National 10-Ball Showdown Takes the TV Table as National Open Begins
Sixteen players, one day, one table — the week's final invitational runs Thursday at Harrah's Cherokee while the 512-player National Open gets under way.
- Discipline
- 10-ball
- Location
- Harrah's Cherokee, NC
- Dates
- Nov 4, 2026 – Nov 4, 2026
The busiest day of the 2026 Ultimate Pool USA Grand Finals has arrived. Thursday at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort stacks the week's final invitational — the National 10-Ball Showdown — on top of day one of the 512-player National Open, while the league championships grind on around them.
One table, 16 players, one day
The Showdown is the purest television product of Grand Finals week: a 16-player invitational that plays start to finish on Thursday, with every match staged on the arena TV table and streamed on Ultimate Pool USA's channels.
It is played to UPL 10-Ball rules on seven-foot tables — call-pocket 10-ball with jump shots and jump cues banned, and an unofficial 30-second shot clock that officials can make formal if required.
The full field and first-round draw are now live on the event's DigitalPool bracket, which schedules the opening match for 10 a.m. ET and puts a new tie on the TV table roughly every 45 minutes:
- Shane Van Boening vs. Jesus Atencio — 10 a.m.
- Roberto Gomez vs. Dennis Hatch — 10:45 a.m.
- Tom Cousins vs. Gerson Martinez Boza — 11:30 a.m.
- Chris Melling vs. David Matlock — 12:15 p.m.
- Joven Bustamante vs. Sofia Mast — 1 p.m.
- Oscar Dominguez vs. Rodney Morris — 1:45 p.m.
- Justin Bergman vs. Johnny Archer — 2:30 p.m.
- Tyler Styer vs. Skyler Woodward — 3:15 p.m.
Quarterfinals are listed from 6 p.m., the semifinals at 9 and 9:45 p.m., and the final at 10:30 p.m. — all times ET as scheduled on the bracket and subject to move on the day.
Storylines in the draw
All three previous 10-Ball Showdown champions are in the field — Morris (Iowa), Bergman (Kansas City) and Melling (Florida) — and Wednesday's Shootout finalists are straight back to work: Dominguez, who lifted the trophy near 11 p.m., meets Morris, while runner-up Cousins faces Martinez Boza.
Atencio took the hardest road in, winning Sunday's 32-player on-site qualifier with a 6-5 final over Joe Dupuis — the same Atencio who knocked Styer out of the National Shootout on Tuesday. His reward is the day's opening match against Van Boening. Mast is the only woman in the field and arrives off a Florida Open Mixed Pairs title won alongside Melling.
The Showdown's short history
Ultimate Pool USA introduced the format at its Iowa Open in March, where Rodney Morris edged Chris Melling for the inaugural title. Justin Bergman took the Kansas City Open edition, beating Joven Bustamante in a six-ball shootout, and Melling claimed the Florida Open's Showdown 5-4 over Tom Cousins — the same Cousins who finished runner-up in Cherokee on Wednesday night.
The National Open begins
While the invitational owns the TV table, the day's volume belongs to the National Open: a sold-out 512-player field chasing a $20,000 top prize, running through Sunday in the largest open field of Grand Finals week. Its first matches are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. — meaning several Showdown names, Van Boening, Cousins, Styer and Bergman among them, are booked for double duty.
Around the room
The league program rolls on alongside. The 8-Ball Teams championship — playing for a $112,000 top prize, billed as the biggest in pool league history — builds toward Saturday's final, while the National Singles leaderboard, the 10-Ball Teams event and the National Pairs and Mixed Pairs all continue, the pairs events wrapping up Friday.
Thursday also follows a late night in the arena: Oscar Dominguez won the National Shootout shortly before 11 p.m., beating Cousins 5-4 for the week's second invitational trophy after the Women's Shootout opened the week on Monday.
The TV table streams on Ultimate Pool USA's YouTube and Facebook channels, and every bracket scores live on DigitalPool. The full week's schedule and published payouts are collected in pool4.org's Grand Finals guide.