1962 Western States Championship

Held at Palace Billiards in San Fransisco, November 24 to December 8, 1962

The Western States Championship was always an important tournament.   Even though the title would suggest contestants from the western states, players came from Chicago and New York for this event.  After studying the tournament chart, some basic statistics were calculated from this tournament that may be of some interest. The averages were not very high, nor were the high runs (9 being the highest). The game scores were provided by Robert Byrne...Thank you for your contribution Mr. Byrne.

Each game cell is divided into three boxes.  The top box contains the player's score (games were to 50), the bottom left box shows the high run, and the bottom right has the innings.

1962
DM
HV
JP
GP
CM
WH
OG
JQ
BA
HH
McGoorty, Danny
X
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
5
44
6
36
8
44
5
63
5
74
4
63
9
68
6
52
3
58
Valdespino, Homero
33
X
50
50
50
50
38
50
50
50
5
43
5
70
5
59
4
59
5
65
6
64
6
75
4
62
5
60
Procita, Joseph
43
31
X
34
36
50
50
50
50
50
5
36
5
70
4
63
5
53
5
49
6
67
4
77
5
46
5
80
Pentaris, Goerge
29
41
50
X
50
50
50
50
50
50
5
44
4
58
6
63
6
64
5
55
5
73
4
72
6
69
5
65
Millikan, Charlie
39
32
50
40
X
49
33
50
50
39
6
62
6
59
6
54
4
46
5
59
6
64
5
59
5
78
5
73
Hynes, William
47
31
33
41
50
X
50
50
49
50
7
73
4
64
5
49
4
55
4
59
5
69
5
61
8
71
5
67
Griffin, Oran
37
50
43
30
50
27
X
50
50
33
5
63
6
64
6
66
3
72
7
65
5
68
5
81
4
66
3
61
Quan,   Jack
38
45
40
26
35
20
33
X
41
44
3
68
4
74
4
76
4
72
5
58
4
60
3
81
5
72
3
87
Adams, Blyth
34
32
20
39
44
50
46
50
X
50
4
51
3
62
5
46
4
69
6
77
5
72
6
66
4
72
3
92

Hurst, Hank
29
28
43
36
50
35
50
50
48
X
4
57
4
60
4
79
3
65
6
74
5
66
6
62
6
88
3
91

1st-    Danny McGoorty,  9/0- 450 points in 502 innings- .896 and the high run of 9.

2nd-    Homero Valdespino, 7/2- 421 points in 557 innings- .756

3rd-    George Pentaris, 7/2- 420 points in 563 innings- .746

4th-    Joe Procita, 5/4- 394 points in 541 innings- .728

5th- Hynes .705,   6th- Griffen .611,   7th- Milliken .668,   8th- Hurst .575,   9th- Adams .601,   10th- Quan .497

There is a perpetual debate about how big an advantage the break is in billiards.  Today the break seems to be a bigger part of the game because games are much shorter and good players are almost expected to make a few points from the break.  In this tournament, the break made very little difference.  The player who broke won 53% of the games.   However, in a ten player round robing there are only 45 games and the margin of error is high.

The group made 3894 points in 5806 innings for a grand field average of .670.  The first five places which make up exactly the top half of the field all averaged above the group average and the bottom five all averaged below the group average.  Many times there are some players with much lower or much higher averages bringing the above the group average line higher or lower instead of it being right in the middle.

The winner (McGoorty) played 34% better than the group average.   Second place finisher Valdespino played only 13% better than the group average.   Pentaris who finished 3rd played 11% better than the group average and Procita (4th) played 9% better.

As you can see from the flow chart, there were very few upsets.  The top four players' averages were in the same order as their finishes, the highest average being the winner and so on.

If you were at this tournament and have any comments, stories or photos, please contact me.  I would be happy to add them to this page for a more complete reporting of this event.  Also if you have information as to the whereabouts of any of these players, please forward them to me as well.

www.3cushion.com © Copyright 2004, Deno J. Andrews