September 2022 by Luby Publishing Inc.

32 CHEN-ERATION NEXT Young Taiwanese star Chia Hua Chen storms Predator Canada Open field. by Keith Paradise 36 BANNED ON THE RUN With the WPA ban lifted, Fedor Gorst, Kristina Tkach and Margaret Fefilova Styer are ready for action. by Keith Paradise 42 THE NEXT SHANE Shane Wolford has his sights set on pro titles and a Mosconi Cup nod. by Nick Leider 46 EURO SMASH Albin Ouschan reigns at first European Open. 2 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 CONTENTS ColumnsFeatures 10 FROM THE PUBLISHER Rack ’Em by Mike Panozzo 56 TIPS & SHAFTS Racking by Hand by George Fels Former World Junior 9-Ball Champion Chia Hua “Amber” Chen stunned even herself by topping Allison Fisher in the final to win the Predator Canada Open in Alberta. Cover photo by Matt Porinsky On the Cover Vol. 44, No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2022 36 46 42

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4 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 CONTENTS Vol. 44, No. 9 SEPTEMBER 2022 Practice Table Instruction 16 Quick Hits: Tidbits to Up Your Game 18 Nick Varner • Strategies 20 Larry Schwartz • Stripes & Solids 22 Darren Appleton • Perfect Practice 24 Bob Jewett • Tech Talk 28 David Alciatore • Illustrated Principles Departments 6 FREEZE FRAME Pool through the lens of JP Parmentier. 8 YESTERYEAR Three-cushion takes the spotlight. 12 WING SHOTS Look out, ol’ Mackey’s back! 13 YOU MAKE THE CALL On the rebound. 14 BOOK REVIEW Sizing up Brian Crist’s “Playing to Win.” 15 STROKE OF GENIUS Biado keeps his ducks in a row. 52 CHRONICLES by Mike Shamos Vintage billiard cards shed light on the game’s popularity BD The Premier Billiards Magazine since 1978 PRESIDENT KEITH HAMILTON LUBY PUBLISHING INC. 310 Busse Hwy., PMB #319 Park Ridge, IL 60068 (312) 341-1110 FAX: (312) email@billiardsdigest.comwww.billiardsdigest.com341-1469 BILLIARDS DIGEST (ISSN 0164-761X) is published monthly by Luby Publishing, Inc., 310 Busse Hwy., PMB #319, Park Ridge, IL 60068 USA. Telephone 312-341-1110, Fax 312341-1469. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES in the U.S. and possessions, one year (12 issues) for $32; international, $62. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Send new as well as old address. If possible, furnish label from recent issue. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to Billiards Digest, 310 Busse Hwy., PMB #319, Park Ridge, IL 60068. FOUNDER MORT LUBY JR. PUBLISHER MIKE PANOZZO CIRCULATIONMANAGER HAMILTONKEITH EDITOR MIKE PANOZZO ART DIRECTOR MARK TATARA CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MIKE SHAMOS SENIOR WRITER NICK LEIDER SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER JP PARMENTIER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS DAVID DARRENALCIATOREAPPLETONR.A.DYERJAYHELFERTBOBJEWETTJEANETTELEETEDLERNERSKIPMALONEYKEITHPARADISETONYROBLESLARRYSCHWARTZNICKVARNERMARKWILSONPHILYATES

6 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 No DeLunaBullDeStroysDeBreak. If the latest trend in 9-ball break rules, as employed in the recent European Open, remains in place, look for rack-shattering high-steppers like Jeffery “The Bull” DeLuna to test decibel and impact limits. PHOTO BY JP PARMENTIER NIKON Z6, Nikkor Z 24-70 mm f/2.8S 2800 ISO, 1/500s @ f/2.8, 37 mm FREEZE FRAME[ ]

7September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

Finnish duo Mika Immonen and Pe tri Makkonen entered the 2012 World Cup of Pool doubles competition as the 16th ranked team in the 32-nation field, but emerged as champions after edging the Polish twosome of Karol Skowerski and Wojceich Szewcyk, 10-8, in the title match in Manila, Philippines. Americans Shane Van Boening and Rodney Morris came close, but fell to the Polish squad in theAlsosemifinals.inManila, recent “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Ga Young Kim showed all the right moves in claiming the Women’s World 10-Ball Champion ship, topping an Asian-dominated field with a 10-4 victory over China’s Siming Chen in the championship match.

8 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 YESTERYEAR

Belgian Frederic Caudron erased a 16-point deficit to shock Turkey’s Semih Sayginer, 40-39, to secure the title at the Sang Lee International Open 3-cushion tournament in Flushing, N.Y. The U.S. event, played in honor of the late former World Champion, drew 89 players and featured an $80,000 prize fund. Caudron rolled undefeated through nine matches in the final round-robin bracket, posting a 1.774 average.Elsewhere, Lee Vann Corteza trounced Louis Ulrich, 13-7, in the finale to win the Turning Stone IX Classic in Verona, N.Y. Ulrich had earned his spot with upset wins over Shane Van Boening, Albin Ous chan and Dennis Orocllo.

Korean cueist Jae Jo Cho crushed Bel gium’s Eddy Leppens, 40-19, in just 16 innings to top a record-breaking interna tional 3-cushion field at Verhoeven Open in Flushing, N.Y. Cho averaged 2.500 points per inning in his finals win over the 47-year-old Bel gian at the Carom Cafe. The event drew a record 138-players from 23 countries and included seven world champions, in cluding reigning carom king Daniel San chez of AnotherSpain.Spaniard, David Alcaide, made a statement in Moscow at the Krem lin Cup 10-Ball Championship, topping Greece’s Alex Kazakis, 9-6, at the Olym pic Stadium. American Shane Van Boen ing finished 17th.

THEFREDERICBELGIUM’SCAUDRONSCOREDANEPICCOMEBACKTOWINSANGLEEOPEN.Caudron Tops 3-C Field

+ 15 YEARS AGO ++ 10 YEARS AGO ++ 5 YEARS AGO +

For me, one of the key beneﬁts of Matchroom’s continued tinkering with the rules was the inclusion of top pro players in the process, which invariably would lead to buy-in from those same players if their suggestions were actually implemented. Don’t underestimate how important that is going forward.

But because Matchroom events are so visible internationally and marketed so robustly, the format modiﬁcation and resulting impact on the event were publicized, analyzed, and legitimized by fans around the globe for days on end. Even players, once eliminated from the event, took to social media to hail the latest efforts to make major 9-ball tournaments more competitive and interesting.

What playing format supports the desire to reward the very best players, while at the same time showcasing all aspects of the Traditionallygame?played with the 1 on the spot and the break allowed anywhere in the kitchen, major 9-ball events had dissolved into break-and-run fests. Guaranteed of pocketing the wing ball (and often the 1 as well) and getting a predictable and cushy spread of the remaining balls, the game had become interesting, even to those who love watching beasts like Van Boening, Josh Filler and Jayson Shaw string together ﬁve-packs and six-packs like tying their shoes.

Lack of uniformity, organization and, of course, prize money have been the primary pitfalls preventing pool from garnering serious consideration from companies outside our little circle in the past. If the sport, the players and billiard industry partners can rectify those drawbacks through all these little improvements, pool will be far better positioned to take that critical next step to mainstream understanding and acceptance.

That was evident in Germany, where players looked physically and mentally exhausted after more than a few closeThematches.goalnow will be to get all major 9-ball events to follow the same script.

From

The success of the new rules was lauded almost universally. The only real complaint by the players was the switch from templates to hand-racking for the ﬁnal 16, a move every pro insisted was pointless and, indeed, detrimental more often than necessary. And, to its credit, Matchroom immediately announced that its open event going forward would use template racking from start to ﬁnish.Some concern has been expressed that the pros will eventually uncover a way to “solve” this rack as well, as if pool is a Rubik’s Cube. But most pros agree that, regardless, the latest racking and breaking requirements will lead to more open breaks, more scratches on the break and more confounding ball layouts — all of which means tighter matches, more cat-and-mouse action, less predictability and more tension.

For starters, Matchroom, already the leader in big-money, high-visibility pro 9-ball tournaments for several decades, doubled down in 2022 with the addition of several new open tournaments, the creation of its own ranking system and a leadership role in convincing other promoters to join the journey to a full, structured and lucrative annual lineup of events. With the calendar beginning to take shape, efforts turned to ﬁne-tuning the competitive aspect of the events.

BREAK

BASED ON the ruckus on social media, one might think the European Open Pool Championship in Fulda last month included the unveiling of a seventh pocket. Or, as Earl Strickland champions, the elimination of side pockets!“Thiscompletely changes the game!” came the chorus of responses.Firstoff, the changes to the break employed by Matchroom at the inaugural European Open weren’t exactly mind-blowing, why-didn’t-anyone-think-of-this-before revelations. Racking with the 9 on the spot has been used in tournaments for a number of years and has been the rule in all Euro Tour events for some time. And the break box? Also been around and tested sporadically for years. In fact, the 2021 International Open used virtually the same format that Matchroom used in Germany — break box and 9 on the spot. (Incidentally, Shane Van Boening struggled mightily with the break in losing to Albin Ouschan in the semiﬁnals in Norfolk, Va., last October, just as he did in the ﬁnal in Germany.)

the Publisher Mike Panozzo

So, you ask, is this really all such a big deal? I’m here to say, “Yes.” And here’s why. Look at it from a “Big Picture” perspective. (Yeah, I really hate that cliché as well!)

Pool’s ability to grow to the next level (which Matchroom likes to promote as somewhere between professional darts and professional snooker, both of which it has steered to great heights) will be in making the sport greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, all of these little tweaks and changes and efforts pieced together will create a more exciting, more compelling, more uniform and, by extension, a more attractive total package to potential outside industry sponsors.

DANCE 10 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

And I don’t have a problem with any of that on any level.

SHANE VAN BOEING FOLLOWING HIS TITLE MATCH LOSS TO ALBIN OUSCHAN AT THE EUROPEAN OPEN (PG. 46).

BLAST

(Q) Apparently, there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. As I’ve improved at the table, I’ve become more confident in my abilities, but that seems to have offended some players in my poolroom and in my league. You need to have and show confidence, don’t you? How do you successfully straddle that line?

(A) Part of your answer is in the recognition of how your attitude has turned some people off. To stay on the good side of that fine line, I would sug gest you pay attention to players you admire who show confidence but don’t offend others. What are the traits that they exhibit that maybe you aren’t exhibiting right now. Do you talk to other players about how strong your game has gotten? I find that the more people talk about themselves, the more insecurity they display. Believe me, great players like Efren Reyes and Allison Fisher are confident in their abilities, but they never flaunt that in others’ faces. The best way to show confidence — and intimdate your opponents — is simply to be decisive and focused in your play at the table. Leave it to others to talk. Respect your peers and they will return the respect.

The Pro Billiards Tour, a staple of men’s professional pool throughout the 1990s, announced in a mid-August press release that the organization would be on site to Nov.28fromintoscheduledtournamentsone-pocket10-balldaythecontenttalsupplemenproducevideofornine-9-ball,andbeheldNorfolkOct.through5.While

A N OLD, familiar brand name will be collecting content at this year’s In ternational Open.

THE BLACK WIDOW ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT POOL LIFE, LOVE AND ETIQUETTE.

production company Ac cu-Stats will remain the live streaming broadcaster of all of the event’s matches, legendary players like Mike Sigel, Kim Davenport and Reed Pierce will be at the event to provide interviews, analysis and other content usually not seen at the competition.“Ourplan is to stream content we produce on location that will look be hind the scenes of the Open,” said Gary Firestone, chief executive ofﬁcer of Firestone Advertising. “Some of bil liards’ greatest players will be active in our efforts behind the scenes to show the audience the action that takes place with the competitors during camera offtime.”The Pro Billiards Tour was formed in 1991 and produced over 100 pool tournaments over a six-year period. Ac cording to a press release by the Tour, a handful of top players from that era — including Sigel, Davenport and Pierce — joined up with former PBT commis sioner Don Mackey last year to launch a reconstituted PBT, with the current focus being on digitizing and remaster ing over 100 hours of matches televised on various cable outlets to create the “Legends of Billiards Series.” This con tent will then be made available on vari ous web-based platforms and the Tour’s website, with analysis by top players of the“Theday. explosion of web-based sports marketing and distribution, virtual game play, social media and the incred ible disruptive impact of blockchain technologies has revolutionized sports around the world,” said Mackey in the release. “The PBT is uniquely positioned to become the world’s leading billiards brand by leveraging all the platforms that access the global market.” PBT, former commissioner Mackey launch retro site. FROM PAST

12 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

“The pressure hit. That’s the way it is in pool.”

