Billiards

World Professional Billiard League Launches Season LAS VEGAS (May 22, 2013) The World Professional Billiard League will launch the inaugural 2013 season Thursday May 30th at 6pm PT and will feature the new cue sport of Bonus Ball. This will be the first time in the history of billiards that professional pool players will compete [...] Want to know the full story? Check it out

Billiard Accessories Manufacturer Qpod reached a podium finish in the Porsche Supercup in Barcelona together with Lechner Racing Common values such as design, precision and the ambition to win brought Qpod and the Porsche team run by Walter Lechner to this successful partnership. (Barcelona /Vienna, May 2013) One of the two Qpod Porsche Supercup... Want to know the full story? Check it out

On my ACS Nationals Team, there were 4 total players (including myself). The three other players also truly love the game of pool and want to learn as much as they can and improve. In order to do that, we need experiences.Not just more experience playing in tournaments, but more experience via BIG tournaments. More experience with a good team, too.And I was honored we were going to get to do that together at ACS Nationals! So, when someone (a 5th person) was interested in coming to ACS Nationals with us to be on our team, I said no.Emphatically.While this player is looked up to, I didn't think we needed her on the team and quite frankly I didn't want her on the team.Why?Because I didn't want to sit out any of the original teammates. With a 3-person 9ball team and 4-person 8ball team, I thought we had enough players, talent, and heart.I told my teammate I didn't want her on the team and "I don't want to sit anyone out." She replies, "We are used to sitting out."I snap back with disgust and honesty, "Well, you all should NOT be sat out."I wanted to build their confidence, not have another player come on board to take away from them playing. I was adamant about it and actually a little miffed I was even being asked.I didn't want to take away any thunder from the original team and if I didn't have faith in them, I wouldn't have asked them in the first place.Would this person have helped us win more matches? Probably. But, that wasn't the point to me.Plus, we placed 3rd in 9ball all by our little selves!I would have loved for my teammates to be National Champions. But at what cost? To not really get to play? Plus, this person was not a guarantee of that anyway, so why add more people to the team?For some reason, I really treasured the opportunity for my teammates to play in the Open Women's Division of a National tournament. I would rather my teammates get that fantastic feeling of nerves and excitement playing in a national tournament, than being sat out watching their teammates. What kind of experience would I be teaching if my teammates didn't get to play a lot on the national stage at this event?

On May 31-Jun 2, one of the nation’s top pool instructional schools will be heading to Long Island for a three-day clinic at Hub Billiards in Island Park, NY. Michigan-based PBIA master instructor & founder of the Traveling College of Billiard Knowledge Scott Lee will be joined by NYC Grind’s own instructional columnist and master instructor Mark Finkelstein. Read on for all the details on the upcoming pool school in the announcement from Scott Lee… .. Hub Billiards has teamed with the Traveling College of Billiard Knowledge to host a once-in-a-life-time weekend of World Class Pool Instruction. Proprietor Brad Turner has announced that arrangements have been made for America’s foremost touring teaching academy, the TRAVELING COLLEGE OF BILLIARD KNOWLEDGE www.poolknowledge.com to conduct their renowned three-day traveling school in Hub Billiard Club’s beautiful facilities. Preview our sister school, Dallas, TX-based PBIA Master Academy at: www.poolschool.info or www.poolschool.com. Headlining this program is one of the PBIA’s most prolific Pool Instructors, Scott Lee (Master Level). Known as “The Stroke Whisperer”, Scott will be assisted by PBIA Master Instructor Mark Finkelstein (Master Level) and other guest instructors to form a perfect student/instructor classroom ratio. This three-day school will take place in Hub Billiard Club’s secluded/private area and is targeted for Intermediate/Advanced skill levels. Class is limited to the first 10 paid students. Tuition is $600.00. A $100 deposit is required by no later than May. 25th to confirm attendance, with balance due upon arrival. Deposit arrangements can be made with Hub Billiards manager, Matt Vascellaro or Scott Lee and may include cash, check or credit cards. All previous schools have filled rapidly, early enrollment highly encouraged. This is a golden opportunity to elevate your game with America’s top ranked Traveling Pool School. IMPROVEMENT GUARANTEED! School criteria will cover all three aspects of our sport: Psychological-Mental & Physical. Workbooks, training technology and personal video are a normal part of the curriculum. Students should be in comfortable clothes, bring their favorite cue and wear a big smile. School hours are 8am to 5pm with the rest of the evening available for homework and social interaction.

