BNZ 3000 Open Snooker
October 22nd, 2008
Held at the Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club, Hosted by the Auckland Billiards & Snooker Assn : 18-19 October 2008
This tournament has been resurrected after last being contested in 2001, and thanks to the generous sponsorship from the BNZ, attracted a field of 40 players.
As in most tournaments of this size involving non-ranking players (i.e. Cosi Club members, or players who haven’t played in a tournament for a few years) there is always a section from hell. This was Section 7 which had the current NZ Open Snooker Champion, Regan Williams, current NZ Ladies Snooker Champion, Ramona Belmont, two past NZ Snooker Champions, Bruce Anderson and Richard Muehlauer and an up and coming young Asian players, Gordon Dong. The eventual qualifers were Regan Williams and Bruce Anderson.
The “Giant Killer” of the tournament was Vinny Gounder. Vinny has played well over the last two years, but has struggled to qualify for Post-Section play, but this time round won all of this section matches and qualified first in his section, after beating NZ Snooker Champ, Wyn Belmont on the pink in the final frame.
All of the local club players performed well, in particular Sani Roberts who won all of his Section matches. Bruce Davies came Runner-up in his Section and managed to take a frame off another former NZ Snooker Champ, Steve Robertson. Also Friday Harema, Greg Crichton, Roy Clark, Martin Jones and Vince Tate all managed to qualify for Post Section Play and certainly surprised some of the more seasoned tournament players, Clive Thomson, Paul Bason and Steve Robertson who were the top three seeds, all went through Section Play without dropping a frame.
Clive then went on to win the tournament beating Paul 3/0 in the Final and also never lost a frame in the entire tournament. Paul had the highest break of 88 and Ramona Belmont won the Plate event over Graham Backman 2/0.
Last Sixteen: C Thomson bt B Anderson 2/0, R Clark bt M Jones 2/1, R Williams bt E Lai 2/1, G Crichton bt S Roberts 2/0, S Robertson bt B Davies 2/1, J Chu bt W Belmont 2/1, F Harema bt V Gounder 2/1, P Bason bt V Tate 2/0.
Quarter-Finals: C Thomson bt R Clark 2/0, R WIlliams bt G Crichton 2/1, S Robertson bt J Chu 2/0, P Bason bt F Herema 2/0.
Semi-Finals: C Thomson bt R Williams 3/0, P Bason bt S Robertson 3/2.
Final: C Thomson bt P Bason 3/0.
Highest Break: P Bason 88