JeanetteDear

+ QUOTABLE + WRITE JEANETTE BILLIARDSDIGEST.COMAT

Dormant since the late ’90s, the PBT is back as a content provider.

“This event will provide a fantastic platform and opportunity for young players to follow in the footsteps of the sport’s World No. 1,” said Matchroom Multi Sport Managing Director Emily Frazer.

With Mike Shamos

MAKE THE CALL: ON THE REBOUND

0 Losses by 22-year-old Chia Hua Chen of Taiwan at the Predator Canada Open in Alberta (pg. 30). $180K Approximate prize money earned by Fedor Gorst in non-WPA events in 2022 (pg. 34). 9 Number of Polish players qualiﬁed into the ﬁnal 64 at the European Open (pg. 46).

BD IN BRIEF

QUESTION: You’re the referee in an eight-ball match being played under the World Standardized Rules (WSR). Player B is at the table after Player A’s dry break in the given position. He wants to break the pack some more, so he hits the cue ball hard to put the 7 in the side. But the cue ball caroms off the 10, and goes straight into the center of the leather of the corner pocket. It then bounces back on the table. Player B, who now has solids, prepares to take his next shot, when Player A pipes up: “He pocketed the cue ball. The table is open and I have ball in hand.” What’s your ruling?

YOU

VAN BOENING, MATCHROOM UNVEIL JUNIOR TOURNAMENT REIGNING WORLD Pool Champion and American pool hero Shane Van Boening often talks about his formative years, playing events as a junior. The South Dakotan has also been vocal in stressing the need for the American pool community to help raise the play among the country’s youth players to a level commensurate with the burgeoning and successful European junior pool scene. With the help of promoter Matchroom Pool, Van Boening is taking a step in that direction with the SVB Junior Open, a new event that will run alongside the U.S. Open Pool Championship in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Oct. 13-14. Slated for 32 players (no entry fee), the field was expanded to 64 after the original allocation fi lled within minutes. The expanded field will be single elimination, with the semifi nal and fi nal matches live streamed simultaneously with the Open’s quarterfi nals. The winner will earn entry into the 2023 U.S. Open. “It’s an honor to be in the position to launch my own tournament alongside the U.S. Open,” Van Boening said. “We need to give juniors the best opportunities to feel inspired and feel they can go on the journey that I’ve been on. I’m excited to see how the SVB Junior Open progresses, and most importantly be their motivator while they’re in action.”

ANSWER: You think this is easy, but the WSR are ambiguous on this point. Rule 8.3 reads, “An object ball that rebounds from a pocket back onto the playing surface is not a pocketed ball. If the cue ball contacts an already pocketed ball, the cue ball will be considered pocketed whether it rebounds from the pocket or not.” The rule does not cover the case in which the cue ball rebounds from a pocket without contacting an already pocketed ball, although the implication is that it’s not a scratch. The rule should be: “A ball that rebounds from a pocket back onto the playing surface is not a pocketed ball unless it is the cue ball and the cue ball contacts an already pocketed ball.”

13September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

—“Playing to Win: How to Win More Often and Have More Fun Playing Pool,” by Brian Crist is available for $33 at Amazon.com.

One surprising aspect to this book is that, to some extent, it accepts its primary limitation: It’s only a book. Crist understands that more dynamic teaching materials are available to every pool player with a WiFi connection and a smartphone. What he’s banking on is that you will come to him as a trusted source of knowledge who can absorb, digest, synthesize and repackage necessary information in a way that can help you play better pool. To that end, he is clear in recommending other books and borrowing lessons from them. They aren’t even all pool-speciﬁc — “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” and “Zen in the Art of Archery” won’t be found lying around many poolrooms.

THE problem with so-and-so’s generation can all be chalked up to participation trophies is an argument well past being useful. That kind of projection of one relatively minor aspect to competition onto millions of people is bound to be reductive. But ask yourself, “Why do I enjoy competition?” and “Why do I especially enjoy competition when it ends in a win?” That’s where Brian Crist’s “Playing to Win” begins. Clocking in at roughly 180 pages, Crist’s second book — a follow-up to 2017’s surprisingly useful and accessible entry, “Poolology”— is a solid if unspectacular entry into our game’s library. No, Crist is not a professional writer, nor does he have an editor in his back pocket. But for self-published, self-promoted books like these, you could do a lot worse. He’s clear in his ideas and able to communicate in a way that shouldn’t let a few grammatical errors, or the occasional typo make you tune him out.

WHETHER

“Playing to Win” is strongest when it’s grappling with mindset and the mental game. Crist isn’t too abstract in questioning the meaning of competition, though he does detail just what makes winning feel so good. He won’t blow your mind and make you see a pool table in a whole new light, but Crist does believe in his approach to the game. For many casual players, his view might be a bit of a reframe. Whether or not you buy into it, Crist’s outlook is worth a thought, especially if this isn’t your ﬁ rst or ﬁ fth pool instructional book.

But for various chapters, “Playing to Win” is constrained by its medium of a printed book. He leans heavily on photos of pool tables during in-game situations. This approach isn’t a deal-breaker, but it requires readers to use a lot of the setups at their own tables as examples to really unlock the lessons being taught.

BD BOOK REVIEWS Playing to Win: How to Win More Often and Have More Fun Playing Pool by Brian Crist 2022 Reviewed by Nick Leider 14 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

HETHER OR not you believe momentum is a tangible thing in a pool match, it’s undeniable that world-class 9-ball can be a game of streaks, if only because the quality of play is so high that a run of five or six racks isn’t that uncommon. In the race-to-13 final the 2021 U.S. Open Pool Championship in Las Vegas, the Philippines’ Carlo Biado and Aloysius Yapp of Singapore proved even the slightest open door can be the difference between winning and losing. After jumping out to a 3-1 lead, Biado watched as the match started to tilt in the favor of his 25-year-old opponent. Yapp took the next four racks before playing safe to leave Biado in the position shown in the diagram to the right. With the 8 ball between the cue ball and the 1 near center table, he didn’t have a clear shot. With a cluster of balls near the top right, including the 2 ball, Biado didn’t have many solid options. But the 37-year-old star got creative with a potential two-way jump shot on the 1. Jacking up against the rail, he popped the cue ball over the blocking ball, nearly fully hitting theThe1. 1 went three rails, eventually barely nudging the original obstacle 8 ball before stopping a ball’s width from it. The cue ball, meanwhile, went off the right long rail and clipped the right side of the 4 ball before stopping near the headrail, with the 7 and 2 forming a wall between the cue ball and the 1-8 cluster.While Yapp eventually won the rack on his way to taking an 8-3 lead, Biado roared back with his own incredible run, taking the final 10 racks en route to a 13-8 victory for the first U.S. Open title for the Philippines in 27 years, since Efren Reyes’ win in Norfolk, Va., in 1994.

STROKE OF GENIUS Recounting the greatest shots in pool history Video provided by Matchroom Pool See Biado jump his way to safe at BILLIARDSDIGEST.COM 15September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST PLAYER: Carlo Biado EVENT: U.S. Open Pool Championship LOCATION: Las Vegas, Nev. DATE: Sept. 18, 2021

BD HOUSE PRO: TONY ROBLES

16 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 Tangent Line

T HE BASIC concept of getting the cue ball to follow the 90-degree tangent line off the object ball is that the cue ball should be sliding (no forward or backwards spin) at the point of contact with the object ball.

WilsonMarkwith Opening Shot OFF ON A TANGENT

INSTRUCTIONALS

While that’s true, there are instanc es in which achieving that slide at the proper time is more challenging. If the shot is from distance, you must put a lot of speed on the cue ball to get it to slide. That can make cue ball position for the next shot harder and speed control more difficult. Here is a practice routine that will allow you to understand how you can follow that 90-degree line using stun follow. Practice this shot so that you understand the difference between a fuller hit and a thinner hit on the object ball. Generally speaking, the thinner you hit the object ball, the closer you get to staying on the tan gent line with follow. The fuller the hit, the more difficult it is to hold that line.The diagram shows a number of ball widths the cue ball is off the bot tom rail for a shot on the 14 ball. The object is to get this shot from each of the ball positions to follow the 90-de gree tangent line for position on the 15Theball.first shot is from the cue ball position shown. Pocket the 14 and get the cue ball to follow the line. Once you accomplish that, use the 5 ball’s position for the cue ball. See how you must adjust your aim point on the cue ball to stay along that line. Work your way down to where the 2 ball is posi tioned.From its original position, use cen ter ball or follow with left English. Once you get down to shooting from two balls width from the rail (where the 2 ball is), you’ll need to hit the shot hard and with stun follow (a half tip above center). If you shoot it that way and the cue ball moves toward the long rail, you know you can straighten that line by adding a tip of left Eng lish. Or hit the shot softer using cen ter cue ball and see if it has enough speed to get above the 15. The goal is to teach yourself to play position by learning first how to fol low the 90-degree tangent line from different angles by using different spots on the cue ball to achieve the same outcome.

Bite-sized bits of top-notch instruction

Q) There is growth in junior pool in the U.S., but we still lag behind Europe. How can youth players in the U.S. improve when so much pool is played on bar tables? Don Romano; Spokane, Wash.

A) Developing our youth players must be a priority if we want longterm growth in the sport. We need to improve the mindset of both the teachers and the players. We must build aspirational aspects on 9-foot tables. Proper training and more competitions would provide a start. Enthusiasm must sustain the time it will take to improve overall results. Seven-foot tables are ﬁne for begin ners, but champions are built on big tables. The sport at the top level is played on 9-foot tables, and youth players should focus on that as early as possible. In Europe, hundreds of talented juniors are competing regularly, and exclusively on 9-foot tables. Adopting this approach in the U.S. is clearly a critical piece of developing stronger youth players.

Drill BitsCHEATERS PROSPER

WILL THE recent switch to 9-on-the-spot, break box rules in Matchroom open events signal a return to the big power breaks of yore? While many players still smash the rack, particularly in games like 8-ball and 10-ball, the “cut break” had become the norm in 9-ball. If crushing the break shot is more your style, we suggest learning to kick like a Filipino! From Bustamante to DeLuna, players from the Philippines are notorious for transferring their weight from their back foot to their front by propelling their hips forward. The result is a martial artsstyle back leg kick and a splattering of the balls around the table. Your Kicks

— from “Byrne’s Complete Book of Pool Shots”

+ HOW TO DO IT + Set up the shot as shown. Use the same speed and same English on the cue ball, but alter the thickness of the hit on the object ball, hitting it into one side of the pocket and then the other. Note the varying landing spots for the cue ball.

STRAIGHT

+ WHY DO IT + To understand the advantages of cheating the pocket.

+ What element of the game do players most ignore? Mastering the stroke. Players should never stop working on it. Nothing stays the same, including a beautiful stroke. A slight change in time can cause it to deteriorate. + What’s the single best drill? Shoot some balls from the head spot. Freeze your stroke and check where the shaft is. It should be 4-6 inches directly over the spot.

become

Cham-

THE KEY to long runs, of course, is in the transition from one rack to the next. The “key ball” is just as important, if not more, than the “break ball.” To that end, try this practice drill: Put the triangle on the table where the rack of 14 balls would be. Put a break ball about 6 inches from the side of the rack. Set up an easy shot anywhere else on the table to represent the key ball. Practice making the key ball and getting perfect position for the break ball. Precision is the key.

Thorsten

HALL OF FAMER JERRY BRIESATH ON COACHING

Get

+ What’s the ﬁrst thing you analyze when assessing a player? The pre-shot routine. I can tell a lot about a player’s skill level by watching how he or she locks the chin on the shot line, steps into the shot and slides the tip up to the cue ball. The better the player, the more careful the process.

17September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

— Two-time

On the Spot

”

What A Drag

In Billiard Congress of America Hall of Famer Ray Martin’s 1977 book, “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool, Martin refers to the “Draw Drag,” emphasizing that it is “one of the most critical shots in pool.” Martin refers to angled shots with distance between the cue ball and object ball on which you need to make the cue ball come to a stop quickly. “If you strike the cue ball too slowly,” Martin writes, “it can roll off your line of aim. Too hard and you can’t stop it in time.” Martin’s solution is to apply draw with a speed that will allow the draw to stop just as it contacts the object ball. TALK GEORGE FELS HELPS YOU RUN 100 You a winner keeping shots and simple.patterns World 9-Ball pion Hohmann

GURU

“

I recently watched a bar table 9-ball tournament and a player had ball in hand with the only 7, 8 and 9 on the table, as shown in Diagram One. The in coming player placed the cue ball in the center of the table and promptly came up short of ideal position (C-1). From here his only option is a very thin cut and not a lot of cue ball control.

