed “he’s the greatest” Ali got selected for the Break and Run competition, and much to the amazement of the onlooking crowd, actually put in a decent break and went on to pot a total of 3 balls, taking home £90.  Quite literally the first time I’ve ever seen him pot a ball off the break with a 10 ball rack. 

The first round proper saw only one match go to the wire.  Glen “Geordie” Hargreaves faced up against the imperious Martin Leonar.  Glen has been a bit hot and cold of late, but on his day, has a game to beat anyone, and it was his day this time…sending Martin home early.  Notably, a couple of whitewashes in the first round, with Tej showing off his potting skills against Ervin Demiraj.  And recent addition, Tolik Petrov, also showing off his talents with an easy victory over fans’ favourite, Marius Dandu.

The second round saw some real fireworks.  One of the top players and LFP’s main organiser, Ciprian Dandu, just couldn’t overcome Ramon Navarro.  Possibly the upset of the night, but well played Ramon, who will be very happy with his giant-killing feat.  At this stage, no-one had really noticed Andy “fast forward” Curzon, who was playing with a borrowed shaft, but had somehow transformed himself into a machine who couldn’t miss.  We know he’s got some mighty fine shots on him, but his desire to play like Benny Hill on speed can let him down at times, but he managed to scrape past Tolik in an exciting encounter.  Meanwhile, Doug “the Shark” Clark decided to flex his muscles with a 4-0 win over Geordie Glen.  And Hassan Mehedi also stepped up to thrash Tej.

So into the quarters, and Henri Linnainmaa faced the daunting task of having to beat local deity, Rod “the God” Altes.  Henri’s game has come a long way of late, and it took every ounce of Rod’s ruthlessness to sneak past Henri 4-3.  Doug flexed his muscles some more for an easy win over Ramon.  Hassan also showed that his level can match the best by beating Saman 4-2.  And finally, last week’s winner, Kostiatyn “duck power” Ivanov (please don’t ask about the requested nickname btw), came up against Andy C, who obliterated him in no time at all, 4-1.

In the pre-match interview before the semi-final between Doug and Rod, Doug remarked how well he was playing and how it was all starting to feel good again. 

In the post-match interview, Doug remarked how much he enjoyed a break from playing, sitting down, watching Rod not miss one single shot.

5-2 to Rod, and there was nothing Doug could do.

Rod did say “Doug was playing so well that I had to step up my game, and keep him in his seat”.

The other semi between Hassan and Andy C went to hill-hill.  A real case of who was going to make a key mistake, and in the end, Hassan crumbled under the pressure, and bowed out of the tournament.  Hassan was inconsolable after the game, shaking his head repeatedly over and over again in the post-match interview.  It’s rumoured that he’s still sitting in the club looking into space this morning, so we’ll send someone to check on him.

The final between Rod and Andy C saw Andy finally succumb, whilst Rod just turned the screw.  Andy switched from 16X fast forward to 8X, but that wasn’t enough to counter Rod’s high level of performance.  However, Andy did play one of the maddest banks you’ll ever see, totally called it too, which did give him one rack against Rod.  The onlooking crowd gasped in amazement, with even Rod displaying a glimmer of emotion, but Rod quickly put his game face back on and finished Andy off 4-1.

Finally, Rod’s finally broken through to over 8 points on the ranking scores.  A remarkable achievement, second only to Ram, so well done Rod.

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Written by Dan Suh

Category: Home

Published: 08 November 2022

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More to come from the God of Tooting?

Sorry for the late update, but last weekend was a big weekend for pool fans, especially for representatives of Tooting and the London’s Finest Pool community. 

A number of us went to Redhill for the Total 9 Ball event. Hasan Aljumaili, Tolik Petrov, Daria Siranchuk, Gabriel Vasilache, GJ Oyangoren, Tomasz Jedlecki, Muhammed Ali and (pre-tournament favourite) Dan Suh were all attending and surprisingly, it was Dan the Destroyer who got the furthest by getting to the quarters, finishing at 1am.  The lateness took its toll on the Destroyer, with highlights being the wins against Anthony Ginn and taking Mark Foster to hill-hill before losing in the quarters.

This was followed by the LFP Winter Open, where a huge number of the Tooting regulars turned out, making up over half of the field.  A decent showing from the Tooting faithful, but in a field that contained some extremely strong UK ranked players. The quarter-final line up demonstrates the strength of the competition, with Imran Majid beating James Welch 7-0, Gabriel Vasilache beating Hasan Shahid 7-3, Craig Osborne beating Mark Foster 7-5, and Rod the God Altes beating Anthony Ginn 7-2.  Imran Majid went on to lift the trophy, by beating local Tooting deity, Rod Altes, in the final, but a good showing by Rod who succumbed to a seriously good opponent.

