While eight ball has always bored me, I gave it a chance today, watching my first two matches of this event. Saw Sky Woodward win despite playing about as badly as I've ever seen him play. Saw Gorst beat Lechner, too. Based on a cursory review of the scores, Jayson Shaw looks like the one to beat, but there's a lot of pool left.
Last night, I watched Shaw and Centeno in the mixed doubles and loved it. On offense, they didn't even talk to each other. They both have the gift of almost instantaneous pattern recognition and can comfortably rely on each other to play onto the right angle for the next shot.
This might be a big week for Shaw, already the runner-up in the bank pool event, and well-placed in men's eight ball and mixed doubles.
Finally, have to love that Stefan Kasper who, other than Ameer Ali, is likely the world's best part time player, is on to the last sixteen. What a story it would be if he keeps it going!