HANDOUTS

Another game from this tournament with three balls remaining is shown in Diagram Two. You can see that the ﬁrst shot on the 7 ball is at the wrong angle. The balls are lined up to the left side of pocket B (dotted line). You’d prefer to be on the left side of the 8 so that you could draw back slightly for position C-1, which offers a clean shot on the 9 in pocket B. To get position on the 8, you have to soft spin the 7 with low left English to hold position for the 8, ideally at C-2. In this case, the player hit the 7 ﬁrm and ended up going too far to C-3. Now, cut ting the 8 ball will take the cue ball in the wrong direction. One option would be to cut the 8 in softly with low left English to stop the cue ball as quickly as possible. If you’re lucky, you’d end up no worse than straight on with the 9 ball, offering a steep but makable cut to pocket B. However, the player attempted to use follow, going to the top rail and back down for the 9. Instead, he ended up with the cue ball on the top rail, leaving the toughest shot on the 9 he could. Sometimes it’s better to just keep things simple.

Making ball-in-hand decisions is trickier than it may appear. Two

ACCEPTING

That said, the cue ball position I actu ally prefer here is C-4. From there, you are much closer to the 7, which makes the contact point much less trouble some. It’s easy to fall on C-2 position from here. Pocket F is still a scratch threat, but you should be able to control that easier from C-4.

18 O NE COMMON ball-in-hand discussion in rotation games concerns options when the lowest-numbered object ball is very close to a corner pocket. These decisions are a little trickier than you may think, and they require a closer look before simply placing the cue ball and ﬁring away.

One note of caution: Don’t try to fall on the opposite long rail between the 8 and the side pocket. The margin for er ror is much smaller because the position zone is not as large.

BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 BY Nick Varner + STRATEGIES + B C EDFA C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4 B C EDFA C-1C-2C-3 Diagram One Diagram

Ideally, you’d like to be up around C-2, but it’s hard to get a thin enough cut on the 7 ball from the original cue ball po sition to reach that ideal area. To get to ideal position, the contact point on the 7 needs to be very thin. The main source of the problem with this shot is that the 7 is not deep enough into the pocket to allow for a thin cut without the possibil ity of overcutting and missing the shot. Placing the cue ball closer to the long rail (C-3) is a decent option. From here, it is much easier to get the cue ball above the 8 to a better position. The only draw back to shooting from C-3 is that the speed will be faster because of the thin hit, and that brings pocket F into play for a potential scratch. (Note: Lefthand ers will have an easier time controlling the cue ball on this shot because they can move the cue ball much closer to the 7 along that long rail.)

Knowledge

Now take a look at Diagram Two. You are solids. What do you see? You should immediately notice that the 8 has no pocket because it is resting against the 15 ball. You should also notice that the 7 ball in pocket C offers the easiest shot. But does that shot address your problem with the 8 ball? If you choose instead to open with the 4 ball in pocket A, the cue ball will follow a natural path into the 8 and 15 balls, gently separating them from one another. Again, focus and being able to visualize the paths of the balls will be a huge beneﬁt. Of course, no matter how well you visualize ball motion, bumping a cluster doesn’t always leave the exact results you anticipated. What makes this shot less risky is that the 6 ball, sitting close to pocket B, offers a bailout ball. From the 6, you can come up for the 7 ball in either pocket C or D, depending on where the 8 landed after your initial shot.

BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 + SOLIDS & STRIPES + BY Larry Schwartz B C EDFBA C EDFA Diagram One Diagram Two

NICE BUMPING INTO YOU and focus will lead you to opportunities and success.

A PLAYER can practice eight hours a day, but without proper knowledge and determined focus, he will ﬁnd very little improvement in his game. Like all endeavors in life, knowledge is the springboard to success. A player’s ability to successfully gather and apply knowledge should be never-ending. Of course, it also requires an open mind. And the opportunities to absorb new ideas are endless: videos, live events, books, personal lessons and more.

In addition to knowledge, of course, focus is critical in pool and isn’t discussed nearly as much as it should be. It’s easy to get out of line or miss a shot if you don’t carry the same laser focus into every trip to the table. Focus includes your strategy for the entire layout. Whenever I think of the perfect example of focus in action, I think of Efren Reyes. Even when he is merely practicing, it is next to impossible to break his focus or distract him. One of the things Efren always does is use object balls on the table to improve his chances of running out or preventing his opponent from doing so. Between his vast knowledge and his focus, Efren knows well ahead of time the motion and paths of the balls involved in each shot. He can visualize exactly how the balls are going to react based on contact and speed. Give a quick look at the layout in Diagram One. You have stripes. Your opening shot is the 11 ball in pocket B. If you examine the layout, you can see that the best way to follow up your shot on the 11 is to roll slightly forward for the 14 in pocket F. Speed is important here because you want to keep some angle on the 14, which will allow you to gently nudge the 5 ball. That little bump will stop the cue ball and give you perfect position for the 9 ball in pocket B. When pocketing the 9, simply stop the cue ball for position on the 13 in pocket A. The slight angle on the 13 should allow the cue ball to travel off the bottom rail and straight back up table for a fairly easy shot on the game-winning 8 ball in pocket E. The key shot in this run-out was bumping the 5 ball as a way to control the path of the cue ball. Did you see that in your initial assessment of the layout?

22 O CCASIONALLY, I get really creative and invent a drill that will challenge me. I made up this month’s drill recently and fell in love with it straight away. I call it the 16 Shot, Double Diamond 9-Ball Chain Drill. It’s difﬁcult, but there are two versions so everyone can have a go at it. This drill has a bit of everything, even a touch of snooker style. It fo cuses on playing shape for the key ball (the 9) but still thinking two or three shots ahead each time. Like all good drills, this will help with all as pects of your game — using the rails, pattern play, options, speed control.

The rules are that you shoot the 1-9 in rotation, and you can shoot them into any pocket. The kicker is that af ter making the lowest ball each time, you must shoot the 9. You then respot the 9 and shoot the next-lowest ball on the table. So, you shoot the 1, then the 9. Re-spot the 9 and shoot the 2, then the 9 again, and so on.

The drill is 16 shots in all. If this proves too challenging, you can choose any ball ﬁrst, but you must still shoot the 9 with your next shot. Either way, you can’t bump other balls.The shots don’t get any easier (par ticularly from the 4 to the 9 and the 9 to the 5 because you change sides of the table), so you must maintain focus and concentration throughout this drill. Your creativity will be tested if you do get a little out of line and need to ﬁnd a way to get back in posi tion.It’s an easy drill to set up, as indi cated in Diagram One. Starting with ball in hand, leave a nice angle on the 1 ball for a natural path to the 9 ball. Stay above the 9 to offer a natural path toward the 2. With the 1 gone and the 9 re-spotted, follow two rails off the 2 ball for position on the 9. Soft draw will get you from the 9 to the 3 ball (Diagram Two). Follow two

A new drill that offers a great challenge.

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 + PERFECT PRACTICE + BY Darren Appleton Diagram One Diagram Two Diagram Three

rails off the 3 ball. There are a number of options on the 9 here, but I would make the posi tion from the 4 to the 9 as easy as pos sible. This is the shot you need to be near-perfect on because the key shot to this drill will be shape on the 5 ball. I would try to get almost straight on the 4 ball (Diagram Three) just to make certain you get on the right side of the 9. If you happen to land on the 9 as shown in the diagram, congratula tions! The next shot would be just about feel and judging the speed. If you have a half-ball cut on the 5 ball, use the same shot you played on the 1 ball to get back to the center of the table for the 9. If the angle is bigger, you probably need to go three rails around the table. If you’ve gained the position from the 5 to the 9 as shown in the dia gram, you’re well on your way home. As long as you’re close to the 9 ball, you can more or less repeat the same pattern as you used from the 1 to the 4 Fromballs. the 9, try to keep up table and close to the 9 ball position for your next shot on the 6. Again, two rails with follow will do the trick, more or less repeating the same pattern as the 1-4 diamond chain. For the 9 ball, staying close to your work will always make life easier and the balls less missable. Use two rails with follow on the 7 ball. If you can gain position on the 9, you’re getting close to the finish line. One more decent positional finish on the 9 ball and you’re home free. Don’t lose focus on the 8 ball. Keep it simple. Remember, any pocket for that final 9 will do.

If you use the Level 2 version of this drill, you would do well to still take the 1 ball as your ﬁrst shot because it clears the cue ball’s path for the outer balls in the diamond. This version is a great starter option and will still build your game and give you the conﬁ dence to eventually attack Version 1. This is a tricky little drill for sure, but a fun one. It’s easy to set up and it will help you improve every aspect of your game, including your mental game. It has everything you need in a drill without being crazy hard. Enjoy.

BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 + TECH TALK + BY Bob Jewett B C EDFA Cue Ball Path 30CutDegreeAngle 30CutDegreeAngle Ghost Ball Object Ball Path B C EDFA Shot A Shot B 45 Degree Cut 15 Degree Cut Diagram One Diagram Two

24 ONE PROBLEM with trying to teach new players after playing for 60 years myself is that I forget how many obvious (to me) things the student doesn’t know. Like what a “cut angle” is. This was brought home to me recently during two lessons. Each of the students is quite capable of run ning out a rack but neither was familiar with that term. When I realized that, I had to back up and go over territory I thought was already under the students’ control. I suppose you could argue that because pool is a visual and physical game, you don’t need words and concepts to learn it. It would be an inter esting experiment to teach a student with out speaking -- just show the student a shot and have them shoot it until they make it. If you try this, let me know how it goes. In the mean time, I’ll try to do bet ter with the traditional verbal stuff by making sure we have a com mon vocabulary. I’m going to start with re ally basic stuff just to make sure we’re talking and thinking about the same thing.Sowhat is a cut angle? First, a little bit of geometry: What is an angle? A good way to deﬁne an angle is the difference in direction of two straight paths. If you’re driving north and you start go ing east, you just made a 90-degree turn to the right. If you made a smaller turn to go northeast, that was a 45-degree turn. Usually in geometry, angles are associated with corners of triangles or rectangles or such, but an angle occurs between any two straight lines. In turn, a line is determined by two points. In Diagram One is a shot with the 1 ball on the spot and the cue ball in the kitchen. This is set up to be a half-ball shot -- the center of the cue ball is sent directly at the edge of the object ball. ESSENTIAL ANGLES

A little geometry isn’t going to kill you.

Also shown is the ghost ball, which is the hoped-for future location of the cue ball. The two lines that surround the cut angle are the path of the object ball to the pocket, and the path of the cue ball to the object ball. To complete the geometric requirements, note that the object ball path line is between the cen ter of the object ball and the center of the pocket. Similarly, the cue ball line is determined by its center at the start of the shot and the center of the ghost ball.Note that two cut angles are marked. One is on the cue ball side of the shot and the other is on the pocket side of the shot. Geometry (or a little think ing) tells us that the two angles are the same and, in the case of a half-ball shot, are 30 degrees. For this particular shot, I think it is easier to judge the angle from the cue ball’s side. Often you will see the shooter walk over to look along the object ball’s path to the pocket and then come back to the cue ball’s path toTheshoot.half-ball or 30-degree cut shot is essential to know. If you are just learn ing to cut balls, it provides a reference shot that’s sort of in the middle of the whole range of cut shots. It provides a shot that has a clear target: the edge of the object ball. Shots that are close to 30 degrees of cut can be estimated relative to this standard. Beyond that, this cut is the foundation of the 30-degree rule that gives the angle the cue ball is de ﬂected by for a wide range of cuts close to

The last reference shot with a standard cut angle is in Shot B. The object ball has its edge even with the ﬁrst diamond from the corner pocket. The cue ball line is from the center of the ghost ball to the center diamond of the end cush ion. The cut angle is 15 degrees and the fullness of the hit is very close to threequarters ball. This means that if the cue ball line is extended through the object ball, it will pass half way from the cen ter to the edge of the ball. If you are having trouble with aiming, try working with these shots until you can recognize them pretty well in a va riety of situations. On each shot, make sure that you stand along the object ball line and then the cue ball line to get a feeling for how much the angle or direction change is. A training aid that works very well is to place an extra ball along the cue ball line beyond the ghost ball. That will give you a target you can shoot straight at (full ball hit) to get the right contact on the object ball. If you want to work on other angles including knowing the value of any particular cut angle, you’ll want to get a protractor, something you probably haven’t seen since high school. There is no need to spend money on one as Dr. Dave has several PDFs on his website that you can print on paper. Just go to Resources / Instructor and Student Re sources / Templates and Diagrams. If you have trouble ﬁnding that, send me email and I’ll mail one back.

