Daulton Cashes in at Derby Banks

Daulton Cashes in at Derby BanksSecond set of six bankers go to battle as DCC rolls onBy Paul Berg, Inside POOL MagazineAs the massive field of 9-ball banks players whittled down through third and fourth redraws, the tightness of Diamond table rails matches the rubber in the arms of feeble imitators. The strokeless need not apply. They certainly don’t get put into any Derby City 10-ball Banks Ring Games, and for the second night in a row, six disciples of bounce didn’t disappoint.Derby City Classic image gallery
Shannon “The Cannon” Daulton exceeded them all, punctuating a $12,000 win with a brutal and swift rise to the top of the money list courtesy a perfectly positioned run of seven banks. It was one shy of Daulton’s run of eight in a 2004 banks ring game in Gulfport, MS, the first of its kind and Grady Mathews successful test of it at his sadly lost tournament, the Gulfcoast Classic. The format for The Cannon’s latest triumph was almost exactly the same as Friday night’s Jason Miller show. The only difference occurred in the progression of the bet from rack to rack, as the Saturday crew made swifter work of the racks than the previous group.Daulton started very slow, missing what he would call hangers when properly tuned up. Perhaps the extra time taken from practice before the game to keep that Tommy Bahama fresh is well worth it when you show up in the winners’ circle of everything banks and one pocket. Cannon has flossed this wardrobe quite often in the past few years in the photos that show him holding ring game cash, but here in Louisville, Brian Gregg has stopped him short in dramatic fashion the past two years.It was Glenn “Piggy Banks” Rogers who started out with an early lead courtesy an opening run of three after the break and superior, calm play in the first couple of racks. Rogers highlighted a trio of fine Chicago area players, a quarter of the field for the two ring games combined all bunched into this session. Newcomer Neil Jacobs and Derby ring game vet Ike Runnells are also from the Midwestern hub, where the game has its greatest following except perhaps for Louisville. It’s debatable.The affable and explosive Tony Coleman came back for an encore, but proved less consequential. Danny Harriman, a winner of the Banks division here in the past, brought his A-game and “The Springfield Flash” was the only one to hang with Piggy Banks during the first two racks. After the $100/ball openers were through, rack three brought Harriman level with Rogers quickly, as $200 on a run of two with five in the chairs was worth a quick two dime jump on the leaderboard.Professor R.H. Gilmer and his crack staff (read: charming daughters) kept the board caught up as Rogers and Harriman jockeyed back and forth, but when $400/ball started the next rack, Harriman emerged. Daulton maneuvered to stay in the hunt well beneath the leader, and put Jacobs out. The two eventual finalists asserted themselves, splitting the last four balls and pushing the other players to dangerous reserves in their bank rolls.With Harriman on top with $10,400 and Daulton next in line with $4,200, a fifth rack commenced with ten balls on the table. Daulton took the last eight, sweeping Coleman, Runnells and Rogers out in that order respectively. Seven of them came in a flourish, as a key opening showed a pattern that looked like a road map to an in-stroke Daulton. What many can see in 9-ball, the incomparable Cannon can see in banks, and his positions made it look so easy.Harriman weathered the storm, only depleted to an even eight thousand to Daulton’s ten at the start of $800/ball in the sixth rack. Harriman was undaunted by Coleman’s offer of odds on the money to get bets up against Dauton, offering to play the fun-loving Michigan man after the ring game. Both Daulton and Harriman kept up steady banter with the crowd, the Missouri champion acknowledging for the crowd that he was the underdog.There were brief lead trades, but a Daulton scratch put underdog Danny in the driver’s seat with a $12,800 to $5,200 lead. Both held forth on the all-in betting structure, which Daulton feels caused his massive collapse in a Gregg’s win in 2005. This year it would bite Harriman, as each played very few one and done runs to joust through nearly two more full racks at $800 a ball. They almost finished the last before the time demanded a switch to all-in on each ball for the short stack. After matching a Daulton run of two with two of his own, Harriman coughed up his chance to make the last ball in it for a $12,800 to $5,200 lead, a very significant difference from the $12,000 to $6,000 results of his miss.Now Daulton was shooting with a chance to leave Harriman all in by cutting his funds exactly in half, effectively stealing a barrel. Daulton then made a stellar shot with the bridge on that remaining 8-ball, banking it straight back where it rattled, hung for a long moment, and fell to fist pumps. He promptly made a ball on the break and split the wicket with a basic cross corner to suddenly take top prize, halving Harriman’s take in reality as he had done on a score board.Action continues with more banks play in the main tournament tomorrow, and carries on through the night with mini-tournaments, open ring games with top champions, and the standard action on into the wee hours.

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