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At
the 18th edition of this 8-Ball tournament in Wiesloch, more than 100
participants competed for the ranks. This was the last occasion to qualify
for the German Championships which will be held in April in Brandenburg.
As every year, the tables had received a brand new cloth just before the
event. But if this was rather nice in the previous years, this year it was
a pure catastrophe. Rail shots were virtually impossible to calculate and
this was all but normal. I don’t know how many players did appreciate
these conditions, but I guess you could count them on one single hand.
As many other player, I had severe problems, but after a walk-through in
round one, I won my first match against G. Helvenstein clearly 5-0. My
next win over F. Wagemann (5-4) already meant my qualification for the
final day of the last 32 players. But the match could have ended in favour
of my opponent.
On Sunday, the draw made me play P. Rüthemann. The
youngster started furiously and ran out the first three racks from scratch.
A mistake in rack 4 brought me back into the match and I took the lead at
4-3. At 5-5, another mistake of my opponent allowed me to take control of
the match and I entered the next round with a 9-5 win. Here, I had a
better start and was rapidly leading 4-0 and 8-2 against the local hero T.
Brehme. But two mistakes made him come back to 5-8, but then I could
decide the match (9-5). In the quarter-finals, my former team mate A.
Roschkowsky was waiting for me. I lost the shot out and only came back to
the table at the score of 0-7. I could win one rack and then had to sit
and watch after a black break how Roschkowsky entered the semi-finals
against M. Schmidt with a 9-1 score. A terrific performance which I simply
couldn’t help. Roschkowsky managed to win his semi-final, but then had
to give in to J. Kaplan who plays for Schwerte 4-11. In the second
semi-final, N. Ottermann had lost to J. Kaplan.
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