Carom
THESSALONIKI - Once upon a time, end of August 2013, the 6 cities in North Greece (Thessaloniki, Volos, Edessa, Kozani, Kastoria and Kerkyra, Korfu) decided to cancel the yearly usual plan of open individual tournaments and make a corporation of team tournaments with 4 players each team, starting first from the city of Thessaloniki with host, Macedonikos Billiard Club.
Next city is Kastoria, then Kozani, then Kerkyra (Korfu) and at last Volos. The official name of these tournaments is Team tournaments of Greeks country side. Pavos Zahcariadis, one of the organizers: ,,Because of the difficult financial situation in Greece, it's not easy anymore to gather even 32 players, when in the past we gathered 80 and 90 players. So we decided that there wont be any price money and each player will pay a symbolic amount of 20 euro's.''
With this money, all guest players receive their transportation expenses, because there is no help at all from the state. Additionally, the host cities, always help, so guest players pay much less for hotels.
The success of the first team tournament in Thessaloniki, with 56 players, proved it was the right decision. Having as guest team, Murat Tuzul Club team from Istanbul, the island Crete have sent one team, Volos, Edessa and Kastoria one team each, Kozani two teams, Kerkyra three teams and Macedonikos BC from Thessaloniki, five teams. The first place was taken by the Turkish team (Murat Tüzül, Birol Uymaz, Ahmet Bayatli, Manoli Minaoglou) with a general average 0.998 and second place, the first team of Macedonikos (Papageorgiou, Gabriilidis, Eleftheriadis, Sioulis) with a better general average 1.036.