Early BUCS loss for 8-ball

The university cue sports season began last weekend in dramatic fashion as an inexperienced Imperial College English eight-ball pool team travelled up to Nottingham for the inaugural English Universities Pool Championships. Hosted by the Nottingham University Snooker and Pool Club, 25 university teams and over 128 individual entrants battled it out for some early bragging rights.

However, the competition was almost over for Imperial before it started. Team member Max Chalmers overslept and, along with fellow teammate Alex Lambrianos, almost missed the train, arriving at Kings Cross station only five minutes before the departure time.

That first minor drama of the weekend was not the only consequence of the early start for the team, with the majority having to wake up at 4am on the Saturday. By the time of arrival at Rileys, the tournament venue, tiredness was already creeping in and four of the five team members were immediately knocked out of the Individual Championships. Only team captain, Elwin Carlos, survived past the first round, comfortably beating both Adam Gray (Bangor 1) and Connor Thorogood (Warwick 2) by the same 2-0 score line to set up a last 32 clash with Ben Parslew (Manchester 1).

Carlos continued his decent form to take the first frame of the third round match but Parslew, who later lost to eventual winner, Tom Barrett (Nottingham 1), stormed back with a solid clearance in the second. Some astute tactical play in the following two frames earned Parslew a 3-1 victory to knock out the Imperial captain.

Things became considerably worse when Imperial came up against Warwick 1s in the Team Championship group stage. A cool and composed performance from late riser Max Chalmers was enough to prevent a whitewash but it did little to detract from an embarrassing 9-1 defeat for Imperial.

It was a fairly dejected Imperial team that left Rileys that evening. Cue a nice relaxing meal at Nando’s, followed by Match of the Day and a good night’s sleep at the Igloo Hostel, where the team attempted to recover from the horrors of the day just gone (all except Captain Carlos, who refused to share a double bed with another guy and consequently spent the night curled up on a sofa in the foetal position).

All of the above proved to be the perfect tonic as the team had a much improved second day at the tournament.

Carlos opened the match against a vastly experienced Manchester 2 side with a win against opposing team captain Andy Fores. Later, Andrew Leung potted some outrageous balls, including a full-length double on the black, to put Imperial 2-1 up.

Manchester fought back to take a 5-3 lead but Lambrianos and Shyam Pankhania both won their final frames in convincing fashion to rescue a draw for Imperial.

The result, however, was not enough to qualify for the knockout stages of the Team Championship. Instead, Imperial dropped into the Quarter Finals of the Team Plate, where they faced another strong team in Birmingham 1s.

Imperial got off to a cracking start and raced into a 4-0 lead; the most notable performance coming from Leung, who once again displayed a knack for potting ridiculous balls to stun arguably Birmingham’s best player, Mike Richards.

However, a spectacular collapse by Imperial and an equally resurgent performance from the Birmingham team saw the former improbably snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Missed blacks and botched clearances from everyone in the Imperial team ensured a 4-6 loss to the eventual runners-up.

Despite the miserable nature of the defeat, as well as some of the poor performances on the Saturday, every member of the team thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and gained some invaluable experience ahead of the season finale, the BUCS Pool Championships in February.

Many thanks should go to the Nottingham University Snooker and Pool Club for organising a fantastic tournament and, no doubt, Imperial will return stronger next year.

As for the performance this time around, it was succinctly summed up by Chalmers: “[We’ve] had an absolute shocker!”

To relive the events as they happened, visit http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/snooker_billiards/pool/english/updates.php for our website page containing the live updates from the weekend.