MNT was in full swing on Monday night, with a “special” night planned, as Straight 14.1 pool was the discipline to be played.  As is the case with the seldom played disciplines, a smaller turnout was expected, but the die-hards were out to have a thoroughly enjoyable evening, in an event that carried no ranking points. Being a community, it was good to be able to play against each other in a relaxed manner, but still fiercely competitive.

If you’re not completely aware, straight pool is massively skilful and relies on excellent potting, positional, and carom skills.  The idea is to keep potting and build up a run of points.  The record is held by Jayson Shaw, who put together a run of 714, which is over 47 and a half racks of potting.  Incredible stuff.  But could someone at Tooting be as incredible?

The answer is no, but that didn’t matter.  The quarters saw one of the most imperious, but also shocking results, as Rod faced up to Shadi Ed, who we all know is a superb competitor.  However, Shadi just couldn’t get out of the blocks and lost 75-9 to Rod.  Doug “the shark” Clark also had an emphatic win over Khan, who just couldn’t get into his rhythm.  Meanwhile, Ali and Dan had a tight affair until Ali surged ahead and demoralised the Destroyer.  And in the last quarter final, Saman and Kostya had a really tight game, with Kostya just coming through at the death to win 75-65. 

The semis saw an exciting game between Ali and Kostya, where Ali just capitalised on Kostya’s mistakes to win 75 to 49.  The other semi saw Doug up against Rod for the second week in a row, and again, thoroughly enjoyed watching Rod play his way to a comprehensive victory.  In his post-match interview, Rod further rubbed it in by admitting that he’d never played straight pool before, and reminded Doug that he had lost to a player who hadn’t even been playing American pool for a year.  Doug responded with asking what kind of monster was Rod going to turn into after he gains some real experience in the game?

It's no exaggeration to say that Rod was pretty much on fire, especially having played so well the night before in the Open, and Ali had to stand and watch Rod march his way to victory.  It was a remarkable performance.  Not that Rod didn’t make mistakes, but because Rod is playing in such a way that you have to be immensely brilliant at this game to capitalise on his rare mistakes, which demonstrated that Rod’s immortality in this game is only minor.

A bit of an Achilles heel for Rod, though, is Ramesh “Ramma Jamma” Gokhul.  It’s true to say that Rod has the game to beat Ram, but can he do it every week, once Ram is back in Tooting?  Surely that must be the benchmark, and regularly beating Ram will be one of Rod’s objectives in 2023.

As is always the case with our fantastic community at London Snooker Tooting, it was a really enjoyable evening, and I believe we’re back to 9 Ball this coming Monday.  Make sure you keep your eye on the WhatsApp group and have a great weekend.

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Written by Dan Suh

Category: Home

Published: 18 November 2022

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Battle of Generations - Young Gun Comes Out On Top

Well, crikey.  What a night we had at MNT at London Snooker Tooting.  After a week's absence last week due to storm damage to the club, the 28 strong field were itching to get back on the tables and strut their stuff on the pool tables.  To kick off the evening's proceedings, Ciprian picked himself out of the hat to have a go at the Break and Run.  A superb effort off the break, followed by a slick thin cut on the 1 ball looked to put Cip in control of the table until he was thrown off position for the 2 ball.  Going for it, Cip missed out, and the £270 pot extends into next week.  No doubt Ramesh will return and somehow get selected, and take the pot home.....but that's for another time.

Moving into the first round of the tournament.  A few tasty battles ensued.  Notably, making his first appearance this year, Tolik Petrov took on one of the most recently improved players in MNT, the dangerous Henri Linnainmaa.  Tolik put in a sterling performance, and took Henri all the way, but at 5-5, Henri held his nerve to advance to the next round.  Likewise, the most gruelling match of the evening (pretty much night time by the time it finished) was Mariusz Wiszowaty against Peter "Lightning" Hsu.  A gritty affair where the pressure took its toll on both players, who fought and ground their way through every rack.  Truly an epic, one that took forever to complete, but Mariusz reaped the rewards at hill hill, and won his second game in two tournaments.  A true potential giant-killing match was taking place between Gauhar Khan and Kostiantyn Ivanov.  Betfair were so certain of a Ukrainian victory, that they were paying out after Kostia raced into 2-0 lead.  "Easy peasy" grinned our junior Ukrainian magician, but no player is a mug at Tooting, and Khan (finally) pulled up his trousers, to the relief of anyone standing behind him, knuckled down and played some excellent pool to take Kostia to hill hill.  The tension was immense, but Kostia switched his concentration back on and Khan buckled under the pressure.  6-5 to our Ukrainian young gun.