I have always had a bit of love/hate relationship with bank shots. Years ago, long before I learned to see the edge of a ball, I would bank everything, and do it all based on gut feeling. I made a lot more banks than I missed during this time. Then I learned things. I learned about spin-banks, I learned about opening up a bank, shortening/stiffening banks, cross-banks, straight backs, speed sensitive banks, opening the pocket banks. I learned how draw/follow affect banks, left/right open/close banks. And I could no longer bank anything. I couldn't make a bank to save my life. Obviously, I lost a LOT of one pocket games due to this problem. I bought Freddy The Beard's "Banking With the Beard" book, but since his descriptions were utterly foreign to how I saw balls, it never really helped. I don't think about shots as 1/2 ball, 1/4 ball shots. It's just not how I see them. I think of only 2 things: "Where do I cut this ball into the rail to bank it?" and "What kind of spin will help me get shape on my next shot and how does that affect this bank?". Using highschool Geometry, it's clear that a ball on the line from the 2nd diamond should go into the opposite rail at the 1st diamond to go into the pocket, but that almost never works. So, I began hitting that ball with a bit of outside spin to help it in. Of course, this improved my "straight in" banking, but it killed me when I had to cut the ball into that path. Over the years, I watched where 1p players would bank balls, more importanly, I'd watch the cue ball (another reason I adore the measle ball). I noticed they weren't banking at the diamond, they were banking just short of the diamond, on the side closer to the target pocket. I took this to the table and noticed that on that 2-1 diamond path, if I aimed about a ball's width past the diamond, the ball went with more regularity. So, I extened this to the 4-2 track and again noticed that if I aimed at around 2-ball-widths past the diamond, the ball would drop! Fast foward about a year, during which my eyes got better and cuts got sharper - meaning I had to bank less and less. I hadn't been playing hardly any one pocket so banking was all but foreign to me again. I always had a good eye for those reverse long-rail banks, but anything on the short-rail cross-corner was a 30/70 to miss. Then I found Michael Reddick's blog Angle of Reflection. More importantly, I found his drill section on banking. It was a godsend. I did my best to memorize those reference lines and try to adjust to the tables I most frequently played on. I really came in handy for my 1p game, obviously. But after a few months of not playing 1p, I again lost the eyes for banks. Each time I was faced with a bank, I tried to remember those numbers, then I would add english and CIT into the equation. Sometimes, the ball would hit the 2nd diamond on the short-rail, others it'd come straight across as if I hadn't cut or spun it at all. It's incredibly disheartening to watch the local 3's and 4's in league bank balls like nothing when I, a 7, can't make a "straight in" bank. Then a teammate posted Ralph Eckert's Bank Shot Reference Lines video and it contains nearly identical information on the offset of the diamond-to-diamond paths. Ralph's is less "fine-tuned" than Michael's, but it is likely the more versatile. His formula is simple: 1/4 diamond at medium speed, for every 2 diamonds on the starting path. (or 2/8ths of a diamond for every diamond) That means that a ball on the 2-to-1 line should be cut to the .75 diamond, not the diamond itself. Extrapolate to the 4th diamond, instead of the 2nd diamond being straight in, it's actually straight when it's in the 1.5 diamond path (4/8 or 2/4). In the middle, the "normal" 3-to-1.5 line is actually the 3-1.12 path (3/8 diamond adjustment). On the 6th diamond then, instead of the 6-to-3 line, it's actually 6-to-2.25 that's a "straight in" bank. Similarly, a ball on the path from the corner pocke

You know, I don't play good every match or every game and I lose like everyone else, but I must say that I felt like I played pretty sporty at the ACS Nationals. My finishes my not reflect it, but my mind, body, and heart do. :)To be told by one of the top females players there I should be ranked as high as I am at ACS really meant a lot to me (especially since I am trying to figure out how to get the heck out of these high divisions since I don't think I belong there, lol!).On Friday morning of the ACS Nationals, John Lewis who runs ACS, said he wanted to speak with me.He shared with me that people were talking about me.Huh?He said two different people in two different conversations brought me up. "That blond girl with curly hair plays real good." He said they brought me up, not him, and out of all the girls there, they singled me out. He said they shared with him that they were really impressed with my game and how I played.Awwww!I was touched beyond belief.Really!First, I was happy he told me that; he didn't have to and it meant the world to me.Second, I was honored anyone even noticed my game, lol. I actually felt real good about my play so maybe I was playing as well as I thought. :)A few other people told me I played well, but when I hear that sometimes I think they are just being nice. These two other people told someone else, though, and seemed impressed, which is super cool!I don't want to get too confident, though, but... I can sense how good I'm playing right now. Hope it continues :)It feels good. :)

