JERRY Soriano and Roel Baretto earned spots in the championship of the New Bamboo Bar January Pool Tournament after winning the qualifying matches on Wednesday and Thursday at the New Bamboo Bar of Saipan Vegas.
Jerry Soriano lines up for the shot during a pool tournament at the New Bamboo Bar of Saipan Vegas.
Photo by James F. Sablan Jr.
On Wednesday, Soriano battled against nine other competitors and managed to rally to clinch first place.
He did not have an easy night even though he started in the second round of the double elimination format.
His first victory was against Lito Pangilinan. Soriano capitalized on his opponent’s mistakes and sent Pangilinan to the losers bracket while moving on to the quarterfinals.
Despite a strong start, Soriano’s momentum was quickly shot down by Cesar Sangalang who proved to be a worthy adversary.
Soriano was relegated to the bottom of the pit from where he had to fight his way back to the top.
He made sure that his second chance did not go to waste as he cleared the path by eliminating Ben Norita and Rey Hermogenes to set up a rematch with Sangalang.
This time, Soriano played smart and safe with defense in mind to keep Sangalang at bay. With consecutive precision shots, Soriano defeated Sangalang to face Roel Baretto in the finals.
Baretto had a clean 4-0 record heading to the finals, but Soriano made sure that his efforts were not in vain as he pulled out all the tricks from his bag to break his opponent’s winning streak.
Soriano had to face Baretto one more time in a winner-take-all match, and once again Soriano was triumphant.
The following day, Baretto was back to seek redemption.
He first sent Rey Hermogenes to the losers bracket and followed up with two more wins against Lito Pangilinan and Ray Matsunaga.
In the finals, Baretto’s opponent was Roman Rodrigue who dropped to the bottom in the very first round, but managed to pull himself back up with five straight wins to reach the finals.
However, Rodriguez’s journey ended as he was no match for Baretto.
