Darren Appleton Wins American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship

by Paul · October 23, 2015

American 14.1 was held once again at Diamond Billiards, Midlothian, VA Oct 22-25 with a sterling field of many of the world’s strongest Straight Pool players. A total of 40 players began the opening two days Round Robin of 8 balanced flights of five players each, playing four matches with the top three of each flight advancing to the final two days Single Elimination. The first attached is result for the Round Robin with the 24 players advancing to the final two days Single Elim. listed in bold. As expected all 8 of the A seeded players advanced, along with 4 of the B players. This result was not unexpected as the flights were very balanced with many strong players in the BCDE tier.

The elimination round was again seeded based on W-L and ball differential as shown on the 2nd attached. Four of the finest 14.1 players in the world advanced to the semi-final round. In the semi-finals games played to 150 current World Champion, Thorsten Hohmann, 4x World 14.1 titlist, bested the great Philippine Champion Warren Kiamco, while Hall of Fame Mika Immonen lost a hard fought match to our 2015 American 14.1 Winner, Darren Appleton. This would set up a rematch between the same two 2015 World 14.1 finalists, Hohmann & Appleton.

In the final match to 150 following the break and safety play, Appleton ran 17 but a secondary break shot left no shot and no safety. He took three intentional fouls to bring the score to -1 for both World Champions. Darren then ran to more racks, 27 to -1, before turning the table over to Thorsten. More safeties followed before Hohmann ran 56 and Appleton two more racks. The score stood at 86-81 Appleton when he made the next break shot but was left tough and missed. Thorsten came to the table and finished the rack but missed the break shot scattering the table for Appleton who proceeded to run 64 and out. A heartbreaking loss for Thorsten but always a gracious opponent; such is the classic game of Straight Pool. Another well deserved great win for World Champion Darren Appleton, his second in a row in Virginia.

Darren Appleton 150 defeated Thorsten Hohmann 94. Oct 25, 2015
Darren Appleton 150 defeated Karen Corr 28. Sep 14, 2014
Thorsten Hohmann 150 defeated Johnny Archer 111. Sep 16, 2013
John Schmidt 150 defeated Thorsten Hohmann 21. Aug 18, 2012
Johnny Archer 150 defeated John Schmidt 74. July 24, 2011
Danny Harriman 150 defeated Shaun Wilkie 94. June 20, 2010
Danny Harriman 150 defeated Dave Daya 28. June 28, 2009
Bob Maidhof 150 defeated Danny Barouty 140. July 12, 2008
Mika Immonen 150 defeated Mike Davis 59. June 10, 2007
Ed Hodan 150 defeated Danny Barouty 89. Nov 19, 2006
Ryan McCreesh 150 defeated David Hunt 67. Aug 8, 2005

Next year Darren tries for three straight when the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship returns in 2016 to Diamond Billiards the week prior to the U.S. Open 9 Ball. We thank all of our Sponsors and Nathan Sulinski, Bob Jewett, Ivan Lee and Simonis & Aramith, and Diamond Billiards, Thomas Dorsey and all of his employees for this terrific event. Special thanks also to our tournament Director Ms. Megan Fort and Deputy Directors Andy Lincoln & Michael Frank. The beautiful game of 14.1 is alive and well!

Total Entries for the tournament were $ 10,600, ADDED $ 20,000, Prize Fund $30,600. with payout to 25 players of 40 entries . . .

$100. High Run for Round Robin.
$100. High Run for Single Elimination.
$100. High Run for best run among those 16 players who do not advance to single elimination.
$200. Blind draw among those 16 players who do not advance to single elimination.
$100. For #1 Seed going into Saturday single elimination. Every ball counts!

$ 6,000 Winner
$ 4,000 2nd place
$ 2,500 3-4th place
$ 1,500 5-8th place
$ 700 9-16th place
$ 400 17-24th place
$ 600 Prizes

Total purse $ 30,000 www.americanstraightpool.com