SEOUL - Young Korean Myung Woo Cho, who turned 26 last week, is the winner of the World 3-cushion Survival in Seoul. The young Asian talent was rewarded by a top prize of $40,000. In the final featuring three European players, Cho came out on top ahead of Eddy Merckx, Tayfun Tasdemir and Glenn Hofman. The tournament was played entirely according to the Survival system.
The final was in the end mainly a battle between Myung Woo Cho and Eddy Merckx, who were almost equal in the score. Shortly before the end, Cho led with 82 points ahead of Merckx with 74. The Belgian still fought his way back to 76-72, but missed a small three rail-shot in that decisive stage, allowing Cho to finish it off.
Dutchman Glenn Hofman, who made his debut and could very surprisingly make it to the final, had the best start and led with 43 points ahead of Merckx and Tasdemir with 35 and Cho with 7 points. Over the course of the match, the roles turned and the Korean took the initiative with small runs. At the break, Tasdemir still led with 41 points ahead of Hofman and Cho with 29. The second part turned in Cho and Merckx's favour. Glenn Hofman had a weaker finish, dropping to fourth place.
The final score:
- Myung Woo Cho 85 (average 1.941, $40,000)
- Eddy Merckx 69 (1,705, $25,000)
- Tayfun Tasdemir 61 (1,588, $15,000)
- Glenn Hofman 25 (1,058. $10,000).
The Survival system, for the non-experts, is played with 4 players face to face at the table: twice for 40 minutes they are allowed to take turns scoring and making runs. A carom adds 3 points to the player's total, 1 point is deducted from the other three players' total. The winner is the player who has scored the most points at the end.
Early on Sunday morning (Korean time), the two semi-finals were played with two times four players at the match table. Eddy Merckx won the first game with 96 points ahead of Myung Woo Cho with 64. The two players eliminated were Jung Hee Lee with 52 and Quyet Chien Tran with 28.
In the second semi-final, Tayfun Tasdemir was the strongest with 107 points ahead of Glenn Hofman with 71. The other two, Jun Tae Kim with 43 and Torbjörn Blomdahl with 19, were eliminated for the final.
Many major world-ranked players such as Dick Jaspers, Quyet Chien Tran, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Marco Zanetti, Jung Han Heo, Haeng Jik Kim and Jun Tae Kim were eliminated at an earlier stage.
Myung Woo Cho overjoyed by the victory in Seoul
Eddy Merckx, an amazing number 2 in the Survival
Glenn Hofman played an excellent event and brought it to the finals