This year`s last tournament of the Dynamic Best of the East series, The Hungarian Open 2008, was hosted, according to tradition, in the Fordan Billiard Centre in Pecs, Hungary. 67 players of 8 countries (Serbia, Romania, Bosnia, Israel, Slovakia, Poland, Armenia and Hungary) enrolled, amongst them such stars as former European Champion Sandor Tot or European Championships Runners-up Zoran Svilar and Radoslaw Babica. Double knock-out system was played in the opening stages of the tournament and there were no significant surprises; favourites advanced to the final, single elimination, stages. First major upset was made by Dominik Zajac  who, 7:6, sent home Sandor Tot . Few minutes later, Karol Skowerski, who had trailed 0:5 with Zoran Svilar , equalled the score for 6:6 and, with the art of potting the nine ball on the break, won his match. Another interesting match between pupil`s category player Maciej Wojcik and an experienced Andreja Klasovic  finished unexpectedly as, at the beginning, Wojcik had led 5:0, later Klasovic made it to 5:4, Wojcik stomped in for 6:4 and, in his game for a win, missed the ball6. Classy Klasovic took the match 7:6. At the time still the 2008 Ranking Leader Sniegocki  quickly took away Poland`s Rozwadowski`s hopes for a victory, winning 7:4. In one of the 1/8 final`s pair R.Babica and B.Melkonian  played and finished quite quickly with the Melkonian as the winner 7:4. Other matches were: the „numero uno” of Slovakia Jaroslav Polach winning over Miklosz Racz , Robert Madura  defeating Csaba Nagy  7:3 and Adam Skoneczny  seeing home Milos Verkic  7:1.

      Quarterfinals` pairs were:
M. Sniegocki  – J. Polach  – 7:4
D. Zajac  – K. Skowerski  – 4:7
M. Babken  – A. Klasovic  – 7:1
A. Skoneczny  – R. Madura  – 7:5

      At the start of the Semi-finals there was an interesting situation regarding the match between Sniegocki and Skowerski. The ranking points` difference stood at 15 points. The winner of the match was automatically to become the Winner of the overall Ranking. Also A. Skoneczny (trailing 45 points to leader Sniegocki) was to fight to get into, at least, the best three in the overall Ranking, should he had won over, dangerous and biting his way through, Melkonian.

      Skowerski started the match well and was in total control until the 8:4 score when Sniegocki woke up and took three games in a row. At 7:8 he missed the relatively easy ball „7” giving Skowerski his final chance to win it all with three clearly positioned balls. He made no error and took the overall Ranking 2008.

      Skoneczny also started well and led 5:2, seemingly in full control. His only problem was no balls on the break and Melkonian wisely used his opportunities to equal at 6:6. Then, at 7:8 he scratched on the break. Skoneczny weighed up his chances of clearing the table and decided to go for difficult combination, at almost the full length of the table, right away. He got his final place just then.

      The Final match started even, game by game. At 3:3 and onwards Skoneczny`s play became more precise than his opponent`s. At 8:3 Skowerski`s desperate fight awarded him two more points but that was all he could do. With 9:5, the Winner of the Hungarian Open 2008 was Adam Skoneczny.

This year`s Summary:
2008 season comprised of 6 tournaments. The overall ranking counted no less than 350 players from 16 countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Israel, Armenia, Bosnia, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Lebanon).

      The important factor is that there were many new names on the starting list as that was the main goal of the whole series. Dynamic Billiard Best of the East is to Promote Billiard as sport and encourage players to compete internationally. Polish Open had the most participants – 116 and second biggest, Romanian Open – 106. Unfortunately in some cases, because of extremely crowded yearly event calendar of the WPA and the EPBF, some players could not participate in some of Best of the East tournaments.

      The total prize money for the whole season was the huge amount of the 24 000 € presented together with medals and trophies. Additionally, the Winner of the overall yearly 2008 Ranking gets paid his entry fee into the Euro-Tour series for the whole next season 2009.

      Apart from current Best of the East organizers, more federations are willing to host the series` tournaments, e.g. Estonia, Serbia or Moldova. The choice for the next season will not be easy, especially that next year only 5 tournaments can fit into busy EPBF`s and Mak Marketing`s schedules.

      Sponsors` Presentation

      Mak Marketing prepared special banners that were put in all tournaments` halls. Sponsors` names and logo`s were placed on them. Also, banners reading „welcome participants of Dynamic Billiards Best of the East” were made and placed in host clubs.

      All information regarding the series was to be found on websites: www.makmarketing.pl, www.epbf.com and respective host federations. In Poland, the final of the Polish Open 2008 was broadcasted on TELE 5 (1 hour + rerun); in Bulgaria and Ukraine local public TV stations showed highlights.

      Information about sponsors was announced during each tournament`s opening and closing ceremonies. Dynamic, Aramith and Ivan Simonis stickers were placed on tables. Additional advertisements were also hanged on walls.

	1/4 final				1/2 final				Final
	Mateusz Śniegocki 7 Jaroslav Polach 4
					Mateusz Śniegocki 7 Karol Skowerski 9
	Dominik Zając 4 Karol Skowerski 7
									Karol Skowerski 5 Adam Skoneczny 8
	Melkonian Babken 7 Andreja Klasovic 1
					Melkonian Babken 7 Adam Skoneczny 9
	Adam Skoneczny 7 Robert Madura 5