Mike Davis
Bird wins Friday night warm-up, Davis/Bischoff defend their Jack & Jill title
As a community, pool players tend to adopt nicknames that stay just shy of being too pompous or arrogant. The only pool player we know of that employed the word “King” in his nickname was Jim Rempe, known far and wide as “King James.” The only one woman who’s done so, to date, has been LoreeJon Ogonowski-Brown, who’s been known as ‘Queen of the Hill’ for a long time now. Alex Pagulayan toys with the idea of being King of Beasts, by adopting The Lion as his nickname, although it’s pretty clear that it’s just as much about the last two syllables of his name. Allison Fisher hits the ‘royalty’ button with ‘Duchess of Doom.’ And though very few would have objected or disputed Efren Reyes’ right to have settled on some version of ‘King’ in his nickname, his last name means, literally ‘kings,’ which would have created a bit of a problem; Efren ‘King’ Reyes, translating to Efren ‘King’ Kings. Besides, “The Magician” is a much more apt nickname for his status and skills in the world-wide pool community.
However, taking a King or Queen name related to victories in a specific event, temporarily, is a different thing altogether and at present, the Clubhouse in Lynchburg, VA’s bi-annual Royal Weekend offers pool players the opportunity to become the King or Queen of the Mountain and a pair of them to become the Jack & Jill Team of the Mountain. The ‘Mountain,’ being the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the foothills of which sits The Clubhouse.
So it is that we can speak of Mike Davis, Jr. as the Royal Weekend XI’s King of the Mountain at the 1,000-added event that drew 34 entrants. Liz Taylor successfully defended the title she claimed first at Royal Weekend IX and then, this past March at Royal Weekend X to become the current Queen of the Mountain at the $1,000-added event that drew 16. Davis and Katie Bischoff (runner-up to Taylor for the Queen title) successfully defended their Jack and Jill Title, which drew 19 teams. The affair got underway on Friday night, with a Warm-Up event that drew 27 entrants and crowned (as the “Warm-Up Prince,” perhaps?) Jimmy Bird, who took two out three (hot seat and second set of a true double-elimination final) over Reggie Jackson.
Katie Bischoff and Liz Taylor
Queens, first. This was the third time that Liz Taylor and Katie Bischoff had squared off in the finals to claim the Queen of the Mountain title since last October. And the second time that Taylor won. Bischoff won the title last October (her first) and Taylor claimed it in March.
Advancing to the hot seat match, Taylor and Bischoff both won 21 games. The difference was that Bischoff lost 14, as Taylor was giving up half that many. Taylor downed Kaitlyn Giddens 7-4 in a winners’ side semifinal, as Bischoff was defeating Courtney Hairfield 7-5 in the other one. Taylor and Bischoff locked up in a double-hill hot seat match which eventually sent Bischoff to the semifinals.
On the loss side, Giddens and Hairfield ran into two opponents who’d lost their opening matches to the eventual winner and runner-up. Reagan Wallace had been defeated by Bischoff 7-5 in her opening round and opened her loss-side campaign with a double-hill win over Jordyn Worley and 5-1 victory over Jadyn Bird to draw Hairfield. Bruner, who’d lost her opener to Taylor 7-1, also won a double-hill, opening match on the loss side, to Jennifer Altieri and then defeated Arianna Houston to pick up Giddens.
Bruner and Giddens locked up in a double-hill battle that sent Bruner to the quarterfinals. She was joined by Wallace, who’d eliminated Hairfield 5-1. Wallace won the quarterfinal 5-1 and advanced to a rematch against Bischoff in the semifinal.
Bischoff won the rematch but not before Wallace had won her 4th rack to force a deciding single game. Taylor claimed her second straight Queen of the Mountain title with a 9-7 win over Bischoff in the final.
In races to 7, Davis doesn’t give up more than three racks until King of the Mountain hot seat
Mike Davis, Jr. faced different opponents in the hot seat match and final of his campaign to become King of the Mountain. In his first four matches, he didn’t allow any of his opponents to chalk up more than three against him; in order, Ethan Carson (0), Eddie Vonderau (3, Vonderau would come back to face him in the final), Collin Hall (2) and in the winners’ side semifinal that put him into the hot seat match, Amory Capers (1).