BY Bob Jewett

A few more geometric observations: You can see that the cut angle is 45 degrees because the path of the object ball divides the right angle of the rails at pocket P into two equal angles. Since the path of the cue ball is parallel to the long cushions, it also has to cross the object ball path with a 45-degree angle. Remember that “parallel” for two lines means that they never meet when ex tended to inﬁnity, and so they are in the same direction but shifted sideways. Two lines that are parallel will make the same angle with some other line that crosses both of them.

26 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

Thethis.spot shot shown is easy to set up to get practice with this angle. As long as the cue ball is anywhere along the line shown, between the ghost ball and the short-rail point of the corner pock et, the shot is a half-ball, 30-degree cut angle.Two other reference cut angles for you to practice are in Diagram Two. Shot A is for a cut of exactly 45 degrees. In this case, it is the ghost ball that is on the spot. With the cue ball on the head spot, the path of the cue ball is straight up the center of the table. The contact on the object ball is close to a quarterball hit so this shot can be used like the one above to get an accurate feeling for how full to hit the object ball for a particular cut angle. “Quarter-ball hit” means that if you visualize the overlap of the cue ball and the object ball as the cue ball travels down the table, that will be a quarter of each ball.

+ TECH TALK +

BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 + ILLUSTRATED PRINCIPLES +

LAW & ORDER

Image 1 Image 2

28 [Note: Supporting narrated video (NV) demonstrations, high-speed video (HSV) clips, technical proofs (TP) and all of my past “Illustrated Princi ples” columns can be accessed and viewed online at billiards. colostate.edu. The reference numbers used in the articles help you locate the resources on the website.]

Image 3 shows an example where

45-Degree Rule

BY David Alciatore Ph.D.

CB Fouls Only For unrefereed matches common in pool leagues, the WPA recommends calling CB fouls only. If a player touches or moves an OB by accident and the moved ball doesn’t affect the outcome of the shot, the opponent has the option of leaving the moved ball where it ends up or returning it as close as possible to the original position. The VNEA does follow the ofﬁcial rules on this one.

IDEMONSTRATED several issues with current pool league rules in a recent online video (NV J.125). The biggest problem is that every league has a different set of rules. Wouldn’t it be nice if every body would just use the same “ofﬁcial rules of pool,” as published by the World PoolBilliard Association (WPA)? In the video, and in this col umn, I discuss some of the rule differences and recom mend a few changes.

First, let’s cover the rule that bugs me the most—the VNEA frozen cue ball (CB) “push shot” rule. Under VNEA rules, you are required to hit the CB at an angle (to the side or vertically) of at least 45 degrees. Otherwise, the shot is considered a push shot foul. In Image 1, the CB is frozen to the 11 and I plan to pocket the 13 in the corner. This shot is a foul under VNEA rules unless the cue is elevated 45 degrees or more. Un der the WPA official rules of pool, you are allowed to hit into a frozen CB be cause it does not involve a double hit or a push. The shot might feel differ ent, but it is definitely not a push shot. The VNEA should get rid of this seem ingly arbitrary rule. It makes no sense, it serves no useful purpose, and it has manyFirst,problems.theshot is legal under the offi cial rules of pool—and we should stick to the official rules whenever possible. As the super-slow-motion clips in my video clearly show, the shot is not a double hit or a push, so it should not be defined as a push shot. Elevating at 45 degrees does not change the action of the shot at all. As I also demonstrate in the video, the action and outcome of the shot is no different whether the cue is level or elevated. Why should a levelcue shot be a foul and an elevated-cue shot be legal if the action and outcome of both shots are identical?

The action of the shot is also no dif ferent for various horizontal angles. The CB heads forward of the tangent line at angles much smaller than 45 de grees. And the CB still heads forward of the tangent line at angles much larger than 45 degrees. The action of the shot is certainly no different for an angle a little less than 45 degrees as compared to an angle a little more than 45 degrees. So why should one of these shots be a foul and the other not? The choice of 45 degrees for the angle is totally arbitrary.Also,if elevating the cue in stead of angling it horizontal ly, 45 degrees is a much bigger angle than most players and refs think, so most people are not at the presscribed angle when they think they are. In Image 2, look how high the cue needs to be elevated to make sure the angle is more than 45 degrees. This is much higher than most players and refs think is required to satisfy the VNEA rule. And what if the player changes the angle of the cue during the stroke? If the cue was at 45 degrees before the stroke, but the an gle of the cue is less than that when the tip hit the CB, is that a foul? Many people drop their elbow and change the angle of the cue during an el evated-cue stroke, so this is a concern. Again, VNEA, please get rid of this ap parently arbitrary and problematic rule. There will be far fewer misunderstand ings and disagreements, and nothing will need to be judged if we instead fol low the “ofﬁcial rules of pool” and al low a hit into a frozen CB because it is not a double hit or push shot.

A rule’s a rule, but pool should rethink a few of them along the way.

Wrap Up League rules should be written likeWethis:follow the WPA Ofﬁcial Rules of Pool.Ifyou must have exceptions, you can list them concisely, but you don’t need to rewrite all the rules. The WPA rules and regulations are complete and de tailed. They are written by people who know how to write rules, and they are well-tested and used worldwide. Also, any referee could then work in any league or tournament sponsored by any organization without needing to learn speciﬁc rule differences. Why can’t ev erybody just use the same rules instead of making up silly stuff? I personally like the changes the CSI/ BCAPL/USAPL system has made, and I hope the WPA and all other league sys tems eventually embrace these improve ments. Some of the APA and VNEA special rules are just plain ridiculous and should be eliminated, in my opin ion. Please try to convince your local league operators to contact the national organiza tions to get things changed. If enough people request im provements, maybe the orga nizations will listen.

David Alciatore is a PBIA Master Instructor, dean of the Billiard University and author of the book, “The Illustrated Principles of Pool and Bil liards,” and numerous instruc tional video series, all avail able at: DrDaveBilliards.com.

I am pocketing the 11 but touch the 13 with the cue af ter the hit. Under most rule sets, including the WPA offi cial rules, this would not be a foul when playing under CB-fouls-only rules. If I un intentionally move 13 with the cue during the shot, my opponent has the option to leave the 13 where it ends up or return it to its original position. One problem with this is it can be difficult to know exactly where the ball was originally. My unscrupu lous opponent might move it back to where they “thought” it was in a way that makes the next shot very difficult or impossible—but maybe I deserve it since I wasn’t very careful and hit a ball I should not.For jump and massé shots, enforcing CB fouls only can be a little tricky. Im age 4 shows a routine jump shot for the win. As demonstrated in the video, the shot is an obvious foul if the CB hits the 11 first instead of the 8. But what if the 11 moved forward accidentally by the shaft after the 11 is cleared by the CB. Again, under WPA CB-foulsonly rules, this would not be a foul and you would win the game. This type of shot can be very difficult to judge, it can cause disagreements and hostility, and it just doesn’t seem right to move the ball you’re attempting to jump over.

30 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

Open Table Under the official rules of pool, the table is open after the break, meaning you can hit any stripe or solid, but you are not allowed to hit the 8 first. You should not be al lowed to hit the game ball first at any time during the game unless you are on it. Most leagues and tourna ments follow this rule. However, under VNEA rules, you are allowed to hit the 8 first in a combination shot when the table is open. Image 5 shows an exam ple after the break where the 8-7 combo would be a good starting shot in VNEA. This VNEA-specific rule is a bit ridicu lous, and it should be removed. Again, please follow the official rules of pool like most people do, including all the other major league systems. Marking the 8 Under the official rules of pool, the 8-ball shot is treated the same as any shot. You don’t need to call the pocket if the shot is obvious. In APA and VNEA leagues, you are required to place a marker close to the pocket where you intend to pocket the 8. If the marker were somewhere else on the table, may be from the previous game, and you forgot to move it to the intended pocket for the 8, you would lose. This is just silly and can only cause hos tility and bad feelings. As with any other shot, if the pocket is obvious, no call or marker should be required. Losing a game and maybe a match by not marking a short, straightin shot on the 8 is a terrible thing. Nobody (except a real jerk) wants to win like this, and this rule can only cause disappointment. Leagues should be fun, not demoraliz ing. Please get rid of the mark ing or patching rule and use the official rules of pool.

BY David Alciatore Ph.D.

Image 3 ImageImage45 + ILLUSTRATED PRINCIPLES +

The CSI/BCAPL/USAPL league system has made an improvement to its rules to address this issue. If you are trying to jump over or massé around an obstacle ball, that obstacle ball should not move. Period. If it does, the shot is a foul. This makes it a lot easier to see and call a foul, and there is no potential for disagreements or bad feel ings. I really like the CSI CBfouls-only rule modiﬁcation. Hopefully, the WPA and nonCSI league systems will also pick up on this good idea.

Last month, the 22-year-old Chen trekked outside Asia to Red Deer, Alberta, to compete in Predator’s Canada Open, the third women’s 10-ball tournament of the year and second in North America produced by the equipment manufacturer.

By Keith Paradise Photos by Matt Porinsky

After opening the 44-player, doubleelimination event by breezing past rising junior star Savannah Easton 4-0, 4-0, the 2018 Junior World 9-Ball Champion met Fisher with a slot in the single-elimination round-of-16 on the line. She secured the ﬁrst set, 4-2, but the Brit battled back in the second and earned a 4-2 victory of her own to send the match to extra frame penalty shots.

Awaiting Fisher in the round of 16 was top seed and fellow The return of lady Taiwanese players made an immediate impact, with Chia Hua Chen topping Allison Fisher to claim the Predator Canada Open.

32 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

T HERE HAVE been a lot of changes across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the most noticeable difference in professional pool has been the hiatus of players traveling to events from Chinese Taipei due to government restrictions, especially female players like Siming Chen, Han Yu and Chia Hua “Amber” Chen.

PREDATOR CANADA OPEN

Chen pocketed ﬁve balls to Fisher’s four to advance and send her competitor to the one-loss side of the bracket, where Fisher defeated Stephanie Mitchell and Maryann McConnell in straight sets to secure a spot in the single elimination phase.

LITTLEBIGSHOT

Chen, whose highest previous finish was fi fth place at the 2017 Women’s World 9-Ball Championship, took advantage of a crucial miss by Fisher in the finals, then used some sharp shooting to hang on at the end.

Chen held her nerve in consecutive shootouts to claim her ﬁrst title.

Allison won the battle of Fishers to reach the ﬁnal, but fell in the shoot-out.

“I cannot believe it,” said Chen through her interpreter, Hong Kong pro Robbie Capito. “This is my ﬁrst international tournament after the pandemic, so I didn’t expect much, so I am very happy with the win.”

Chen made the most of her experience, surviving two sudden death shootouts against Billiard Congress of America Hall of Famer Allison Fisher — including one in the championship — to earn the title.

Hall of Famer Kelly Fisher, the World Games gold medalist who has been gobbling up tournament titles left and right in the last year. Allison claimed the first set, 4-3, but Kelly rallied to force a shootout with a 4-2 victory. Kelly missed the first spot shot and Al lison took advantage, pocketing four straight to secure the win and advance to the semifinals. Fisher earned a trip to the finals with straight set wins over Kyoto Sone and Kristina Zlaveta. Meanwhile, Chen also continued to advance with straight set wins over Ta mani Okuda and Sara Rocha to reach the semifinals and play for the chance to re match against Fisher in the finals. After shut ting out fellow Taiwan ese player Meng-Hsia “Bean” Hung in the first set of the semifinals, Hung squeaked out a 4-3 win to send the match to spot shots. Chen won the shoot-out by pocket ing three straight shots while Hung failed to pocket her first three at tempts.Six-time U.S. Open 9-Ball Champion Fisher jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage thanks to a victorious safety exchange and a breakand-run, and appeared to be positioned to add a third win but missed a makeable 6-ball in the corner pocket. Chen capitalized, clearing the table to climb onto the scoreboard, then mixing in a break-and-run to tie the match. Fisher had a chance to regain the lead when Chen failed to pocket a ball on the break but again missed the 6 ball, allowing Chen to climb ahead, 3-2. The normally unflappable Tai wanese star appeared to have the race-to-four set secured but missed a routine 10-ball in the corner pocket. Facing a sharp cut shot, Fisher opted to play a safety, sending the cue ball down table from the object ball. Chen redeemed herself, executing a tablelength bank to seal the win, 4-2, rais ing her arms in triumph after the win ning shot fell. The second set was all Fisher, who used a foul by her opponent after a safety to win the first rack then ex ecuted a combination shot on the 10 ball to add to the lead. Another victori ous safety and a missed jump shot by Chen allowed her to close out the set, 4-0, and send the match to a sudden death shoot-out. Fisher struggled in the extra frame, missing the first spot shot while Chen pocketed three in a row. When Chen missed on her fourth at tempt, Fisher had a chance to extend the extra frame but missed for a second time.Chen didn’t realize the match was over until Fisher extended her hand in con cession. Stunned, Chen covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes like saucers.

