Lee goes undefeated to win Garden State Pool Tour 10-Ball Open at his room in Palisades Park
It’s not rare, of course; either being associated with or owning a pool room and being a competitor at the sport as well. One would think that the latter, in many cases, led to the former, somewhere along the line. Jayson Shaw owns US 1 Billiards & Bar in West Haven, CT, Holden Chen owns […]
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Nimo Wode Ni and Kang Lee
It’s not rare, of course; either being associated with or owning a pool room and being a competitor at the sport as well. One would think that the latter, in many cases, led to the former, somewhere along the line. Jayson Shaw owns US 1 Billiards & Bar in West Haven, CT, Holden Chen owns Raxx Billiards in West Hempstead, NY, Ed Liddawi is the proprietor of Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ and the late Mark Griffin owned Griff’s in Las Vegas. Willie Mosconi, though he never owned a pool room, learned how to play in his father’s room.
To that list, we can add Kang Lee, owner of Bergen Billiards in Palisades Park, NJ, whose career, to the extent that we know about it, began when he entered our database just shy of 15 years ago (April, 2010), finishing 49th at the World 8-Ball Championships in the United Arab Emirates. This past weekend (Feb. 23), Kang claimed his first (recorded-with-us) tournament win in his own room.
A 751 FargoRated competitor, Lee not only went undefeated to win the Garden State Pool Tour’s $100-added, Open 10-Ball event that drew 17 entrants to Bergen Billiards, he did so by winning 83% of the games that he played (44-9). He gave up three racks in one race to 7, two in two other races to 7 and two in a race-to-9 final.
Lee never did get to face his closest competitor in terms of FargoRate, the 621-rated Marco Dy. The five opponents he did face (in six matches) had an average FargoRate of 566.8, with Jose Estevez at the top end of that list (605) and Tucker Connington (497) at the bottom.
Lee gave up his first four racks, two each, to Kevin Scalzitti (unrated) and Connington, before Estevez chalked up three against him. Lee advanced to face Wode Ni in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Nai Chi, in the meantime, bound for the hot seat match, gave up three each to Victor Nau and Tri Chau to draw Nicholas Croce in the other winners’ side semifinal. Lee shut out Ni and then, after Chi sent Croce to the loss side 7-5, shut him out to claim the hot seat.
Coming over to the loss side, both Ni and Croce got right back to work, defeating their first opponents, Marco Dy and Jose Estevez, respectively. Both had lost winners’ side quarterfinals; Dy to Croce and Estevez to Lee, both 5-7. Croce defeated Estevez 7-4 and advanced to the quarterfinals. Ni joined him after eliminating Dy 7-5.
Ni downed Croce in those quarterfinals 7-3 and in what might well have been the tournament’s most nail-biting battle, the semifinals, Ni and Chi battled to double hill. Ni prevailed and got a shot at Lee, waiting for him in the hot seat. In their race to 9, Lee gave up his last two racks and claimed his first (known) event title.
Tour director Dave Fitzpatrick thanked Bergen Billiards’ owner and competitor, Kang Lee and his staff for their hosptitality, along with sponsors Outsville, Billiard Engineering, J. Flowers Cues & Cases, Brutal Game Gear, Off the Rail Apparel, John Bender Cues, and Kamui.
The next stop on the Garden State Pool Tour, scheduled for Saturday, March 22, will follow US Amateur rules and be hosted by Players Billiards in Eatontown, NJ. The GSPT will be back at Bergen Billiards for a ‘699 and under FargoRate’ stop, scheduled for Sunday, April 6.
