Poteet and Chohan Win in Mobile: When 9-Ball and One Pocket Tell Two Different Data Stories

Devin Poteet leans over a seven-foot Diamond table. He is not striking the cue ball like a man trying to score. He is striking it like an engineer positioning a component on a production line. A shot with inside english sends the cue ball two rails, stopping at a point the naked eye cannot see until the next shot unfolds. The 3-ball sits slightly off the corner, the 9-ball hangs near the side pocket. Poteet taps it in. The 3 hits the 9. The 9 drops. 7-3. The Alabama 9-Ball Open final is over.

At the next table, Tony Chohan closes out his One Pocket final 4-1, with three games of almost total margin: 8-0, 8-1, 8-0. Two finals. Two disciplines. Two completely different playing philosophies. And a single evening at The Billiard Club, Mobile, Alabama.

What made me take notice of this event was not the names of the winners. It was how the two finals were decided: one by a high-technical shot, one by positional discipline. And how the two championship paths reflect two entirely different data languages of American pool.

Fixing the Discipline Before Any Analysis

Before analysing anything, I have to fix the discipline. This is the arithmetic any billiards observer knows: snooker, Chinese 8-ball, American pool and 9-ball are four distinct rule systems with four distinct metric sets. Mixing them together is the most basic technical error. In snooker, we measure centuries, 147s, and safety success rates. In Chinese 8-ball, we measure break group assignment and the deciding black. At the Mobile event, none of those metrics apply.

The event belongs to American pool, with two divisions running in parallel across one weekend: One Pocket and the Alabama 9-Ball Open. The two divisions share a venue but operate on entirely different logic. One Pocket is the quintessential American pool game. Each player is assigned one corner pocket and must pocket eight balls into their own pocket while trying to stop the opponent from doing the same. This is not the game of beautiful shots. It is the game of moves, of controlling the four-ball zone around the home pocket. Chohan is regarded as a specialist in it.

9-Ball is a rotation game with balls numbered 1 to 9. Balls must be struck in numerical order, and legally pocketing the 9 wins the rack. This is the game of speed, of break-and-run, of ending a rack in a single visit. On a seven-foot table, positional tolerance is compressed, making the ability to make a ball on the break and run out a make-or-break skill.

The Mobile event was held at The Billiard Club and was the first stop of the Making It In America Tavern Series. This is a regional, tavern-based circuit, not a stop on the world tour. The playing tables were seven-foot Diamonds, the American bar-box standard, not the nine-foot professional spec. Alternate breaks were applied throughout the 9-ball division.

The structure is notable: One Pocket had 2,000 USD added money, a 300 USD entry, and 19 players. 9-Ball had a 150 USD entry, 91 players, and added money listed at two different figures in the source: 10,000 USD in one line, 12,000 USD in another. There was also a 48-player Nine Ball Mini, where Ian Jones beat William Perry. The sponsors were all local: Mobile Will, Westside Vending, Smash Billiards, Breezy Acres Crafts, South Alabama Billiards, and PoolHub.live.

I will return to the 10,000 versus 12,000 figure later. First, let me address what matters more: how the two championships were built.

Poteet's Ten-Match Path

Poteet lost in the second round. He dropped to the one-loss side. From there he won ten matches in a row to reach the final and take the title. In a double-elimination format, this means: he had to win a match, rest little, win another, face opponents who had just dropped to the one-loss side like him, and do that ten times.

Of those ten matches, the two most important were the match against Shane McMinn and the final. The McMinn match was a dogfight. Poteet won it by sinking the final nine to edge one more rack. In the final he won 7-3 with a 3-9 combo on the closing game.

That combo deserves to be broken down into its technical components. A shot with inside english that sends the cue ball two rails and stops it in position for a 3-9 combo demands three things: precise cue-ball control, precise table reading, and the ability to stay calm in a deciding game. That shot cannot be explained by luck. It is the product of thousands of hours on seven-foot Diamond tables.