ROCHEFORTVINCENTBYPHOTO

“I thought I still had to shoot,” Chen admitted. It wasn’t until referee John Leyman congratulat ed her that Chen realized she’d won the title and the $18,000 top prize. Hung (above) and Zlaveta (right) made it three newcomers in the ﬁnal four. Just 22, Chen showed that the return of Asian stars will by impactful.

PREDATOR CANADA OPEN 34 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

By Keith Paradise Gorst and Tkach patiently bided their time during their ban, but are chomping at the bit to return to big-event action.

“I grew up with this lifestyle, going from tournament to tournament,” she said. “It’s addicting and when you don’t have it you feel like something

BANNEDONTHERUN With the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes in pool lifted in late June, Fedor Gorst, Kristina Tkach and Margaret Feﬁlova Styer are chomping at the bit to return to action.

A FTER NEARLY six months away from the game, Margaret Fefilova Styer wasn’t about to waste another minute. In early March, the 24-year-old from Belarus was banned by the World Pool and Billiard Association from competing in WPA-sanctioned tournaments due to her home country aiding Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. Five months later, the WPA reversed its ruling after a meeting of organization officials at the World Games in Birmingham, Ala. – an event that, coincidentally, she was scheduled to compete in before the prohibition and still traveled to with her new husband, three-time United States Mosconi Cup team member Tyler Styer, who competed in the 16-player men’s 9-ballNowcompetition.thetwoofthem were driving 12 hours home to Wisconsin and she was calling Women’s Professional Billiards Association board members as well as organization President Dean Roessler to try and secure a spot in the following weekend’s Soaring Eagles Masters in Michigan. The 48-player event was initially full but a late withdrawal by Monica Webb left an opening. The couple did their finest Dukes of Hazard imitation home, where they spent approximately four hours doing laundry before jumping back in the car to head to Michigan, with the first-round matches beginning in a few hours that Friday morning.

The decision to come to the States has been lucrative for Gorst, who earned ﬁrst place ﬁnishes at the Racks on the Rocks, the Brendan Crock ett memorial, the U.S. Open 10-Ball Championship in Las Vegas, the Mid west Open 10-ball open and invitation tournaments in Ohio and the 9-ball and 10-ball divisions of the Junior Nor risWhilecompetition.Gorst has already earned a reported $184,000 through July, he’s also added a whole lot of miles to a 22-year-old frame that’s already been suffering from scoliosis since he was 14 years old. Each week is a new excursion with a new ho tel and usually a new chiropractor or masseuse, ad justing his back, popping joints or giving him some exercises. The last one did an x-ray of his back and told him to on a rolledup towel for a few minutes before bed after a night of play that some times doesn’t end until the sun is on its way up.

DIONISIOERWINBYPHOTO

“Every week is different,” he said. “Even if you get used to something its going to be different in three days.”

37September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST big is missing. I missed it during those months.”Meanwhile, Russian Kristina Tkach was offered the same spot in the tour nament but declined, opting instead to look at a calendar and plan out her comeback along with counterpart, former World 9-Ball champion Fedor Gorst. The two will be returning to WPA-sanctioned tournaments in Sep tember when they compete in the open and women’s division of Predator’s first Pro Billiard Series event of autumn, the Seybert’s Michigan Open. Gorst will then travel to the U.S. Open in Atlan tic City as well as the FargoRate Ohio Open in October, while Tkach heads to Tennessee to take part in the WPBA’s Helena pointsmoney,petingandtorsbantheunderstatement.ments.”someatanymonths“Anding,”afullmonthstol,MemorialThornfeldtinBrisTenn.“ThelastfivehavebeenofpoolwithlotoftravelsaidGorst.thenextfivedon’tlookdifferent,butleastthere’sbigtournaMan,that’sanOnemonthafterWPAlifteditsoncompetifromRussiaBelaruscominthebig-ranking-events,theplayers impacted by the prohibition are looking to return to play and recover their games. The good news is they’ll have plenty of op portunities with a fall slate of tourna ments which includes three Pro Bil liard Series events; the U.S. Open Pool Championship, the International Open and four WPBA-sanctioned events. The lifted ban also allows the players to at least get one piece of their normal lives as professional competitors back, with exiled players having to improvise, not just how they earned their livelihood, but also how they lived their lives thanks to the ongoing war in Ukraine and its fallout. For Gorst and Tkach, the origi nal plan was to leave Russia for two weeks in February for the EuroTour’s Dynamic Table Lasko Open and the European Championships then head home before traveling to Las Vegas for the World 10-Ball Championships. On February 24, two days before the Eu roTour event was scheduled to begin, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Gorst finished ninth and was preparing to compete in the Championships when the International Olympic Committee issued the recommendation that ath letes from Russia and Belarus, which was aiding in the invasion, be banned from competing in IOC-sanctioned events, which the WPA implemented shortly after the release. Rather than head home, the two made the decision to instead travel to the U.S., hoping to cash in on gambling matches and re gional bar table tournaments. They’ve spent the last five months crisscrossing the country more than a truck driver. The most recent road trip started in the second week of July when the couple drove eight hours from Louisville to Des Moines for the Midwest Billiards and Cue Expo event, then spent a few more hours behind the wheel to Peoria five days later for Racks on the Rocks tournament be fore heading to St. Louis to fly to the Brendan Crockett memorial event in Sacramento, Calif., followed by the Ju nior Norris memorial in Wichita Falls, Texas. After Gorst played Chip Comp ton in a multi-day one-pocket event in Texas, the Russian couple traveled to Minneapolis for the Hex.com tourna ments, where Gorst and Tkach took an hour to talk in their hotel room.

The two of them have also struggled to adjust to living on American food full-time, especially when they’re eat ing in pool halls a lot where deep fried foods high in calories and carbs are common or in small towns where the best food options are chain restau rants. As a result, they attempt to book Airbnb’s when they travel so there is access to a kitchen, but that’s not al ways an option in remote locations.

“Stay away from carbs,” said Tkach with a laugh. “We have to think and choose very carefully our food, mak ing sure its healthy and not too many calories.”

In the absence of WPA events, Gorst has dominated regional and bar table events.

The players began hearing rum blings in June that the ban could be lifted within weeks when the World Games concluded, and Matchroom Pool’s Chief Operating Officer Em ily Frazer had already been in contact with Gorst about allowing him to com pete even before the ban was lifted. The Russian started the year as one of the hottest players in pool, earning sec ond place at January’s Turning Stone Classic before repeating as champion of Predator’s Arcadia Arizona Open. Gorst then headed to southern Indiana and the Derby City Classic, an event he had dreamed about winning since first competing in the 11-day pool extrava ganza a few years earlier, and won the bank pool and one-pocket divisions on his way to his first-ever Master of the Table honors. By the end of February, the 22-year-old had already accumu lated $90,000 in tournament earnings and seemed well on his way to secur ing his second trip to the Mosconi Cup as a member of the European team. After a ninth-place finish at that EuroTour event in February, it’s been a spring and summer that’s been not only physically uncomfortable but frustrating and acrid at times. Sure, he’s made some nice bank on the road, but he’s done it while watching Euro pean rival Joshua Filler snag the first United Kingdom Open title as well as a gold medal at the World Games –the very same World Games that he In anticipation of her freedom, Tkach quit playing bar table events to focus on big-table prep.

“She just called me fat,” Gorst quickly replied.Theother intangible the four-time European champion Tkach has de cided to stay away from recently is the same bar table tournaments Gorst has been playing. With many of the re gional events not offering a women’s bracket, she’s been holding her own in the open division but not cashing many big checks — posting top-five finishes at the Midwest Open and Mid west Bar Table Classic. With WPBA-sanctioned tourna ments back on her calendar, she’s decided to adhere to her practice and fitness regimen in preparation for her Sep tember return.

“I feel really accepted here and I’m surrounded by great people,” she said. “I’m with the person that I love and we’re just going to make it through it and get back into my routine. The rou tine is what keeps you going.”

BANNED ON THE RUN 38 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

“It was a pretty good timing,” she said. “If we didn’t do that, I probably wouldn’t be able to leave the country afterStyerthat.”immediately took on the role of tour guide, showing her everything he’d ever wanted her to see: restau rants, state parks, landmarks, friends and family. Feﬁlova Styer maintained a strict practice and ﬁtness routine thinking she would still have a chance at competing in the World Games. The ban was announced a few days later, which tore the 2021 European 9-Ball champion’s heart in half.

“We just went from COVID and not competing for a year and now I felt like I’m in the best shape of my life poolwise,” said Feﬁlova. “And they put this ban on and I was really disappointed.” Since then, the couple has been mix ing in a steady diet of regional events, work as a tournament correspondent for Predator, sightseeing and, in June, a wedding. With the bride’s family un able to travel over for the ceremony, they opted to avoid a big wedding. Ty ler had hoped for a traditional ceremo ny with his bride-to-be’s father walk ing her down the aisle. Instead, it was just the two of them. She sent a video of the wedding back home and plans a renewal of vows in front of her family at a future date.

“I spent a lot of energy and I’m not making a lot of mon ey so I would rather spend this time practicing and get ting ready for tournaments for me,” she said. When Tkach was offered a chance at the last-minute chance to compete in the WPBA Masters she wasn’t feeling well and, after a sum mer of competing in pool room events, didn’t have the appropriate clothing for the tournament. The spot went to Feﬁlova Styer, who arrived in the country a few days be fore the Russians after also being in Slovenia for the Eu ropean Championships. She planned to travel back home for a couple of weeks after the competition before heading to the United States for three months to spend time with her ﬁancé, but when the Russian invasion occurred, Tyler offered a simple yet direct request. “Get your ass here, right now,” he said.She arrived in Chicago on February 26 having never been to the United States before. A few days later, air trav el to and from Belarus was shut down.

September 2022 was scheduled to compete in until the Ukraine invasion. Even the simple task of buying a used car, with the Russian purchasing a used Ford Edge in July, turned unpleasant — especially when he turned on the air conditioning. A mouse had found its way into the cabin air filter while it was parked on the car lot and used it as its own personal porta-john.“Itsmells like someone peed in there,” said Gorst. “We’ve already changed the air fil ter three times so, most likely, we are going to sell the car and buy something different before winter.”Ashe prepares to return to WPAranked events at this month, Gorst is as interested in seeing how he plays as some fans and fellow compet itors are. He’s spent the last five months mostly compet ing on bar tables or playing in onepocket matches and hasn’t been in a full-field professional challenge since February. Complicating matters fur ther is the fact that he won’t have much time to practice beforehand, traveling to Denver and Austin for events before heading back to friend and financial backer Jayson Sword’s home for a few days before the Michigan event. “I don’t know how my game will be when I get back because I haven’t real ly played tough players,” said Gorst. “I didn’t really plan for how I’m going to prepare for the September and October events because I’ll be playing nonstop. I guess I’ll just see what happens.”

“The thing is, we left home for the European Championship and now we are basically stuck here for a year and a half,” said Tkach. “So, it would be nice to go back and recharge and see what’s next.”Fefilova Styer also keeps in touch with her family daily and said the first thing she wants to do when her visa allows is to travel home. It’s been over five months since she’s arrived in Chi cago and might be another five until she can leave the country. She makes it a point to not think about it, but it’s a challenge to say the least.

