Turning Stone Classic XLII Starts Today: Why the Joss Tour Finale Is the Best Free Ticket in Pool

Sixteen Diamond Pro tables, fresh Simonis 860, Aramith balls, a 128-player field that filled weeks ago, and a $10,000 first prize. The Turning Stone Classic XLII 9-Ball Open opens at 4pm today in the Event Center at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, and runs through the 7pm final on Sunday, September 6. It is the season finale of Mike Zuglan’s Joss Northeast 9-Ball Tour, the closing act of the tour’s 29th season, and admission is free for anyone who wants to walk in and watch.

For a lot of players in the Northeast, this is the tournament. Frisco and the World Nineball Tour get the television cameras, but Turning Stone is where the regional grinders, the touring pros passing through, and the Canadian contingent all land in the same bracket twice a year. Here is what to watch this weekend, what the format rewards, and why the cues that put this tour’s name on the banner deserve a closer look.

The Field, the Format, and the Money

The Classic is $25,000 added with a $250 entry fee for everyone, pro or amateur, and the total prize fund runs past $47,000. That structure is unusual. Most regional events tier their entry fees or cap the field to keep pros away from the weekend players. Zuglan does the opposite. Everybody pays the same, everybody plays the same chart, and the payout reaches deep. At the January edition, 32 places cashed and every player was paid in cash the moment they were eliminated.

The format is double elimination with races to 9 on both sides and a single-set final, race to 13. That is a longer race than most regional tours use, and it matters. A race to 7 lets a hot break and a couple of lucky rolls carry a lesser player past a stronger one. A race to 9 on both sides of the chart, followed by a race to 13, gives the better player enough racks to let the percentages work. Upsets still happen at Turning Stone, but they tend to happen to players who lose their break, not to players who simply ran into a heater.

Match times are tight. Thursday’s rounds go at 4, 6, 8, and 10pm. Friday and Saturday run from 10am through the 10pm round. Sunday starts at 11am and finishes with the final at 7pm. A Second Chance event for non-pro players who lost out of the main bracket starts Sunday at 10am and plays straight through. There is also a dress code: dress pants, a collared or dress shirt, and shoes, with no exceptions. It sounds old-fashioned, and it is, but it is part of why the Event Center looks like a championship rather than a bar tournament.

Three Names Worth Following

Jayson Shaw has won this event nine times. Nine. No other player is close, and the Scottish-born, US-based star is a two-time Player of the Year who treats Verona like a second home room. He finished third at Turning Stone XLI in January, taking $4,000, and after a summer on the World Nineball Tour he arrives with more table time than anyone in the field.

Johnny Morra is the defending champion. The Canadian took Turning Stone XLI in January, beating Jesus Atencio in the final for the $10,000 top prize, and then went on to win the 2026 US Open 10-Ball. He sits tenth on the AZBilliards money list this year at just under $74,000, which is remarkable for a player who still spends much of his year on regional tours rather than chasing ranking points overseas. Morra’s nickname is Mr. Smooth, and it fits. He does not overpower a rack. He moves the cue ball a foot at a time and rarely leaves himself anything harder than a hanger.

Moritz Neuhausen is the young German who won Turning Stone XXXIX and holds a European Open title. He finished tied for fifth in January. Neuhausen plays a faster, more aggressive game than Morra, and against a long race that tempo can cut both ways. If he is breaking well, he can put nine racks on the board before an opponent settles in.

Behind those three, watch the Joss Tour regulars. Jeremy Sossei won the 2025-26 season points title with 1,320 points, in a season that included a run of five wins in five events entered. Bucky Souvanthong, Bob Madenjian, Ron Casanzio, and Damon Sobers rounded out the top five. These are players who see each other every few weeks on the tour, know each other’s patterns, and have nothing to lose against a name player in a race to 9.