Before that, Poteet broke and made three balls. On a seven-foot table with alternate breaks, making three balls on the break is a strong signal of break quality. It is the precondition for a break-and-run. In 9-ball, a good break does not merely pocket a ball; it creates a positional structure for the cue ball, allowing the player to run the rack without needing a difficult shot.

Poteet's background is also worth noting. He has won the Derby City Classic Banks Ring Game, an event that demands bank and rotation skill at a high level. Bank skill is a good predictor of table-reading and billiard-path calculation. It translates directly into cue-ball control quality in 9-ball.

I have watched many matches of this kind and drawn one observation: players with a strong bank background tend to handle situations where the cue ball sits near a rail more effectively. Poteet, with the two-rail shot to take position for the 3-9 combo, is a clear example. He did not need the cue ball to travel far. He needed it to stop in the right place, and he did that under the pressure of a deciding game.

Chohan and the Structure of Dominance

Tony Chohan came to Mobile with the right title: Making It In America One Pocket champion, representing The Rack in Livonia, Michigan. His One Pocket final finished 4-1, with three winning games of 8-0, 8-1, 8-0. In One Pocket, a game ends when a player pockets eight balls into their home pocket. Winning 8-0 means the opponent did not pocket a single ball into their home pocket for the whole game.

That statistic matters more than any percentage. In One Pocket, an opponent failing to score means total control of the four-ball zone around the home pocket. Every one of their moves was turned back. No space, no opportunity. Chohan won that way three times in one final. Luck cannot explain it. Only structure can.

Chohan's miracle is not in magic; it is in the square metres defended with intent. In One Pocket, every shot has two goals: to advance toward your own pocket, and to push your opponent away from theirs. When a player masters both goals, the result is not just victory but a form of structural control. He does not give the opponent a chance to build position. He decides the position from the first shot.

The way Chohan plays also reveals something about the nature of One Pocket as a competitive discipline. Unlike 9-ball, where a single good shot can end the rack immediately, One Pocket is an accumulation problem. You do not win with one shot. You win by forcing the opponent into mistakes, or by controlling position to the point where they must play a shot they do not want. It is a game of continuous pressure, not of explosive moments.

That is why scores like 8-0 in One Pocket carry different weight from 7-0 in 9-ball. In 9-ball, a lopsided score can come from a run of good breaks. In One Pocket, a lopsided score comes from total control. The opponent is not allowed to touch their home pocket. That is a statement about class, written in specific numbers.

Josh Roberts, another Making It In America One Pocket champion in the field, reached the final from the winners' side. He beat Chohan 3-0 on the winners' side. Then he lost 1-4 in the final. That pattern deserves a question. A player beats his opponent 3-0, then loses 1-4 in the rematch. With a sample that small, I cannot say anything about Roberts' competitive psychology. But a small sample does not permit me to ignore the data either. This is a flag to track, not a conclusion.

The Other Players and the Bigger Picture

Sergio Rivas, the reigning Buffalo's Pro Classic 8-Ball champion, lost 0-3 to Josh Roberts in the first round. He then won five straight matches on the one-loss side before losing 1-2 to Chohan, finishing third. This is a familiar pattern in regional American pool: top players often start slowly and rely on stamina to climb back.

Shane McMinn, the Music City Open winner, finished fourth after losing to Poteet. As a data analyst, I noted that McMinn's recent record is strong enough to place him among the contenders. His loss to Poteet on the one-loss side does not reduce his value as a top regional player. It simply shows Poteet at peak form.

Kim Davenport, a BCA Hall of Famer and 2026 Senior One Pocket Classic champion, was in the field. His presence says something about the structure of American pool: long careers, and veteran players still able to compete at regional level. In snooker, a 60-year-old Hall of Famer rarely reaches the main draw of a ranking event. In American pool, that is entirely normal.