All three remain in frequent con tact with loved ones at home and are looking forward to ﬂying back to see friends and family when the opportu nity allows – whenever that is. Gorst, who stepped in after his father sud denly died when he was a teenager and used his tournament winnings to sup port his mother and sister, talks with his family weekly. Tkach receives daily phone calls from her father.

Feﬂiova (right) got back in action in July, ﬁnishing third behind Kelly Fisher (above left) and Jasmin Ouschan (right).

Although they have the ability to play again, they still don’t have the ability to travel internationally, which means visiting with loved ones back home is off the table and could remain there for a while until some neces sary hurdles are cleared. Gorst, who is currently in the country on a regular travel visa, applied for a work visa in July. His attorney was working on submitting ﬁnancial evi dence to the United States Citizens and Immigration Services at press time and is hoping the new visa is made avail able in the next month or two. Mean while, Tkach and Feﬁlova Styer sub mitted paperwork for green cards this summer and have been told it could take between six-to-12 months to be eligible for travel abroad.

“Every day, I wake up and make a choice between getting depressed or getting up and making a choice to lead a normal life,” she said. “I choose to do that every day.”

Fefilova proved at the Masters in July that a long layover doesn’t necessar ily need to mean returning rusty. She opened with five straight victories – in cluding wins against Brittany Bryant and Jennifer Barretta – before falling in the semifinals to eventual champion Jasmin Ouschan and runner-up Kelly Fisher to finish third. “I didn’t know if I was ready but I had been working on my game in the pool room in Alabama so we took a risk,” she said. “I was very happy with my game because I was almost back to where I was before the ban started.”

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BANNED ON THE RUN 40 BILLIARDS DIGEST

Now a full-time professional, Wolford has sights set on larger hardware — namely a spot on Team USA in the Mosconi Cup, but also the type of titles that would guarantee him a spot on a ﬁve-man squad that functions as a snapshot of the national roster of talent for any given year. “At the next level, it’s about grinding and learning how to grind out games and grind out matches, if that makes any sense,” said Jeremy Jones, captain of Team USA. “Everyone runs out really well at that level, so it’s about winning games when maybe you shouldn’t and minimizing mistakes.

“[Shane] is at the start of that transition, but I think he’s handling it well so far. I expect him to only get better because he’s committed, and he’s got a track record of improving his own game.”Growing up in Roanoke, Va., with his sister, Savannah, and mom, Trina, Wolford was always close to pool. His dad, Kory, played in local tournaments — and where dad went, son wanted to follow.“IfI was playing pool, he wanted to be there next to me,” Kory Wolford said. “He wanted to be the one shooting the ball. He always wanted to be doing what the adults were doing.”

While middle-schoolers are excused and somewhat expected to cycle through interests and hobbies, Shane always kept an eye on pool. Even when he excelled on the football ﬁeld through high school, primarily as a center and long snapper who drew interest from some small college programs, pool seemed to hold his attention a bit more than other pursuits. In some ways, those around him understood he was a bit out of step with the other kids.

HEN HEARING of an athlete “entering the next phase of his career,” it’s natural to think of a quarterback moving from the backfield to the announcer’s booth. Or maybe a washed-out minor leaguer taking a job as a coach at a high school or college. Or a basketball player accepting a spot on the bench after a lifetime in the starting five. For Shane Wolford, though, his next phase means going from a fledgling professional pool player to one who demands inclusion on the short list of the best in the U.S. “I feel like I’m close to reaching that level,” said the 22-year-old burgeoning pro, while crisscrossing the Midwest with Skyler Woodward, a player who’s already in the category of America’s best. “The difference between the elite players and [the tier] below is so small. I just need to do the little things to take that next Understandingstep.” how to win in pool is a concept that Wolford understands well. At just 11 years old, in 2011, he conquered the 64-player 12-and-under division at the Super Billiards Expo, his first tournament outside the Roanoke, Va., area where he grew up. He then went on to take a total of five juniors titles at that single-elimination event in the next seven years.

By Nicholas Leider Photos by Erwin Dionisio

SHANE WOLFORD

GOT NEXT?

42 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

With the American pool scene looking for its next big star, Shane Wolford hopes to fulﬁll his promise as a player who can and will compete with the world’s best.

43September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

“I can remember the night he came home upset that [Ron] wouldn’t give him the 8,” Kory Wolford said. “Shane had won a few hundred bucks, but he said he wouldn’t ever play Ron again. He didn’t understand how that showed he was getting better. He was getting to that next level.”

While college football wasn’t in the cards — too much time away from the table, after all — Wolford headed to Bridgewater College, a small liberal arts college in Bridgewater, Va. But the responsibilities of higher education didn’t mesh with a pool player hop ing to hit as many major pool events as possible. Once COVID-19 changed everything and pushed all his classes online, Wolford moved back home where he could spend as much time as possible at the table. “With COVID and everything, I was home anyway so I decided that school really wasn’t school,” he said. “I wanted to go ahead and pursue pool with everything I had.”Bythis time, his parents had opened the Wolf’s Den in Roanoke, a pool room that allowed Shane to practice as much as he wanted on

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Dominating the Super Billiards Expo like he did, Wolford attracted in terest from the national billiards com munity. He participated in the Atlantic Cup, a juniors-level competition mod eled after the Mosconi Cup, where he was able to work with some of the best coaches in the U.S. “It was fun to be a part of that process,” he said. “We didn’t do too well [in com petition] against the Europeans, but it was exciting to be a part of a Allteam.”thewhile, Wol ford kept working at his game. He fo cused on doing the work that most play ers would avoid— instead of throwing balls out on the table, Wolford held himself to a strict practice regimen where he worked at the table for six hours a day, at the minimum. As a teenager with school and football to distract him, he continued to improve—so much so that he was left ﬂustered by losing the spot he had had with his sparring part ner Ron Frank.

Wolfordonlythingsmanyone’sequipment.professional-levelLefttoowndevices,20-somemightaimtotreadwater.Butstayeddis

While his parents ran a local watering hole, Wolford stuck to one of the pool tables in the back. Surrounded by a family full of pool play ers, he separated himself through a mix of talent and hard work. By the time he knocked off his ﬁrst title at the Super Billiards Expo in 2011, Wolford was already seen as the best player in his area.“Iﬁrst met him as a kid when he kept winning the weekly tournament [to the point] everyone gave up,” said Ron Frank, a 55-year-old veteran of the pool scene who’d become his running partner and mentor of sorts. “People stopped showing up because they were just donating to the Shane fund.”

“In some ways, Shane was never really a kid,” said Kory. “He was al ways mature for his age — always focused on his goals and more interested in what he could do.”

Wolford, shown in 2017, cut his teeth internationally on Junior Team USA.

Playing in the major international events has Wolford eyeing a coveted spot on Team USA.

“Having a mom who manages the day-to-day,” Kory said, “that’s some thing that lets Shane focus on play ing. He can keep his attention on pool knowing that he has help with the otherWithstuff.”asupport structure in place, Wolford is looking to take that next step in his career while keeping things simple.“Iknow what I’m capable of,” he said. “It’s just about making it happen.”

While only 22 years old, Wolford isn’t exempt from the real-world pres sures that his contemporaries are fac ing. Whether working a desk job for $15 an hour or traveling across Amer ica’s heartland to chase the next big score with a cue case in the backseat, economic concerns are real for every one. But Wolford has an admitted ad vantage on his contemporaries.

To get to that point, though, Wol ford will have to traverse the small but signiﬁcant gap that separates regional players from the world class. Putting in six or eight or 10 hours a day at the ta ble over the last year, he is certainly not unfamiliar with hard work. Whether that’s enough is a question that’ll be answered in the years to come.

To that end, getting to know the best the U.S. pool scene has to offer, Wol ford is always curious to learn from the folks who came before him.

“Right now, I’m on the road with Skyler,” he said. “I went to [the U.K.] with Shane when he won the world championship. … It’s great to learn things while hanging around guys like that.”For any young American pool player, the Mosconi Cup seems like the ulti mate goal. Team USA is the immediate representation of the best players of that year. While Wolford aims to rep resent his country in the transatlantic competition, that goal is more of a des tination than anything.

“I really want to win a major,” he said. “My focus is on winning the U.S. Open or a world championship. If I can do that, I’ll have to be a part of the Mosconi Cup.”

SHANE WOLFORD 44 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 ciplined and took his game to another level.“This area has some really good players, but Shane became one of the best [during COVID-19],” Frank said. “He worked on his game and worked on his fundamentals for at least a year while everything was shut down.”

With a limited pipeline of fresh tal ent, it’s easy to discount a player who raises eyebrows. But after a race-to-20 against Van Boening, where he took 15 racks when many expected fewer, Wolford proved his mettle enough for his opponent to mention to his spon sor that Wolford might just be the next great American player. “That was when I kind of realized that I might be at a different level,” he said. “I obviously go into [every match] thinking I’m going to win, but playing at that level, where I’m close to Shane Van Boening, that was different.”

“Some guys have it come natural ly — like Earl Strickland and Efren [Reyes], you know they are talented,” Kory Wolford said. “But Shane isn’t an absolute natural like that. He has to earn what he gets and that’s ﬁne. He’ll hit balls for as long as it takes.”

While the pandemic proved trou blesome in logistical senses, Wolford knocked off the Maryland bar table championship and a Q City 9-Ball tour event.With a proven track record as one of the most success ful junior players on the East Coast, Wolford relishes in the challenge of becoming the next great American. Af ter the last genera tion’s many talents like Johnny Archer, Earl Strickland, and Rodney Morris, the U.S. has classastablishedWoodwardtalenttohasShaneingwithunsuspectedlybecometightup-and-comworld-beaters.VanBoeningprovenhimselfbeagenerationalandSkylerhaseshimselfacapableworld-player,butthey are exceptions in a national landscape that’s largely barren.“The difference between world champions and the rest is so small,” Wolford said. “I know I need to play perfect all the time but that’s not pos sible. I need to play as best as I can and I think that will be enough.”

“My family is my support system,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now without the support and understanding of myToparents.”thatend, a 22-year-old hitting the road search ing for fortune and fame is a tricky prospect. But a family who under stands the situation is a “It’sbonus.ahuge thing for a young player to come from a place where his family supports him,” Jones said. “Having a smart family, a calm fam ily in your corner is a huge advantage. Shane is a good kid and it just makes sense when you look where he came from.”With parents who are supportive and understanding of what it takes to become a great pool player, Wolford also relies on his mom to help handle all the logistical concerns involved in covering entry fees, booking ﬂights, and handling expenses.

Wolford (facing Josh Filler) used the COVID-19 shutdown to hone his game.

BELGIAN DESIGN BELGIAN DISTRIBUTOR BELGIAN QUALITY CONTROL BELGIAN CUSTOMER SERVICE www.dynaspheres.com These billiard balls have an extremely smooth surface which makes sure chalk and other contaminants can be easily removed, without leaving any “shadowing”, which is typical for other Phenolic Resin Balls. Championship, LLC 840 Industrial Drive Bensenille, IL 60106 Phone: 847.677.3200 Toll Free: www.champbilliards.com800.323.2852 When it gets serious, get serious equipment!

SWEET REVENGE

46 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

Excepting Van Boening, a serial winner for whom second qualiﬁes as failure, it was a moment of considerable satisfaction for all concerned.

The gamble of Emily Frazer and her ever industrious, fully invested Matchroom team had spectacularly paid off, the latest addition to their burgeoning international portfolio had been wildly successful. Mostentitled to be super-enthused was Ouschan, at the pinnacle once again having suffered a four-month hangover of self-doubt and recrimination following his 13-6 defeat by Van Boening in the world ﬁnal, when hoping to emulate Earl Strickland as just the second player to retain the title.

Austria’s Albin Ouschan turned the tables on American Shane Van Boening at the inaugural European Open in Germany, where an altered break format made a huge impact.

It was a staggering demonstration of physical ﬁtness, resolve and stamina from a legendary sportsman who raised the bar when it came to digging deep. His trademark was a pained expression in running, as if the effort would soon overwhelm him. Of course, it never did, as it never does pool’s version of the great Zatopek.

Ouschan hardly ever displays pleasure or comfort at the table. He often scowls, grimaces, has a face like thunder but strikes like lightning. Every last ounce of his being is put into a quest for supremacy and Ouschan’s week in Fulda stood out as a prime example of that ethos.

Instead, as the trophy was proudly held aloft, as he articulated thoughts on his latest triumph, Ouschan was a spent force. Not one but back-to-back emotional rollercoasters, disguised as pool matches, had left the normally cool, take everything in his stride Austrian, running close to empty.