Other notable results saw Martinho Correia take on Dan the Destroyer Suh.  6-0 victory for Martinho....and no, that's not a typo.  It really was 6-0.  Tooting's favourite Destroyer just couldn't cope with the conditions, the new chalk, the table, the opponent, himself, etc, etc.......

Muhammed "He's the Greatest" Ali whitewashed newcomer, Mark Rodericks; and the biggest match-up of the first round, between the two no-nonsense giants of Tooting, Gabriel Vasilache and Rod "the God" Altes, ended up with Rod having to pull out some real aces from the pack to win 6-3.

The second round saw one hill hill battle, which was between Rod the God, and Ahmad Jomaa.  Ahmad wasn't to be intimidated by Rod's reputation as a local god, and a really closely fought match saw him take Rod to hill hill, but Rod's experience and clinical finishing saw him through to the quarters.  Big wins for Henri Linnainmaa against Mariusz Wiszowaty.  Tomasz Jedlecki whitewashed Joseph Cowley, whilst Sean Avery has asked me not to mention his game in today's match report.  So anyway, Ciprian eased his way into the quarters by thrashing his opponent 6-0.  

The quarters were somewhat a bit of a mystery.  Some superb talent on show, but 3 out of the 4 games ended up in whitewashes!  Martinho showed off his experience by breezing past Henri, who looked a bit shell-shocked after his defeat.  Henri said in his post-match interview: "I think I only made 3 mistakes, yet I lost 5-0.  Incredible."  Meanwhile, despite Tomasz's fine form in the previous round, Spencer Oliver had been quietly disposing of his previous opponents, and showed off his talents with a 5-0 win over Tomasz.  And Andy "the Snail" Curzon just couldn't get into his rhythm against Rod the God, and his night ended without getting a rack on the board.  The final match in the quarters was an interesting one for the spectators.  Young Gun Kostia against a man who, on his day, has more talent in his little finger than many can dream to have.  However, Kostia is simply a kid on a mission, and his improvements throughout this year have been noticeable.  Cip used all of his experience to keep Kostia at arm's length, but at hill hill, Kostia won the decisive rack and can be very pleased with himself for showing much improved consistency.

The semis were a genuine dream line-up.  Martinho against Spencer, and Rod against Kostia.  Martinho came into the MNT with a fearsome reputation.  Make no bones about it, behind all the friendliness, there's one hell of a competitor in there and a shed load of experience.  Spencer is a regular performer too.  Big reputation around the UK, as big as his hair, and it was absolutely no surprise to see these two go toe to toe and end up at hill hill.  Literally a flip of a coin was going to decide it, and Martinho edged it to advance through to the final.  

Like many of you regulars will know, once Rod's in the semis, he doesn't let up and there's a very high probability that he ends up in the final.  Kostia had other plans though.  He's got a lot to prove as an emerging talent.  Someone who could genuinely make a real name for himself on the circuit across this country, and his 5-2 win was certainly well-deserved.  Rod will, no doubt, have his revenge, but last night just wasn't to be.

On to the final, and we had the oldest entrant, vs the youngest participant.  A battle of generations.  The youthful exuberance of Kostia vs the wise owl-like Martinho.  Well, my money was on Martinho.  He'd destroyed the Destroyer 6-0 and finished Henri off 5-0, whilst Kostia had to go hill hill in of the previous rounds against Khan and Cip.  But Kostia is made of sterner stuff these days, and he eventually came through 5-3 to win his first MNT!  Congrats and no doubt, there'll be many more wins in the future from Kostia.

Ranking-wise, Rod needed to win the tournament to gain ground on Ram.  Kostia has now moved into the top 5, whilst Martinho finds himself at 12th after only having played two tournaments.  At the other side of the table, Mariusz deservedly lifted himself off the foot of the table.

As always, a thoroughly enjoyable evening and let's hope the club doesn't come up against storm damage again.  Don't forget to keep an eye out on your WhatsApp to register for next Monday, and have a superb week everyone.

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Written by Dan Suh

Category: Home

Published: 02 November 2022

Hits: 308