The Oyo State Government in collaboration with iCue League through the Agency for Youth Development hosted young professional pool players from different south west states in a pool champions league tournament filled with skills and excitement.
The league with a total of 24 players, boasted excitement from the preliminary rounds to the third place and final match which took place at the Billiard section of the Ibadan Recreation Club 1902.
Present at the event are dignitaries from the Oyo State Government, The Chairman, Oyo State Agency for Youth Development, Prince Falana Adebowale Adebayo; The Executive Adviser to the Governor of Oyo State on Youth and Sports, Honourable Seun Fakorede; The President of Ibadan Recreation Club 1902, Mr Olaitan Akinola; The Chairman of IRC 1902 Billiard section, Engr. Mbim Okutiyang; The captain of the section esteemed members of the club and other pool players.
The event was set in motion with the third place best of 3 match due to the size of the billiard table, featuring two skillful players from Ogun State, Akin Owodunni (a.k.a Neymar) and Oderinde Olamilekan (a.k.a Natural) who has lots of professional medals to his name.
Natural started the game with his usual stoic presentation, disorganising Neymar into believing he had the game at hand until he smashed the killing cue to get the win. Securing the third place prize with a (2-0) win.
The stage was set for the final game between Joseph Adejuyigbe (a.k.a Joe) and Ogundoju Olumide Abidemi (a.k.a Wyza), with both players itching to display their skills to the delight of the spectators.
Joe with series of good performances from the preliminary rounds had an explosive encounter in an unnatural semi final game against Natural, predicted as the underdog of that game, then coming from a (2-0) deficit to take the game (3-2) setting up a final game against Wyza who never looked back after finishing as best loser to qualify into the knockout stages, winning (3-0) in the quarter final and (3-0) in the semifinal.
With an over excited spectator to contend with, it was Wyza’s game from the cue break. Bringing both his musical and pool skills into play, presenting as his personal hype man, Joe couldn’t contend with the pressure creating errors that provided room for Wyza to deliver shots after shots to win (3-0) in a best of 5 game to his delight and the delight of his fans.
Speaking on the tournament and finishing second, Joseph expressed his delight about the game and the tournamemt in general. According to him, “I have been playing pool for 23 years, I feel good, but it would have been much better if I had won. It is not been easy but I had the most difficult opponents in the tournament.”
On his preparedness for future tournaments and what he hopes to change in his game “I need to put more effort, I have realised where my weaknesses are, I need to work hard on it and I believe I’ll do much better than this in my next game coming up in December”, he said.
Relishing on becoming champion on his first professional tournament, the Ibadan based pool player and afro beat musician, Ogundoju Olumide Abidemi (a.k.a Wyza) was ecstatic about his performance. According to him “I started playing pool when I was very young, I grew up in a society where people shoot pool, I started as a boardman, playing for fun. This is the just the beginning, I’ll be going for every competition.”
Speaking on his inspiration towards this achievement, Wyza said “I qualified as a best loser, God inspired me, and I don’t give up because I believe with God there’s nothing on earth that we cannot achieve. This is an inspiration for every pool player in my hood. This is a motivation for them to know that they could be the next winner. I believe we will have more people registering for the next competition.”
With the Oyo State Government playing a role in the success of the pool champions league, the Chairman, Oyo State Agency for Youth Development, Prince, Falana Adebowale Adebayo expressed his excitement at the success of the tournament. According to him “the Governor, His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde has given a mandate that every talent in the state does not waste, I’m excited to see Wyza winning this because he is from Oyo State and people came around from different south west states. It’s is an excitement for me that the host state took the trophy.”
Speaking on the agency’s plan for other unpopular sports in the state, Prince Adebowale said “we have the executive adviser to the governor on sports here present and I can assure you that since it is not my field, I can work directly with them and make recommendations on certain areas and we are working together as team. The person in charge is capable and so many sports development will come up very soon, and I can assure you that within a short period of time, we will definitely hit the goal that we are looking for.”
Speaking on the success of the pool champions league, the convener, Mr Oluwatosin Odita said the had to make up with getting 26 players instead of the 32. Hence the need to have best losers play for a place in the next round. “I feel so fulfilled, because the intention for this was not about the money, it was about bringing a community of pool players together to have a proper foundation to play more and train more so we can export players out for international tournaments.”
Mr Odita spoke on the benefit of the champions league tournament to the players and the importance of the rules. According to him “We make sure we stick to world pool association standard rules, which is the ‘ball in hand’ rules, that’s what is obtainable anywhere in the world. If we play more of this, the player will be familiar with rules more and then if they have any opportunity to play an open tournament anywhere in the world, it won’t be a problem for them.”
Highlighting future plans for the iCue League, Mr Odita said “the pool champions league is gone, it can come once or twice a year, but right now iCue League is looking to partner with many people that want to do custom or sponsored tournaments with iCue League planning and organising these tournaments.”
The top three winners of the Oyo State Pool Champions League went home with mouth watering cash prizes, the second runner up got a cash prize of 300,000 thousand naira; the first runner up got 500,000 naira while the winner got a grand cash prize of 100,000,000 naira.