By Phil Yates • Photos By Taka Wu

F ULDA’S ROOTS were planted in the 8th century with Saint Sturm’s founding of a Benedictine monastery. In the 1980’s it was graced by a Papal visit yet, in a sporting sense, nothing in the town’s long history quite compared with its staging of the inaugural European Sometimes,Open. themost unforgettable events conclude with a dose of anticlimax. Even that was comprehensively swerved. Inanintense rematch of their World Pool Championship ﬁnal in April, Albin Ouschan outlasted Shane Van Boening 13-11 to collect $30,000 and commensurate ranking points on the Matchroom Nineball list.

At the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, Emil Zatopek completed his now unconscionable long distance gold medal treble in 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres and the marathon.

The seed of self-destruction was sown in the 17th rack. Out of position on the 8, He’s low percentage, thin cut punt at a pot to make amends was surely ill ad vised. Ouschan gratefully tidied up be fore duplicating for 9-9, when He’s 4-7 combination deﬁed logic by refusing to drop. The 7 was so adjacent to the pocket it seemed as though any kind of sub stantial collision with the 4 would pro pel it downwards. To He’s horror, the 7 rattled, rattled some more, and stub bornly remained on the felt. By now the pool gods were baiting He mercilessly. In potting the 1 in rack 19, he scratched. Ouschan seized the opportunity to hit the front for the ﬁrst time and, soon afterwards, ruthlessly shattered his buddy’s hopes, winning 11-9. Avisibly upset Mario beat a hasty re treat to place his fried brain in a refrigerator. One post-match stat was scarcely believ able. With the host continent gripped by an ever more alarming mid-summer drought, Ouschan’s seven dry breaks were an appro priate level of aridity. At least, he was not alone. In a bizarre en counter that at times stretched credulity, Van Boening over came the handicap

EUROPEAN OPEN

47September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

The ﬁrst international open pro event in Germany in decades received encouraging support. He’s rollercoaster week featured a decisive win over Filler (top left) and a meltdown against Ouschan (above).

From his opening con test against Sander Kont, a promising 17 year-old from Estonia, it was abundantly clear Ouschan meant busi ness. Nigh on flawless, he prevailed 9-4, then reeled off four more victories to arrive in the last 16 against Kont’s fellow countryman, Denis Grabe. Athree-time Euro Tour winner who reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 World 9-Ball Championship in Qatar - which Ouschan went on to win — Grabe is widely recognized as a dan gerous opponent and, break ing at hill-hill, was on the cusp of progress. Alas, fate mischievously intervened. Grabe unluckily scratched, Ouschan held firm to squeeze through 10-9 and, after seeing off Poland’s Konrad Juszc zyszyn 11-5, was pitted against Mario He, competing in his first semifinal at an individual event organized by Matchroom. To say they share a tight bond does not cover it. Close friends, road companions, and brothers-in-arms, they partnered Aus tria to glory at the World Cup of Pool in both 2017 and 2019. However, this year, He lost his place on the team to Max Lechner, who Ouschan beat, 10-7, in the last 32 in Fulda. Mario’s de motion from the World Cup, coupled with a natu rally burning desire to move free of Ous chan’s man9-7,6-3,leadingeveranyonethesuppliedshadow,allmotivationcouldneedand,4-0,8-5andtheburlytheycall Panda was bearing his claws. After losing 9-6 to Sebastian Bat kowski in winner’s qualification, He grew more potent with each outing. This sequence of excellence culminat ed with a surprising but fully merited 11-5 quarterfinal dismissal of Joshua Filler, the darling of a somewhat si lenced crowd. Confidence was soaring. Yet, what transpired left He crushed. It was a disintegration of the starkest kind, an amalgamation of bad luck and poor judgement as the blind panic created by the prospect of a big match slipping through his fingers led to an implosion witnessed, and empathized with, the world over.

SVB made contact, left a straightfor ward shot, and sat down as Ouschan climbed to the hill at 12-11, only to become embroiled in another duel of containment early in the 24th. Such tussles are resolved by either a mistake or inspired shot-making. As it turned out, Van Boening broke the deadlock by pulling off a cleverly con ceived, accurately struck cross double on the 3. The crowd was buzzing, hill-hill seemed guaranteed, until the dream script was ripped up. Floating a seemingly bread and but ter 5, Van Boening stunned everyone in attendance, himself included, by badly overcutting and, with only jangling nerves as a barrier, Ouschan cleared for what he immediate ly described as “sweet revenge.” When the ﬁnalists appeared on the ﬂoor for their permis sible pre-match practise, the crowd had cheerily sung ‘Hap py Birthday’ to Ouschan. Three hours later, immense accom plishment aside, he was more inclined to quietly decompress than celebrate — birthday or silverware. “Tocome through one match like that is mentally draining, let alone two in the same day,” insisted Ouschan, in the wake of capturing his second Match room title of the year, after the Premier League in February.

“They were both incredible matches, so many turnarounds and switches in momentum. That’s exactly what the new break does for you. I’m just glad it’s all over. When I reflect on this, I know I’ll be happy. Right now, I want to chill and get my head around it. One thing I do know already; No matter how long this tour nament goes on, I’ll always be the first to win “Theit.” fields are getting better all the time. To win nine matches in a row here is very pleasing and so is win ning two Matchroom events in the same year. That’s something any player would agree with, but I’m not the kind of person to settle. I want more.” From his post-final demeanour, Ouschan needed rest, but it will not be on his laurels. In com mon with Filler, his victim in the Premier League final, and Van Boening, there is no room in his make-up for easing off, for com placency, for basking in the glow of success. The elite are sustained only by constant vali dation. Having admirably leaned on cussed de termination to beat the likes of Wojciech Szewczyk (10-8), Sanjin Pehlivanovic (10-7), Mateusz Sniegocki (11-7) and Delgado in the single elimination phase, all despite Delgado was Spain’s unlikely addition to the final four. Grabe (above) took the eventual champion to the hill, but scratched on the break, much to Ouschan’s suprise (left).

EUROPEAN OPEN 48 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 of five scratches on his break, and a further two dry breaks, to beat Spain’s Jose Alberto Del gado, the tournament’s surprise package, 11-8. Up 6-3 in the final, fueled by consecutive break and runouts, it appeared customary Van Boening efficiency had been restored but the bumper crowd packing the bleachers could not stifle a collective gasp when the five-time US Open champion erred with the tenth rack almost under wraps. In potting the 7, Van Boen ing was guilty of an unexpected miscalculation given his gen eral brilliance. Instead of be ing up table on the 8, the white lodged in the jaws of a corner pocket. His misplayed safety subsequently left the 8, and on his 32nd birthday, Ouschan accepted the gift. Van Boening trod a similar path in the 13th rack. By his standards an ex traordinarily clumsy attempt at shape on the 3 was compounded by an in effective safety, allowing Ouschan to pick up the pieces and cut his deficit to Off7-6. the boil and trailing 9-7, resil ience was by now vital for Van Boen ing and he duly delivered. Two break and run outs and an intricate clear ance from Ouschan’s dry break in the 22nd rack transported the pride of Sioux Falls, South Dakota all square up at 11-11. That, though, was as good as it Renownedgot. for tactical acumen and clarity of shot choice when thrust into the most pressurized of circumstance, Ouschan laid a troublesome hook on the 4 in a 23rd rack, both absorbing and disjointed.

triumph for the prodigal son were kept alive by his sub sequent 8-2 victories over Muhummed Daydat (South Africa) and Antonis Brabin (Cyprus), before he edged Rat tapol Sussman (Thailand) 8-7, generat ing thunderous applause from a large, supportive audience. Yet, it ended there as, in unceremo nious fashion, Hohmann was white washed 9-0 by Karol Skowerski, the 2012 World Masters champion from Poland, in the loser’s qualification round. Themuch-debated, consulted-upon, change in break ethos championed and installed by Matchroom, was greeted by nigh on universal approval among the players, who voiced only one col lective wish – consistency going for ward. Introducing a break-box together with placing the 9-ball on the spot was designed to stifle repetition and promote less predictable racks. Rather than the emergence of a discernible pattern of play, the lay of the balls, post-break, often proved cerebrally challeng ing. According to plan, the in cidence of break and run outs was lessened, sharper imagi nation and tactical vision be came a Workingprerequisite. onthe entirely reasonable premise that greater variables boost spec tator and television viewer engagement, in tandem with aiding the survival of the fit test, the break alterations were undoubtedly fit for pur pose. Attournament’s end, no de cision had been announced by Matchroom regarding the break format at their future events, the fast-approaching US Open being fore most in everyone’s minds. Even so, overall vibes suggested the template established in Fulda is here to stay. Ouschan definitely had no com plaints. Birthday boy Ouschan had his cake and ate it too in Fulda.

A man of few, well-cho sen words, Van Boening summed it up succinctly: “The pressure hit. That’s the way it is in pool. You can’t play perfectly all the time.” Inherently true as that may be, it will not stop himJustiﬁably,trying.

much was made of Thorsten Hohmann’s journey back to the sleepy town in central Ger many where he was born and raised. The double world 9-ball champion, a long-time US resident, now lives in New York City but clearly relished go ingFuldahome. was the place where, as a wide-eyed nine-year-old, Hohmann ﬁrst visited a lo cal pool hall with his father. A year later, his parents bought him a miniature ta ble and, right there, his life was molded. It was on Hohmann’s farsighted recommendation that Matchroom investi gated the viability of the Esperanto Hotel and Con ference Centre as a possible venue. For supplying such a far-sighted lead, Hohmann’s impact on the event was hugelySadly,signiﬁcant. though, that did not extend to the BCA Hall of Famer’s exploits on table. Given the honour of play ing the opening match on the stream ing service, Hohmann lost 9-4 to Sen harip Azar, a little known 48-year-old fromHopesSweden. ofastorybook

Van Boening chased down Ouschan in the ﬁnale, but faltered with a chance to force a decider.

EUROPEAN OPEN 50 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022 being unable to solve the mystery of the break, most players would report posi tiveNotenergy. the win-or-nothing victory machine that is Van Boening, who by pocketing $15,000 at least expanded his lead over Filler at the apex of the Nine-Ball rank ing. Ouschan rose to third, signiﬁcantly upgrading his already bright Mosconi Cup selection outlook.

T HE MONTH of August was ablaze with stories that the most valu able baseball card on earth was about to be auctioned. At this writing, a 1952 Mickey Mantle card in near-perfect condition was expected to fetch $10 million at the end of the month (Fig. 1). The owner snagged it for a mere $50,000 in 1991. If the card reaches its estimate, his investment will have increased at a compounded annual growth rate of 18.6%, even more than credit card companies charge. So if he charged it in 1991 and didn’t pay a cent until now, he’d still have a proﬁt. I’m telling you all this for two reasons: (1) I had one of the Mantle cards as a child, but my mother threw out my whole baseball card collection one day, which is why I now have to work for a living; and (2) the Billiard Archive has about 3600 billiard cards, which will not be thrown out. I don’t suppose any of them will reach Mantle heights, but hope springs eter nal.There are many different kinds of cards having a billiard theme: business, cigarette, gift, greeting, membership, phone, playing, postcard, room, trade cards and more. Postcards are the most numerous, but we won’t talk about themTradehere.cards were a form of business card, but usually larger than current ones, and often well-illustrated. The J.M. Brunswick & Balke Co., which lat er became Brunswick-Balke-Collender, began distributing lithographed trade cards in the 1870s. Most of them are now very scarce. I’m only aware of one example of the card in Fig. 2. By the 1880s, cigarette manufacturers began adding cards featuring athletes to their cigarette packs. The original pur pose of the card was to provide a stiff support to prevent the pack from bend ing and damaging the contents. The cards were also a convenient form of advertising. They became so popular as collectibles that boys would sometimes station themselves outside a tobacco store and ask purchasers to give them the cards from the packs they had just bought.Afterthis, there was a race to issue bil liard cards. The ﬁrst billiard cigarette cards came from W.S. Kimball & Co. in the 1887 series “Champions of Games and Sport.” There were two billiard players in the set: the very famous Jacob Schaefer, Sr. and someone whose name has faded into history – one Joseph Morsler, presented as a “Champion Pool Player” (Fig. 3). Now, you know I have access to a tremendous amount of historical billiard material, but I had never heard of any player by that name, let alone a champion. For this article, I checked databases containing over By Mike Shamos

THE HISTORY OF COLLECTIBLE BILLIARD CARDS CARDS MAY NOT BE AS VALUABLE AS THEIR BASEBALL COUSINS, BUT THEY SHED LIGHT ON THE POPULARITY OF THE GAME.

