Held at the ACBS Clubrooms : 27-28 March 2010

Malcolm Beehre : Disappointingly, two players withdrew the night before the tournament which makes the tournament a lot harder to run, when there are odd numbered sections.  Also disappointingly, 1ZB failed to contact me on the morning of the tournament to discuss the event and also allow me to promote the fact that the NZ Snooker Champs will be held in our Clubrooms in July.

On the good side, there were a lot of favourable comments on the changes to the Snooker Room.  It was also good to see a few new players in this tournament (although not new to Snooker) and all had good performances in section play.  In particular, Nick Garforth, Guy Burt and Lee Paul, who each had three wins in section play to qualify second in their respective sections.

As always there are a couple of sections that are harder than others, and this time section four was the toughest with Paul Bason, Sanjay Kumar, Regan Williams, Guy Burt and newcomer Dennis Yin.  Kumar, the Bay of Plenty Open winner in 2010, failed to qualify ending up fourth in his section.

In Post-section play Clive Thomson easily disposed of Lee Rudolph 3/0.  Martin Jones beath Garforth 3/0, Bason beat Tony Van Wijk 3/0, Lee Paul beat Mark Mitchell 3/0, Vanny Ry beat Burt 3/0.  Eldon Lai beat Sani Roberts, who qualified 16th after a one-frame play-off with Vinny Gounder. 3/1.  Peter Darby, 15th qualifier, beat the number two seed in the tournament, Matthew Scarborough 3/2 and Jackie Chu beat Williams on the pink in the fifth frame to win 3/2.

The Quarter-finals was a close match with Bason against up and coming younster Lee Paul.  Bason won the first two frames, L Paul the next two and Bason won the final frame on the blue.

Ry beat Bason in one Semi-final 3/1, and Thomson beat Chu 3/0 in the other.  The Final saw Thomson go out to a 2/0 lead and it certainly looked like he was going to win 3/0, but Ry came back in the third frame with a very determined 37 break to take the frame.  Thomson won the fourth frame to take the title and had breaks of 48, 37, 29 and 36 in the four frames.

The Flyte event was won by Tony Van Wijk over Regan Williams 2/1 and the Plate was won by Daniel Sinclair over Sanjay Kumar.  Sinclair had the highest break of the tournament with a nice 77.

Last Sixteen: E Lai bt S Roberts 3/1, J Chu bt R Williams 3/2, M Jones bt N Garforth 3/0, C Thomson bt L Rudolph 3/0, P Bason bt T Van Wijk 3/0, L Paul bt M Mitchell 3/0, V Ry bt G Burt 3/1, P Darby bt M Scarborough 3/2.
Quarter-finals : J Chu bt E Lai 3/2, C Thomson bt MJones 3/0, P Bason bt L Paul 3/2, V Ry bt P Darby 3/1.
Semi-finals : C Thomson bt J Chu 3/0, V Ry bt P Bason 3/0.
Final : C Thomson bt V Ry 3/1.