In the round robin race to eight format, Chamat prevailed double hill over Hohmann in the first round and then beat Immonen 8-5. He then whitewashed Rodney Morris 8-1, and Marcus certainly looked the man to beat.
The key moments of the event came in Round 4 (the second to last). Chamat had won his first three and Robles, Immonen and Hohmann each won two of their first three. Hohmann then beat Immonen, 8-5, bringing his record to 3-1.
If Robles could beat Chamat, three players would enter the final round at 3-1. Down 5-4 in the race to eight, Chamat ran three racks for a 7-5 lead, but in the next rack, he missed a fairly simple, but missable, four-nine combo that would have ended it. Chamat even got back to the table again in that rack, but failed to convert, so Robles pulled to within 8-7. Robles got the next one, and the match reached double hill. Tony failed to make a ball on the break, and it looked like Chamat would run out until he overstroked the four ball and hooked himself from the five. Marcus made the kick, but Robles had an opening, a tough shot with tough shape, but Tony miscued. He left the five tough, but Chamat played as pretty a two rail safety as you could ever see, and it won the match for him. This left Marcus at 4-0, and only a win over Raj Hundal stood between him and first place.
Marcus made no mistake about it, beating Hundal 8-0 to finish first with a 5-0 match record, as Robles, Immonen and Hohmann all finished with 3-2 records.
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