BILLIARD

1. This 1952 Mantle card is valued at $10 million. 2. This Brunswick & Balke trade card from the 1870s is very scarce.

CHRONICLES

52 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

To encourage people to col lect, which required buying cigarettes, Ogden’s published an album in which to paste the cards (Fig. 10). How many cigarette packs do you have to buy, on average, to collect 50 different cards, assuming the chance of getting a particular card is 1 in 50 (that is, they’re all equally distributed)? The math behind this is quite pret ty, and the answer is 225. If you’re interested, look up the “coupon collector’s problem” on Google. You can ﬁnd vid eos of Newman-Mond dem onstrating shots in the 1940s

4. All six Old Judge & Gypsy Queen cigarette cards (1888).

40,000 dif ferent news papers and there was not a single men tion of any Jo seph Morsler going back to 1800. I even tried Google.totabases,inofandliardinallsamespellings.variantTheistrueofthebookstheBilArchivemillionsdocumentsonlinedanotmentionMaybe

7. A real long Jenny from Wills’s Cigarettes (1909).

6. Salmon & Gluckstein’s “A long Jenny” (c. 1900).

5. One of Allen & Ginter’s “World’s Dudes” series (1888).

In the same vein is “The Marker” from the Major Drapkin cigarette company’s “Sporting Snap” series from 1928 (Fig. 8). The “marker” is the scorekeeper, who calls out the current totals. He’s holding a “cross-rest,” a type of bridge, which he can hand to the player when necessary and use for marking the score.

8. A loud marker (1928).

3. There is no record whatsoever of Morsler except this Kimball card.

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Fig. 7 is itself a cigarette card of a differ ent type: instructional. Wills’s Cigarettes and various other companies issued lengthy se ries of cards illustrating vari ous strokes and trick shots. These cards could be very ed ucational. You may not know the shot in Fig. 9, from the “Trick Billiards” series, from Ogden’s Cigarettes, authored by A. Newman-Mond, a Brit ish fancy shot artist. The black ball is exactly one ball width from the cushion. The cue ball will not ﬁt past it. Yet, if you shoot the cue ball fairly strongly into the rail as the angle shown, the cushion will compress and the cue ball will easily pass beyond the black. This won’t come up much, but if you know it you will as tound your opponent.

he was champion of Morslerville, although there’s no town by that name in the whole country. It will forever haunt me how this person made it to a cigarette card, and as a champion!Thenext billiard cigarette cards were issued by Goodwin & Company in 1888 to promote Old Judge and Gypsy Queen cigarettes. They were beautiful chromolithographs and have survived very well. Fig. 4 shows all six of them: Maurice Daly, Alfredo de Oro (spelled D’Oro on the card), Jacob Schaefer Sr., William Sexton, George Slosson and Maurice Vignaux – champions of the day. Soon thereafter, Allen & Ginter’s came out with their own series, a sam ple of which is in Fig. 5. Over in England, Salmon & Gluck stein, said to be the largest tobacconists in the world, began producing billiard cards around 1900. These did not cen ter on players, but were humorous (in a British sort of way), containing exqui site images illustrating puns on billiard terminology. The card in Fig. 6, “A long Jenny,” requires some explanation. The actual term “Jenny” referred to a type of shot in English billiards in which the player holes the cue ball off an object ball, a type of losing hazard. We would consider this a scratch, but in their game it scores points. The term dates back at least to 1807. I don’t know why it’s called a “Jenny.” If you do, please contact me. A “short Jenny” is a Jenny into a side pocket. A “long Jenny” is a Jenny into a corner pocket in which the cue ball crosses the center string (Fig.7). (OK, there’s no center string on an English table, but you know what I mean.) The shot in Fig. 7 is not easy be cause the ball contact must be precise. Back to Fig. 6, “Jenny” is also female name. The woman on the card is quite tall, so she’s a “long Jenny.” Get it? OK, it’s not a knee-slapper, but Brits get a kick out of it.

10. Ogden’s distributed this album to encourage card-collecting.

54 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

11. A player card with three signatures (1973).

9. A shot from Ogden’s “Trick Billiards” series (1934).

CHRONICLES

12. An Israeli billiard club membership card.

on YouTube. He’s very engaging. Just search for “Newman Mond.” At the top end of player cards are signed ones. The card in Fig. 11 is signed by snooker champions Fred Da vis OBE and Rex Williams MBE, as well as Sydney Lee, a top player and referee. The sentence “Compered by Sydney Lee” is not a misprint. The word “com pered” is applied in Britain to someone who introduces performers, sort of like a master of ceremonies. Some cards, while not rare, are very difficult to collect, especially ones from other countries. Fig. 12 shows a mem bership card for the Lincoln Billiard Members Club, headquartered in Tel Aviv, but with other branches around Israel.Even some gift cards use billiard themes – you know, those cards you prepay for that the vendor hopes are never used. A Target gift card is shown in Fig. 13, but it’s pretty easy to figure out who issued it. I still don’t get the fascination of seeing dogs shooting pool. I never played against one who could beat me. Cards that are issued purely for the purpose of being col lected rarely become valued col lectibles. For example, the shortlived Professional Billiards Tour (PBT) had visions of grandeur in coming out with supposedly a million sets of player cards, not connected with any product but simply designed to be col lected. Maybe I didn’t get in fast enough – for Buddy Hall’s card, I had to be sat isfied with number 127110 (Fig. 14). Somehow I don’t think a million copies were actually printed. You can also find billiard images on cards devoted to entirely dif ferent topics. When billiards was extremely popular, it was com mon to see scenes of the game on trade cards for completely unrelated products, like choco late. I probably like chocolate as much as the next guy, but I don’t associate it with pool. In fact, the oil that gets on your hands when you eat chocolate actually

As another, more modern, example, there are Twilight Zone cards for fans of the classic TV show, of which there were 156 episodes. A famous one, called “A Game of Pool,” first aired on October 13, 1961, co-written by Rod Serling and George Clayton Johnson. It pits Jack Klugman as Jess Cardiff against Jona than Winters as deceased hustler “Fats” Brown, who returns to earth for one night to give Cardiff his desperately-sought chance to see who’s best. I won’t give away the end ing – you can watch it on YouTube (it’s only 22 min utes). It was Jack Klug man’s favorite episode of the four he appeared in. In 2002, CBS issued Twilight Zone card #153, the front and back of which are shown in Fig. 16. The timing of “A Game of Pool” is notable. The movie “The Hustler” was released on September 25, 1961. The Twilight Zone installment came 18 days later. Of course, there was a lot of prior hype about the filming of the “The Hus tler,” so Rod Serling was ready. Don’t shortchange Johnson (1929-2015), who was really the principal author. He also wrote the screenplays for “Logan’s Run” and “Ocean’s 11.” Somebody who collects cards is called a “cartophile,” which is easy to say, with the accent on “cart.” Don’t con fuse it with “cartoffel,” which is Rus sian for potatoes – the main source of vodka, with the accent on “o.” The field of card-loving is known as “car tophily,” which no one seems to know how to pronounce. It has four syllables, but sounds weird no matter which one is stressed. Anyway, I’m proud to be a card-carrying carom cartophile.

Mike Shamos is Curator of The Billiard Archive, a non-proﬁt foundation set up to preserve billiard history. 13. Guess where you can buy goods with this gift card. 14. I must have been 112,110 th in line for this Buddy Hall card. 15. Chocolate doesn’t have much to do with billiards (or frogs). 16. This 1961 Twilight Zone episode was a classic.

interferes with your play. Nevertheless, the Billiard Archive has a couple dozen chocolate billiard cards, a nice example of which is in Fig. 15.

55September 2022 BILLIARDS DIGEST

Far more than being fl ashy, the maneuver was evocative of an era when it was still possible for men to survive, if barely, by loitering in poolrooms night and day, patiently waiting for suckers, many of whom were their regular customers. Just as the legendary Don Willis learned to study the floor of a poolroom and make proposition bets on which way the balls would roll on that floor, racking by hand is the kind of thing you simply can’t learn to do unless you have great, great quantities of time on your hands. Today, just about every major American city has at least one poolroom where you can walk in as a total stranger and still get a money game. But those rooms are populated by far younger men than those of the Bensinger’s era, very few hang out endless hours without activity, and of course nobody racks by hand. Try it sometime when you have nothing better to do. You have my firm assurance that your first attempts will have you looking and feeling like a genuine shmuck. Trust me, I know.

JOE BACHLEOR and Harry Paul had a great deal in common, in addition to their decades-old friendship and their both hailing from the famous New York poolroom called McGirr’s. Both were unmarried, although the ironically named Bachelor had gone that route three times. Both spent the lion’s share of their time playing alone. And neither played any form of pool other than 14.1, although Paul, would later switch to billiards exclusively. But their most intriguing commonality by far was that each man racked the balls by hand. Not one-at-a-time, either; they would gather the balls, whether 14 or all 15, into a triangle at the foot rail, shove the mass forward, and catch it perfectly in the racking area. They never missed. I never once saw a single ball get away, and while neither man had a great deal to say, each declared that their peculiar technique was at least as proﬁcient as racking conventionally.

1938-2013[Reprinted from July 2002]

The first time you observed the feat, it seemed like the basketball guard who goes behind-the-back when an ordinary chest pass would do just fine, or the card player who riffles the deck into two “fans” in shuffling and then cuts them himself one-handed. But those are showoff stunts, without much functionality to them. Bachelor and Paul not only caught all the balls, but achieved perfect racks into the bargain, thus metamorphosing into walking, talking Sardo Racks a full three generations before their time. Bachelor was easily the better pool player of the two, a true master who knew precisely where each object ball was going out of a closed-rack break shot. He claimed that the immortal Mosconi himself used to spot him no more than 20 points going to 125 for money. But that was an odd claim, given that the near-universal book on Bachelor was that he could not gamble, or even compete in tournaments, at all. And as if in confirmation, he would not bet a dime, nor even play for the time. He would play sociably if asked — he accommodated me once or twice that way, and I learned from each session. But the real magic was in watching him practice. Joe Bachelor played only with his personal set of well-polished balls, seemingly making his racking accomplishment all the more remarkable; it was a fairly safe bet that he would run a hundred before quitting. He worked the 4-midnight shift at Bensinger’s, then played alone from 12 to 2 a.m., and more than once I sacrificed weeknight sleep to watch him.

Paul, on the other hand, was merely very good. But his stroke production was nearly as distinctive as Bachelor’s mastery, an elegant, ﬂowing move that resembled the bowling of a violin far more closely than a pool stroke.

While he was nobody’s patsy, he did have Milquetoastish looks, what with his rimless glasses and silver hair; although he made his living driving a cab, he looked a lot more like the clerk whom one forgets to introduce to his business associates. Between his meek appearance and his racking by hand, Harry Paul quite innocently pissed off just about every hustler in the place, of whom there were many. Like his friend Bachelor, Paul would compete only if asked ﬁrst; quite unlike the other man, he would play only for money. One night Ray Maples, a plump vicious oaf but a solid money player, committed the grave indiscretion of calling Paul “a fun player” within earshot.

Tips & Shafts George Fels 56 BILLIARDS DIGEST September 2022

RACKING BY HAND

“Really,” Paul commented mildly. “What did you want to do, besides run your mouth?” Maples angrily suggested a hundred points for a hundred dollars; in my seven-plus years of hanging around the downtown Bensinger’s, that was the largest single bet in anyone’s memory. Paul, surprising everyone, calmly posted his half of the stakes, and in the coinﬂip preceding the ﬁrst game, Maples widened the rift between them by insisting unnecessarily that Paul rack by rack instead of by hand. From there, Paul did little to endear himself to his foe, beating the bejabbers out of him four straight times. No game lasted more than a few innings, and the closest Maples ever got was 0-0. “Take the money,” he muttered after game four, without apologizing for popping off; instead, his seldom-seen humility took the form of telling the same story on himself for years after. It was a rare, rare night for those of us who insist on rooting for the underdogs of life. When Bensinger’s closed its downtown incarnation in 1961, Bachelor relocated to San Francisco, where he eked out an existence giving cheap lessons and working behind the counter at the city’s famous Palace Billiards until his death 10 years later. Paul, when I last asked, was still alive and well and in the North Hollywood area. But I remember them both most vividly for the way they racked the balls.

September 2022

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Shane Wolford

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