Lucky 13 for Chen

By Bill Fuller

Legends Billiards in League City, TX, had a packed house o­n April 2-3 for the Thirteenth Houston Open.  A field of 120 players filled the bracket, including some of the best of the Lone Star state. 

As the event got underway, quite a few players were considered contenders, as UPA pros Jeremy Jones and Charlie Bryant were in attendance, along Jeff Abernathy, Sylver Ochoa, and James Davis Sr.  But the top play came from Jui-Lung Chen, whose friendly smile never left his face after earning first place for his undefeated weekend play.

The current Texas Open champ breezed through the first day of play, and with a couple more Sunday wins, Chen advanced to the hot seat match to face Jeff Franklin.  Chen, though, never flinched, racing to a 9-1 win to reach the finals.

In the west side, it was John Macias who was tearing through, ousting David Henson to reach the semifinals against Franklin, who might have still been dazed from his hot seat lashing.  Macias, too, rolled past Franklin, leaving him with a respectable third-place finish. 

In the race-to-9, double-elimination final match, Chen had the hot stroke right from the first break.  After going up 8-5 in the first set, though, he watched as Macias came back to put the match at hill-hill.  In the final rack, Chen broke and ran to cap off the Houston Open victory.  

Results:

1st Jui-Lung Chen $10,910

2nd John Macias $7,445

3rd Jeff Franklin $5,330

4th David Henson $3,495

5th Sylver Ochoa, James Davis Sr. $2,125

7th Charlie Bryant, Ted Dean $1,511

9th John Weeks, Barry Strickland, Derek Fontenot, Denis Strickland $422

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