Thompson & Reed split top prizes at Appalachian Iron Man Split Bracket event in TN
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Alan Thompson and Marvin Reed
It’s a good sign when in almost every tournament that we cover by writing up a report, there are new competitors entering our database, at which point we create a Player Profile and christen it (so to speak) by entering information about their first cash payout. This ‘good sign’ is particularly true with tournaments that draw numbers of 100 entrants or more. It is significantly notable when the first cash payout is a win in a tournament that size. This past weekend (June 20-22) at an event that drew 174 entrants to the JOB Billiard Club in Madison, TN, one of the two competitors who split the top cash payout when they mutually agreed to the split (Alan Thompson) is entering our database for the first time. Co-winner, Marvin Reed, is recording his first cash finish into his already-existent player profile that hadn’t seen an entry since 2013, when he finished 5th at a stop on the Great Southern Billiard Tour.
The event was initially split up into two brackets; a High Side bracket that drew 43 entrants and a Low Side bracket that drew 131. Thompson went undefeated through the High Side bracket, as Reed was going undefeated through the Low Side. They both advanced, along with the two semifinalists from both brackets – Rob Wolford (Low Side) and Kevin Ping (High) – to a Final Four bracket and played a total of four matches until the ‘split’ ended the event.
With FargoRates ranging from 550 (Dewayne Pearson) to 776 (Jonathan Pinegar), Thompson (714) got the undefeated part of his High Side run going with victories over Scott Pankey 6-4, Rick Engle, double hill, Noah Hamilton 6-4, and in a winners’ side semifinal that put him into the hot seat match, Kyle Hargis 6-5 (Hargis racing to 7).
Headed out to join him, Scooter (Fred) Goodman (672) was challenged right away, but managed to survive a first-round, double-hill match against Jamie Barlow. He advanced to down David Nunn 8-4 and then ran into a second double-hill fight versus Steve Darling. He survived that one, too, moving on to defeat Liz Lovely 7-1 (Lovely would end up earning $1,000 as the Last Standing Female). Goodman won the other winners’ side semifinal versus Rich McDonald 8-3.
In the High Side hot seat match, Goodman was awarding two ‘beads on the wire’ in race to 8 against Thompson, who used them to claim the seat 6-5 and become one of the overall Final Four. Goodman moved on to the semifinals, where he ran into Kevin Ping (642), who’d lost his second-round match on the winners’ side and went on an eight-match, loss-side winning streak, during which (among other things), he eliminated the event’s highest FargoRated competitor, Jonathan “Hennessee from Tennessee” Pinegar. Ping chalked up loss-side win #6 against Rich McDonald 7-3, #7 in a quarterfinal win over Kyle Hargis 6-4 and then, to join the Final Four, he shut out Scooter Goodman in the High Side semifinals.
Reed gives a few, gets a few and plays straight-up just once to win Low Side bracket
You would think that the Low Side bracket, with three times as many entrants as the High Side bracket (131/43), would take longer. And it did, but only by an hour. The Low Side bracket got started at just after 3 p.m. on Saturday, while the High Side bracket startrgoed one minute shy of an hour later. Part of the reason that the two brackets took almost the same amount of time is that the Low Side bracket was generally playing quicker races, between 3 and 5, normally. Eventual winner, Marvin Reed (543), was racing to 4 in all but one of his matches. In getting to the hot seat, he was awarding ‘beads on the wire’ to most (5) of his eight, Low Side bracket opponents. He got ‘beads’ twice and played a straight-up race to 4 once.
He opened with a victory over Marshall Williams that was recorded incorrectly on the bracket, then shut out Tommy Crague, survived a double-hill chAlange from James Miles, downed Rodney Bargo 4-3 (Bargo racing to 5), gave up just a rack in a winners’ side quarterfinal against Michael Whitehead and in one of the winners’ side semifinals, defeated Rob Wolford 4-2, advancing to the hot seat match.
Liz Lovely – Last Lady Standing
From the other end of the bracket, Robert Bernader, who would award ‘beads on the wire’ to five opponents until he got to his winners’ side semifinal, opened with a 5-1 victory over Daniel Coffey, advancing to defeat Bianca Pitts 5-3, and chalked up two straight shutouts over Austin Scott and John McCloud, Jr. He followed with a winners’ side quarterfinal victory over Chris Jenkins 5-2, and in a straight-up race to 5 in his winners’ side semifinal, downed Travis Neal 5-3.
Reed was awarded a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a hot seat match race to 5 against Bernarder. He gave up just a single rack to Bernader, claiming the seat to become one of the Final Four.
Wolford and Neal moved over to the loss side and picked up two competitors who’d been sent to the loss side by Bernarder; Wolford drew Jenkins, who’d followed his loss with two straight shutout victories over Travis Parvin and Josh Faught. Neal got John McCloud, Jr., who’d followed his loss with four straight; one shutout (Dean Reed), and a 3-2 loss to John Potter (Potter racing to 4), sandwiched between two double-hill wins over Jason Williams and James Miles.
Neal shutout McCloud, as Wolford was giving up just a single rack to Jenkins. In the quarterfinal that followed, they were both vying for a rematch versus Bernarder. They both wanted it and a double-hill fight proved it. Wolford advanced to that semifinal rematch, eliminated Bernarder 4-3 (Bernarder racing to 5) and became the last piece of the Final Four puzzle.
As the two winners of their respective High and Low brackets (Reed and Thompson) squared off, the two semifinalists from the two brackets (Wolford and Ping) had at it on the two-match loss side. With Marvin Reed picking up two ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 6 against Alan Thompson, Reed claimed the Final Four hot seat 4-3.
On the Final Four loss side, Wolford started with two ‘beads’ he didn’t need against Ping in their race to 6. He gave up just a single rack to Ping and turned to face Thompson. Wolford got two ‘beads’ against Thompson in their race to 6, as well. He could have used a couple more, as Thompson dropped Wolford into third place, overall 6-2.
Thompson apparently liked how that score had played out, because he repeated it in the opening set of his true double-elimination final against Reed. At that point, he and Reed, known to each other, agreed to a split of the top two prizes and called it a ‘night,’ finishing up shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday.
