Forest
Grove, OR – Moe’s Billiards hosted the 3rd NW Pechauer Stop
January 14th and 15th. Barb Perger, owner of the room named after her dog
Moe, runs a very friendly and family-oriented place! The best players in
the Pacific NW turned out bright and early Saturday morning in hopes of earning
their piece of the nearly $3000 prize pool.
Pete Gates of Bend, OR was the surprise of the tournament as he stormed right
through the winner’s bracket all the way to the hot-seat. Along the way
he defeated Josh Smith of Boise, who is quite a formidable opponent despite
the fact that he is still pretty young! Gates fell to John Doherty in the hot
seat match as his nerves seemed to get the better of him. The feature tables
at Moe’s are very tight and every competitor struggled in one way or
another on such demanding equipment.
On the backside, Al Perez defeated Bob O’Hashi and Glenn Atwell snuck
by Josh Smith to advance and face one another for 4th place. Atwell was originally
sent to the loser’s bracket by O’Hashi and had a few matches to
gain strong momentum and rhythm in his game. Perez looked as though he planned
to give Atwell his walking papers, but Atwell came on strong near the end to
close out the set and move on to face Pete Gates. Again, Gates suffered a case
of nerves. He wasn’t given many opportunities, but he struggled to
capitalize and Atwell steam rolled through the set sending Gates home 9-2.
The final match was a single race to 13 and despite having the crowd on his
side; JD just didn’t seem to have it in him. Atwell missed plenty of
balls as fatigue and the tight table appeared to wear on him, but JD continued
to give it right back. Atwell sailed through the final set for a final score
of 13-7.
Pete Gates earned his single’s entry
into the Gold Country Casino $30,000 added 9-ball tournament to be held at
Gold Country Casino in Oroville, CA Feb 22-26. On behalf of the Pechauer
Tour, we thank Barb Perger, Joe Peppard and Moe for all their hard work and
great service to the players as well as the tournament staff. Sponsors can
be found online through the Pechauer Tour link on www.onthewirebilliards.com
