The event took place October 21st – 23rd inOklahoma City at the upscale billiard room Jamaica Joe’s. This prestigious eventshowcased top professionals and celebrity Artistic Pool personalities like Florian“Venom” Kohler from France (now residing in Las Vegas), world famous “trick shot”artist Mike “Tennessee Tarzan” Massey, and William “The Gentleman” DeYonker,ESPN competitor and online video viral sensation, along with numerous other WPAworld-ranked players.
The Artistic Pool competition kicked off on the first day in grand fashion. In the eveninga very entertaining speed pool competition was held with local players as well as artisticpro players participating. This latter challenge was done as a charity event for 10Strong (mothers with children with cancer in Oklahoma City) and raised over $1100.
William DeYonker did an outstanding job during the Artistic Pool competition with an alltimerecord-breaking preliminary score of 296 points out of 320 possible. Florian Kohlerbeat the old record as well with 280 points. The playoff rounds presented the top eightscoring players from the preliminary rounds in a head-to-head match play format. Semifinalresults revealed William over Jason “The Michigan Kid” Lynch (61-44) and Abram“Too Tall” Diaz over Florian (54-47). William achieved first place honors by defeatingAbram (69-40) in the finals. Abram finished second, Florian third, and Jason fourth.
The Sportsmanship Recipient Award was presented to Iana “Venomette” Kohler by avote of the players, and Andrew “The Enigma” Sozio won the Rising Star RecipientAward. William DeYonker won 3 disciplines – Trick/Fancy, Stroke, and Masse; Jamie“The Bayou Bullet” Moody won 2 disciplines – Special Arts and Follow; Florian Kohlerwon 2 disciplines – Draw and Jump; Mark “Dr. Popper” Dimick won the Bank/Kickdiscipline!
The WPA Artistic Pool Division (WPA APD) would like to thank Delta racks for donatingone of their high quality racks for the speed pool champion and McDermott Cues fortheir donation of a beautiful cue and case, which was raffled off. In addition, a specialthanks to the major sponsors: Jamaica Joe’s; the WPPA; and the WPA for their officialWorld event sanctioning / recognition for Artistic Pool (15th WC) and a provision by themof Olympic-style medals for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place finishers.
On Saturday evening the “artistic” players gave an entertaining show to all inattendance with some of their favorite shots and an awesome concluding pool table skitby consummate “trick shot” inventor and performer Rick “The Barber” Hawkinson. TheWPA APD would like to remind the players and fans of our sport that we will be holdingthe next WPA World Artistic Pool Championship in China in January 2017. If anyonewants to play in that event or knows someone that is interested in competing, pleasecontact WPA APD president Mark Dimick at dimickmark@aol.com. The WPA APDwould also like to thank the wonderful staff at Jamaica Joe’s, Jessica Finch Massey,and KC Massey, for their valued support of Artistic Pool with another great event.
