NEW YORK - The famous tournament in New York, the Carom Café International Open, started with ten groups of seven players in which Pedro Piedrabuena and Roland Forthomme were the best starter in average on the first day of play. The American and the Belgian led two of the groups in the preliminary rounds with two wins. Other known frontrunners after the first day are Hugo Patino, Luis Aveiga and Huberney Cataño. The only two seeded players, world champion Tayfun Tasdemir and Egyptian Sameh Sidhom, will come in later in the tournament.
Pedro Piedrabuena, multi champion in his country, leads Group A with two wins and 1.785 on average ahead of Vickie Pineda with two match points. The Dutch players in this group, Karina Jetten (2 match points, 0.577) and Ronald van Geyt (0 points, 0.436) are sixth and seventh. Karina Jetten started with a win over Juan Uribe, but lost her second game to Mark Ahn.
Hugo Patino leads Group B with 4 points and 1.250 ahead of George Karam 4 points and 0.675. Roland Forthomme had a flawless start in Group C with two wins, 1.724 and a highest run of 11, the best so far. Ricky Caranco is the player following him with the maximum match points and 1.041.
Kyrollos Meawad from Egypt is the best in Group C with 4 points and 0.862 ahead of Harry Peña with 4 points and 0.833. In Group E, William Pelaez is the leader with 4 points and 0.847. Dutchman Raimon Groot, who lives in New York, is fourth with 2 points and 0.918. In Group F, Luis Aveiga from Ecuador is best with 4 points and 0.943 ahead of Jim Shovak. Carlos Mario Villegas leads Group G with 4 points and 1.10 ahead of Kang Lee with 4 points and 1.041.
Turk Muammer Rahmet and Dutchman Reggie Brouwers had the best start in Group H, Rahmet with 4 points and 0.847, Brouwers with 4 points and 0.625. Huberney Cataño, the well-known Colombian, leads in Group I with 4 points and 1.351 and Tae Kyu Lee with 1.210 and a run of 11. In Group J, another Colombian is the leader: Alexander Salazar with 4 points and 1.041 ahead of Austrian Nikolaus Kogelbauer with 4 points and 0.817.
The matches can be followed live on AfreecaTv (YouTube).