After having a number of close top finishes on the Tri-State Tour this season, 14-year-old Thomas Rice broke through to claim his first victory at Gotham City Billiards in Brooklyn, NY on Saturday, May 18. This event at Gotham featured $1,500 in added prize money, and Rice outlasted forty-two other top NYC-area amateurs to cash in on $1,010. Thomas Rice had an early setback in this event, as he lost his second-round match to Kyle Bubet at 6-4 after having defeated Kim Meyer-Gabia 6-0. Rice then made a long trek through the one-loss side, winning seven straight matches to make it to the finals. His path to the final featured wins against Eddie Perez 6-4, Nicholas Chan 6-4, Luis Jimenez 6-0, Brendon Hollock 6-3, Joshua Morancie 6-3, and Alex Osipov 7-4 in the quarterfinal. In the winner’s bracket, after sending Rice west, Kyle Bubet went straight through to the hot seat, defeating Joshua Morancie in the final four and locked a spot in the finals on his birthday by defeating previous Gotham winner Gary O’Callaghan 8-3. While O’Callaghan would have then matched up against Thomas Rice in the semifinal, he had to leave the tournament due to unforeseen circumstances and forfeit the match. This sent Rice through to the finals, where he would get a second chance to take on Kyle Bubet. As Rice is rated a ‘C’ and Bubet a ‘C+’, Rice would be spotted one game on the wire in the final. Thomas took control of the match from the start, and worked his way to the top, winning with a final score of 8-3. Runner-up Kyle Bubet, Gotham owner Kevin Buckley, and winner Thomas Rice with his twin sister Kristin Rice. Congratulations to Thomas Rice on a strong comeback win after his early loss, along with all of the event’s top finishers. Marco Costello also earned recognition at this event for winning the Break & Run contest. Top Finishers & Payout: 1st: Thomas Rice – $1,010 2nd: Kyle Bubet – $680 3rd: Gary O’Callaghan – $420 4th: Alex Osipov – $250 5th/6th: Brendan Ince, Joshua Morancie – $170 7th/8th: Koka Davladze, Brendon Hollock – $125 The Tri-State Tour would like to thank Sterling Gaming, Ozone Billiards, Poison Cues, Ron Tarr Cues, Kamui Tips, Phil Capelle, BlueBook Publishing, Human Kinetics for their sponsorship leading to this event. The next Tri-State stop is a $1,000-Added A/D event, to be held on May 25-26 at Amsterdam Billiards in New York, NY.

Just announced on the TAR Facebook page: After years of false starts and dead ends TAR On Demand is here. First video available is TAR 34: Efren Reyes vs Shane Van Boening One Pocket Race to 11. The 10 Ball and 8 Ball are coming this week. You can buy the one pocket for $5 or all three days for $15 and have access to them when they go live in a couple days. These are big files so I make no guarantee on downloading them. You should be able to by clicking the download button but due to so many possible variations I can not guarantee it will work for you on such large files. I only guarantee the streaming video will work. You have access to the streaming video for one year and you can download the file to keep forever. Again no guarantees if your ISP drops the download or whatever. So here is TAR 34: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tar34 . Remaining two days are being converted now and will be up by Friday. -- TAR I am SO HAPPY this is finally happening. There are so many TAR matches I didn't get to see and can't find DVD's of. Hopefully they'll start going back through their catalog and getting the older matches up there. In the meantime, I will be enjoying this rerun - and if you like One Pocket, want to learn it, or just want to see 2 of the greatest players in the world battle, GET THIS!!