In the meantime, Nathan Childress, the current VA State Barbox 9-Ball Champion, was having himself quite the run-up to the hot seat, as well. Until he reached his winners’ side semifinal match against Scott Roberts, not only did none of his first three opponents chalk up more than three against him, they weren’t able to do that, combined. Childress shut out Tigris McNeill and then allowed one rack each to Chris Austin and Shekaib Taheri before drawing Scott Roberts in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Roberts was able to chalk up four against Childress, but Childress advanced to the hot seat match. Davis, ahead of Childress by just six FargoRate points (748-742), had a FargoRate-calculated 53% to 47% chance of winning their race to 7. In a world where mysterious ‘pool gods’ can often wreak havoc with standard probabilities, that 6% difference (representing the six more times that Davis would be likely to defeat Childress playing 100 games), those odds can readily be described as ‘even.’ Davis claimed the hot seat 7-4.
Capers joined the races-to-5 loss side and picked up Eddie Vonderau, who’d followed his second-round loss to Davis with four straight, to include, most recently, the elimination of Brent Worth 5-3 and Jimmy Bird 5-2. Scott Roberts came over and drew Collin Hall, who’d followed his loss to Davis with two 5-3 wins over Christopher Funk and Bobby Andrews.
Vonderau seemed to ‘hit a gear’ at this point in the proceedings that would take him all the way to the finals; three matches in a row, giving up a total of only four racks. He shut Capers out and advanced to the quarterfinals against Roberts, who’d survived a double-hill battle against Hall.
Vonderau allowed Roberts only a single rack in their quarterfinal. In the semifinal that followed, Vonderau had a roughly 1-in-4 chance of defeating Childress (26.5% – 73.5%) and beat those odds in an almost double-hill match, winning it 5-3.
No matter how you looked at it, Vonderau was going to need help from the friendly ‘pool gods’ to meet and defeat the highest FargoRated player in the King of the Mountain tournament (Mike Davis, Jr.) in the finals. They showed up for him in the four racks he won and knowing that, had likely been around to provide him with a few more chances in the nine games that he lost. Davis ascended to the throne with the 9-4 win to become the Royal Weekend XI’s King of the Mountain.
Katie Bischoff and Mike Davis
From the loss side, the King and ‘Princess’ (runner-up) of the Mountain claim Jack & Jill title
There was a chance, for a while at least, that the crowned Queen of the Mountain would become the female member of the team that claimed the Jack and Jill Team of the Mountain title. That possibility stumbled coming out of the gate as Liz Taylor and Scott Roberts lost an opening-round, double-hill match to the husband/wife team of Jadyn and Jimmy Bird. There would be a rematch of those teams later.
Davis and Bischoff would set out on their trek to the top of the Jack and Jill mountain and in their second round, sent the Bird family to the loss side 4-1. A 4-2 win over Jennifer Altieri and Greg Taylor (no relation to Liz), put Davis/Bischoff into the hot seat match.
From the other end of the bracket, the team of Jordyn Worley and Collin Hall headed off to meet up with them. Three tight matches, including a double-hill win versus Kari Mashinski/Eduardo Villa and in the other winners’ side semifinal, a 4-2 win over Sheri Bruner/Lee Staton, gave them the chance. And they took advantage, claiming the hot seat over Davis/Bischoff 4-2.
On the loss side, Taylor/Roberts were able to advance to a rematch against the Birds and they did so in three matches without having a rack scored against them. The Birds battled them to double hill, won and drew Bruner/Staton, who defeated them 3-1 and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Altieri/Taylor won a double-hill match versus Kaitlyn Giddens/Daniel Adams and then, downed Bruner/Staton 3-1 in the quarterfinals. Bischoff and Davis shut Altieri/Taylor out for a second shot against Worley and Hall. It turned into one of those ‘wished you could have been there’ finals that went double-hill and ultimately, crowned the Bischoff/Davis team.
Tournament director James Marvin thanked the ownership and staff at The Clubhouse for their hospitality, along with Premier Billiards, Rick Sinclair and the Timberlake Motel for their help and “most importantly,” he said, “the players.”