Archer made the 4 and 5 ball but hooked himself behind the 9 trying to play position o­n the 6 ball. He tried to kick the 6 ball into the 7 ball, which was hanging in the pocket and left the 6-7 combo hanging for Wallace. Wallace cut the 6-7 combo and left himself a tough back cut o­n the 6 to get shape o­n the 8 and missed, leaving Archer 3 balls o­n the table to take the 11-9 victory.

A match anticipated by all was between 2003 U.S. Open winner Jeremy Jones and Efren “The Magician” Reyes of the Philippines. The match was close until the score hit 6-5, and then Reyes took control of the game and his opponent, winning the next five games in a row to defeat Jones 11-6.

There was a big heartbreaker of a match for Arturo Rivera, who played Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan. Rivera started off the match down 4-1 but came back and evened the score at 5-5. The match went back and forth, and Rivera fought hard to stay in the game but was down 10-9 when Pagulayan got out of line o­n the 7 ball.  “The Lion” went for a bank and missed. Rivera pocketed the 7, got perfect position o­n the 8 ball, o­n which he o­nly needed to shoot a stop shot to get to the 9, and ended up miscuing to lose the match 11-9.

Exciting matches o­n the winners’ side abounded throughout the day.  Buddy Hall and “Iceman” Mika Immonen matched up, which the Finn won 11-7. Hollywood Billiards house pro Max Eberle beat Johnny Kang 11-4.  Local tough competitor Ernesto Dominguez was victorious over Trump 10-Ball champ Danny Hewitt 11-5.  Ralf “The Surgeon” Souquet won over Scott Frost 11-6, and “Rocket” Rodney Morris scored another win, this time over Paul Potier.

On the o­ne-loss side, Bill Ferguson defeated Mike Davis, Tim Hall beat Frank Alvarez, and Tony Crosby lost to “Machine Gun” Luc Salvas.

Friday will feature many exciting winners’ side matches, including a Reno rematch between Johnny Archer and Santos Sambajon, countrymen Efren Reyes and Alex Pagulayan, and Swedish Marcus Chamat will meet Rodney Morris. The o­ne-loss side will also have exciting matches, including a match-up between Rafael Martinez and Jeremy Jones.

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