The broader picture of the event is a cluster of credentialed regional players: Davenport, Chohan, Poteet, Rivas, McMinn, Roberts, Hall. Each of them has at least one recent title to confirm their standing. There was no case of a player living on past reputation without current results. That is a good signal about the quality of the field.

What is interesting is the specialisation split. Chohan, Roberts and Hall are One Pocket specialists, or money-game players. Poteet, Rivas and McMinn carry rotation and 8-ball titles. American pool operates with this discipline fragmentation at a structural level. Unlike snooker, with a single unified game, American pool allows players to choose a niche and reach the highest level within it.

Format and Statistical Noise

The format deserves its own analysis. One Pocket was double elimination, races 3/2, meaning the winners' side raced to 3, the one-loss side raced to 2, and the final raced to 4. The 9-ball division was also double elimination, races 9/7, meaning winners' side to 9, one-loss side to 7, and the final to 11, with alternate breaks, on seven-foot Diamonds.

Races to 2 and 3 mean: you only need to win two or three racks to eliminate an opponent. In 9-ball, a good break can win a rack. In One Pocket, one wrong move can lose a rack. Short races generate large variance. That is why the winners' side of regional American events often produces more surprises than the one-loss side.

This is a point viewers often misread. They see a player win a title and draw conclusions about class. But at race 2, a mid-tier player can beat a top player if he gets one lucky break. Only the extended finals, race 4 in One Pocket and race 11 in 9-ball, are true class filters. That is why the finals of Poteet and Chohan matter more than the earlier matches.

The 7-3 and 4-1 final wins, with three 8-0 or 8-1 games in One Pocket, give me a sample long enough to speak about class. If I looked only at winners'-side race-2 matches, I could draw no conclusion. This is the principle I apply to every event: only long-race matches carry inferential value.

Alternate breaks are another variable to isolate. In 9-ball there are two common break systems: winner break and alternate break. Winner break advantages the player with the better break. If he runs the rack from the break, he keeps breaking. Alternate break neutralises that advantage. It forces both players to win from breaks that are not theirs.

The Mobile event's choice of alternate break means Poteet's win cannot be explained by break advantage. He won because he ran out from his own breaks, and because he capitalised on the opponent's break when the chance came. That is a cleaner signal of overall skill. In data analysis, isolating the break-advantage variable lets me compare Poteet's win with wins by players in events that use winner break.

One more point on the table. A seven-foot Diamond is smaller than the nine-foot standard of professional events. A smaller table means shorter distances between balls, fewer long shots, and a higher break-and-run success rate. In these conditions, break-and-run skill matters more than safety skill. That explains why the event could attract a high-quality field for a modest purse: players like seven-foot conditions because they allow them to express attacking skill.

The Contrarian Angle

Here I want to challenge a common assumption. There is a fan narrative that a player who wins a title after dropping to the one-loss side is described in terms like champion's heart or fighting spirit. I refuse to use that language as an explanatory variable. Poteet won ten straight matches not because he was braver. He won because he had break quality, cue-ball control, and the stamina suited to a double-elimination one-loss format.

A player's journey is not an upward arrow, but a scatter plot. This means: a run of ten wins cannot be read linearly. It includes matches against weaker opponents, matches against tired opponents, and a handful against genuinely difficult opponents. Only a few of those ten matches carry real inferential value.

But there is something else the ten-match narrative hides. When your opponent is on the one-loss side, they have already played at least one losing match. They are tired. They may be demoralised. The one-loss side is not only a stamina test for the winner. It is also a natural filter that removes the mentally fragile. Poteet benefited from this, though he did not control it. Part of his ten-match run is a product of tournament structure, not of his individual skill alone.

Second: the 10,000 versus 12,000 USD added money figure is an inconsistency in the source. I have not verified which is correct. This matters not because the sum is large. It matters because it shows the degree of uncertainty in information about regional American events. When analysing an event, I cannot fully trust the figure a source supplies. I need to cross-check with at least two independent sources before drawing conclusions about prize-fund scale.

