Briseno comes from deep on the loss side to claim Stop #4 on Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour

Daniel Herring, Gus Briseno and Clayton Marischen

Things are looking up for Gus Briseno out there in the Lone Star state. Last year, he didn’t win his first stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour until August. Now here it is, only April and he’s already chalked up that first 2025 victory on the tour. Tour championship hopefuls, here he comes. He has an occasional habit of coming from the loss side to claim victory and to prove the point, he came from very deep on the loss side to claim his first 2025 title this past weekend (Apr. 26-27). He lost his second match to Chris “Woody” Smith (6-5; Briseno racing to 7), won nine straight on the loss side and then, double-dipped Daniel Herring in a double-elimination final. He played five more matches than anybody else in the $1,000-added tournament that drew 64 entrants to Stixx & Stones in Lewisville, TX.

And now, with Mr. Briseno tucked away on the loss side, we can tell you about the people who battled through the winners’ side to claim the hot seat. Beginning with Daniel Herring, Briseno’s eventual opponent in the final, who was racing to 8, as he chalked up victories over the winner of the 2025 season-opener, Fahad Alrawi (4), Tony Mathew (2) and Don Bullard (2). In straight-up races to 7, he downed Mark Johnson 7-4 and drew Clint Palaci in one of the winners’ side semifinals.

From the opposite end of the bracket, it was Clayton Marischen, racing to 6 until he got to his winners’ side semifinal, who’d be challenging Herring for the hot seat. Marischen downed Mark Kinsey and Monica Anderson for starters, both 6-3, before Jay White (winner of last month’s stop on the tour) put up a double-hill fight, which Marischen survived and then, reverted to his seemingly preferable 6-3 type of match, with which he defeated Jeff Selph, to pick up Thomas Archer in the other winners’ side semifinal.

Herring sent Palaci to the loss side 7-4 and slipped into the ‘hot seat match’ waiting room, as Marischen worked to successfully complete his second, double-hill match, against Archer. Marischen was awarded four ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 9 against Herring and could have used twice that many, as Herring allowed him only a single rack and claimed the hot seat.

By the time Herring claimed the hot seat (recorded at 5:36 p.m.), Gus Briseno had won six of the nine, loss-side matches he needed to challenge him in the finals. Done pretty well for himself along the way, winning 82% of the 78 games he played with only one of his six opponents chalking up more than three racks against him. That ‘one’ – Mohammed Albazzaz – got close in the battle for 9^th/12^th but Briseno edged out in front to win 7-5, ahead of eliminating Mark Johnson 8-2 and drawing the recently-arrived-from-the-winners-side-semifinal Thomas Archer.

Also checking into the ‘short trip on the loss side’ bus was Clint Palaci, who picked up Jeff Selph. Selph had followed his winners’ side quarterfinal loss to Herring by defeating James Nico Arriola 6-2 and surviving a double-hill battle against Robert Reighter.

Archer was awarded six ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 10 against Briseno, who allowed him only a single game and advanced to the quarterfinal. Palaci let Selph get three of the six racks he needed, but joined Briseno in the quarterfinals by getting all of the eight he needed.

In a straight-up race to 7, Briseno dropped Palaci 7-4. In the semifinals that followed, Briseno gave Marischen five ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 9, allowed him to add one actual rack to the five he got before the match started and advanced to the double-elimination final 9-1.

The two very familiar faces on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour (Briseno and Herring) got underway with what would turn out to be two matches, sometime around 10:30 p.m. (again, as recorded by digitalpool.com). By 11:15, Briseno had tied their loss record at one apiece with a 7-4 win. “Not so fast,” said Mr. Herring (presumably, if not actually), as he put up a double-hill fight in the second set. Briseno finished it to claim his first 2025 Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour title.

Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Stixx & Stones for their hospitality, along with title sponsor Cuetec Cues, along with Fort Worth Billiard Superstore, Granite Guyz, Dallas 8-Ball League, Rasson Billiards and DFW Pool TV. The next stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for the weekend of May 24-25, will be a $1,000-added event, hosted by Rusty’s in Fort Worth, TX. 

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