Despite the unseasonably deep cold across the country, thousands of players, gamblers and pool fans made the annual trek to the 2025 DCC. With the schedule running way behind several years in a row, new this year all of the finals were held off until they were played Sunday, one after the other. Also the number of entries was much more strictly capped, at 476 for Banks and 400 for One Pocket (501 for 9-ball) with late sign ups turned away this year in an effort to get control of the schedule. By all accounts these efforts worked.
Of course, the Derby without “action” wouldn’t be the Derby, and indeed both the Aramith Action Room and the Omega TV Action Room saw plenty of high stakes and high caliber pool, often with the crowd (and/or the $$) flowing from one room to the other. Ray Hansen’s (PoolActionTV) even brought back the “action award” this year, voted on by subscribers to his Aramith action room. This years Action award going to … (tbd)
Another big difference this year were the digital score boards and scrolling match schedule boards, along with streaming cameras at all 48 tournament tables! All of this in coordination with digitalpool.com. Purchasing the stream package includes the ability to go back and watch archived video of any of the hundreds of tournament matches over the entire 11 days — that’s more than humanly possible, but you get to 100% pick and choose.
Right up to the wee hours of Saturday night (Sunday morning), it looked like Fedor Gorst might have a shot at being the first player to sweep the three divisions of the Derby City all-around, having secured final spots in both Banks and One Pocket earlier, but then he ran into a hot-shooting Joshua Filler. Still, on Sunday Gorst won both the Banks and the One Pocket, securing the all-around bonus in the process.
Final results
Banks:
1st Fedor Gorst
2nd Tony Chohan
One Pocket:
1st Fedor Gorst
2nd Shan van Boening
9-Ball:
1st Joshua Filler
2nd Alex Pagulayan