Third concerns the financing mechanism. The event had an auction, almost certainly a calcutta, a player auction. This is the signature funding mechanism of American pool, where fan money flows directly into winners' pockets. It does not exist in snooker. It shows that American pool is not a top-down funded system. It is a self-operating micro-economy, where winners are paid not only by the promoter but also by fan expectation.

Finally, consider the players' motivation. The concentration of titles at a small-purse event suggests this group treats regional events as tune-ups and income, not as peak targets. That means they may not be at peak form at Mobile. This is something I always weigh when assessing the results of a regional event.

Signals and Data Limitations

I write a data-limitations section for every analytical piece, and this one is no exception. The sample is a single tournament weekend. There is no head-to-head database between the players. There are no break-success percentages, run-out percentages, or quantitative safety figures. My assessments of Poteet, Chohan or Roberts rest on indirect information from match results and career titles, not on detailed frame-by-frame data.

Beyond that, I have no data on specific table conditions, cloth quality, or ball condition. These are variables that can affect outcomes. Poteet's two-rail shot suggests a table with lively cloth and rails, favourable to multi-rail position play, but I cannot verify this from the source.

Finally, the event's financial information is contradictory. I recommend treating both the 10,000 and 12,000 USD figures as pending verification. Readers should contact the organiser if an official number is needed.

What to Watch

Poteet is at a peak phase of form. The ten-match one-loss run in Mobile, plus the Derby City Classic Banks Ring Game title, forms a signal worth tracking at the following stops of the Making It In America Tavern Series. If he wins or reaches the final at the next stop, that is confirmation. If he exits early, the Mobile run is just a single event within a longer data series.

Chohan has confirmed his status as a One Pocket specialist. The unanswered question lies on the system side, not the individual side. Can the circuit attract enough One Pocket players to turn his specialism into a sustainable competitive system? If regional events only draw ten to twenty players for the One Pocket division, Chohan's class will be hard to fully validate. This is a structural problem in American pool, not his alone.

Rivas, with a five-match one-loss run and a third-place finish, is another form signal to track. Roberts, with the pattern of a lopsided winners'-side win followed by a final loss, is a question about conversion in the deciding match. With a small sample, I can only ask the question, not answer it.

The trophy is not on the scoreboard; it is in the cue-ball control chart. For Poteet, that means the two-rail shot to take position for the 3-9 combo. For Chohan, it means the 8-0 games in which the opponent could not pot a single ball into their home pocket. Both won through different data languages. And both are correct.

Glossary of Technical Terms

One Pocket: A classic American pool game in which each player is assigned one corner pocket and must pocket eight balls into their own pocket while defending the opponent's. It prizes strategy and move-play over beautiful shot-making.

9-Ball: A rotation game in which balls must be struck in numerical order from 1 to 9. Legally pocketing the 9 wins the rack, including via combo.

Alternate break: A rule under which the two players alternate the break, rather than the winner of the rack breaking. It reduces break advantage and increases fairness.

Break-and-run: Winning a rack in a single visit, from the break onward.

Combo: Potting a ball by striking another object ball first, for example a 3-9 combo.

Hill: The score at which a player is one rack away from winning the match.

Skunk: A shutout or near-shutout win, for example 3-0 or 7-0.

Hot seat match: In double elimination, the match between the two remaining unbeaten players. The winner goes straight to the final.

One-loss side: The elimination bracket. A player must win out there to reach the final.

Calcutta (auction): An auction in which backers bid on players, with proceeds forming a side prize pool. A common American pool funding mechanism.

Added money: Prize money contributed by the promoter or sponsors on top of player entry fees.

Seven-foot Diamond: A seven-foot pool table made by Diamond Billiard Products, a leading American table brand.

BCA Hall of Famer: An inductee of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, a lifetime-achievement honour in American pool.