What a Long Race Teaches About Equipment

There is a reason the Joss Tour plays on Diamond tables with Simonis 860 and Aramith balls, and it is the same reason serious players are picky about cues. Consistency. Over a race to 9, and especially over a race to 13 final, small variables compound. A tip that mushrooms mid-match, a joint that loosens, a shaft that plays differently in the Event Center than it did at home, all of that shows up in the score.

Joss Cues, the tour’s title sponsor, has built its reputation on exactly that kind of consistency. Dan Janes started making cues in a garage in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore in 1967 and moved the shop to Towson, Maryland in 1975, where it still operates. Dan passed away in June 2023, and his wife Debbie and son Stephen run the shop now. Stephen has been managing the floor for more than four decades. The family’s stated philosophy is simple: every Joss plays the same, and the difference between models is inlays and veneers, not hit.

That philosophy shows up in the spec sheet. Across the Joss lineup at Quarter King Billiards, you will find the same 29-inch hard rock maple shaft with a pro taper, a 13mm tip, a three-quarter-inch Aegis linen ferrule, and a piloted 5/16×14 joint. The weight bolt system is shared across the playing cues, so an 18, 19, 20, or 21 ounce build is a selection rather than a different cue. What changes as you move up the line is the wood and the inlay work in the forearm and butt sleeve.

Where to Start in the Joss Line

The Joss JOS01 is the entry point at $310.25. Dark stained maple forearm, linen wrap, and a butt sleeve with six ebony circles and six mother of pearl notched diamonds. It is a plain-looking cue from across the room and a very well made one up close. The JOS02 at $340 moves to a birdseye maple butt sleeve with mother of pearl diamonds and circles connected by ebony lines.

If you like the Joss hit but do not want a wrap, the JOS213 Limited Series is wrapless at $276.25, with black stained maple, a cream collar, and a Tweeten Triangle tip. It ships with a Joss threaded bumper and the same adjustable weight system. The JOSSP01 Sneaky Pete at $365.50 is the other wrapless option, and it is the one a lot of tour players gravitate toward because it looks like a house cue and hits like a custom.

Moving up, the JOS61 at $352.75 brings in bloodwood with ebony-outlined holly notched diamonds in both the forearm and butt sleeve. The JOS74 at $484.50 pairs a bloodwood forearm with a diamond-inlaid butt sleeve. And the JOS44 at $573.75 and JOS16 at $569.50 are the full-dress builds, with curly maple or hard rock maple forearms, ebony points, and pearlite or mother of pearl inlays. These are the kind of cues that get raffled at Turning Stone, where Steve Janes donated two engraved Joss cues valued at $1,800 each for this weekend’s drawings.

For the break, Joss makes the Thor Hammer, a dedicated break cue with a phenolic ferrule and collar, a 13mm five-layer tip, and a wrapless black handle. It comes in heavy and light builds and sits at $335.75, which puts it in the same neighborhood as the mid-range break cues from the bigger production brands, with the difference that this one is made in Towson.

Featured Joss Products

How to Watch, and What to Take From It

AZBilliards is streaming the event free with live scoring, in partnership with Upstate Al Leon, Turning Stone, and the tour. If you cannot make it to Verona, that is the place to watch. Pick a Friday afternoon match between a Joss Tour regular and a touring pro and pay attention to two things.

First, watch how the winner handles the break in a race to 9. On a tight Diamond table with new 860, the break is not about power. It is about a controlled cue ball that stays in the middle of the table and a wing ball that goes. Players who overhit the break at Turning Stone scratch, and in a long race that is a rack handed to the opponent.

Second, watch the pace. Morra and the other tour veterans play at a rhythm that does not change whether they are up 7-2 or down 2-7. That is a skill, and it is a learnable one. If you find yourself speeding up when you are behind or slowing down when you are ahead, that is a bigger leak in your game than any aiming system will fix.

And if a weekend of watching well-built cues on well-maintained tables makes you want to upgrade, the full pool cue collection at Quarter King Billiards covers every price point from starter to custom-grade, with Joss sitting right in the sweet spot where American craftsmanship becomes affordable.