Michael Wasley is a talented young snooker player from Gloucester who deserves additional respect for being able to solve the Rubik's cube in a matter of seconds (and not, as I used to in my youth, by taking it apart and then reassembling it).Wasley’s ability to untangle a great enigma may stand him in good stead for when he plays one next week in the first round of the Wuxi Classic.Ronnie O’Sullivan, who sat out almost all of last season, has entered not only Wuxi but also the European Tour event next month in Bulgaria.Whether this is because he needs more money for school fees, he missed snooker and wants to make up for lost time or has contractual obligations to fulfil is anyone’s guess, but O’Sullivan’s presence at the SWSA in Gloucester next week will bring interest at a time of year when snooker has traditionally been in hibernation.He’s playing Wasley because the system has changed. For all ranking events barring Australia, Shanghai and the World Championship, all 128 main tour members start from the beginning.In this bright, shiny new era of ‘fairness’ this means that Ding Junhui, who is from Wuxi, has had to come back to Britain to qualify for...Wuxi.He faces Aditya Mehta, who reached the last 16 of last season’s International Championship. The other Indian professional, Pankaj Advani, a quarter-finalist in the Welsh Open a few months back, will provide the first round opposition for Ricky Walden, the defending Wuxi Classic champion.Steve Davis, having seen off his old foe Stephen Hendry, will play Hendry’s nephew, James Cahill.The first round winners will all progress to the final stages next month.I suspect many top 16 players need this like the proverbial hole in the head. It will be interesting to see who has practised and who will be winging it. And despite what they may say, organisers want the top players to qualify.It’s a great chance for the lower ranked players. For many of them, if they’re going to beat a top player it’ll be in the more prosaic qualifying environment than the big arenas.However, some of them may in time come to reflect that this new system is not quite the leveller they thought. The previous system was labyrinthine, tough and seemingly endless but playing, for instance, the reigning world champion in round one is going to be a lot tougher than playing someone of a similar ranking.Still, it’s an exciting time for the new professionals and if I had a hat I would tip it to those who have come through Q School, including Alexander Ursenbacher, from Switzerland, and Ahmed Saif, a Qatari.In my experience new pros couldn’t care less about whichever system is in place (and there have been a few down the years). They just want to play, and there will be much to play in this coming season.

I played for the first time in the team event at ACS Nationals. Both the 9ball and 8ball divisions.My teammates, Courtney, Angel, and Janet are good friends of mine. We have played league together but not at state or nationals before. We would end up winning all all 9ball matches on Thursday and find ourselves playing for the freaking hot-seat on Thursday morning!!8Ball Sunglasses from our awesome teammate, Janet!The 9ball team event had a funny scoring system. It's a 3-person roster and you play your opponent twice before going to the next person. It's a race to 10. So, IF we happen to sweep the first round, we would be up 6-0.So, I would play two games against player 1, another teammate would play their player 2 twice and our third player would play their player 3 twice, and then we rotate.I know, it's confusing. In one match, it went hill-hill and I was the hill-hill person and won. :) I admit it felt freaking fantastic! I was playing really, really well and it felt great to be there for my teammates.Then our last match, we needed 4 wins to win. Yikes! 6-8 them. Teammate Janet was playing next to me and lost her first game, but then won her second game. 7-8.I'm up and I need to win BOTH my games AND then it goes to the tie breaker match (me). I make the 9ball on the break, then in the next game I hook myself on the 7 ball! But, luckily I kick it in and win that game with super tough shots on the 8 and 9 (my heart is beating out of my chest). THEN I win the freaking hill-hill game by running out 4 balls to a tricky 9ball combo! OMG! We are not going to be playing for the hot-seat the following day! The whole team is SO excited!!Janet, Courtney, Me, and Angel. "Roy's Toys!"A few hours later (the same day), we play our first 8ball match, race to 9. We hang in SO well and [;ay good! The match ends up going hill-hill and I see the run but I accidentally hook myself before the 8ball. I couldn't believe it! I saw the out so well and was so disappointed for that mistake I never saw coming, esp after the girl ran out and we lost hill-hill :(We then play at 7pm and we lost 5-9. This team was the rudest team I have ever come across and the whole "debacle" will be dedicated to an entire future separate blog article. Roomie and Teammate and I, Courtney, on our way to the first match.We were out of the 8ball :( The girls (Roy's Toys) thought it was comical because two of the players are strictly 8ball players and yet we are out of the 8ball and still on the winner's side in the 9ball team event, lol.My teammates were awesome. They were all so happy to be there, played their little hearts out, and really enjoyed the experience. It will prove to be a HUGE learning experience for them! I am very excited for them :) They all stepped up, showed heart, and even some nerves. It was cute and wonderful. At one point, I told myself I would be so honored to help them win a National Title and to be a part of that with them. But, I knew not to think ahead.Turns out, my teammates were already thinking that way. Two of them texted me about being national champions. I had a little pep talk with them before we played in next match and expressed we need to remain in the present, not think ahead, and not worry about misses. Just HAVE FUN. I knew from experience that yearning for a title cane get in the way of playing well.I don't know where I was, but I didn't play well in our next match, and neither did my teammates. We lost badly. We only won one game and lost 10-1. :( OUCH.We were all very bummed. Esp since our opponents didn't run us over at all; we had several chances in all the games, we just didn't play well. I think if we had played this match the previous day when we were on our winning streak, we might have faired better. This 9am match would be our ONLY match of the day, too. WOW.Our third place match would be at 9am on Friday morning. We had all day to kill. And then wake up bright and early again.