We’ve all been there: in a slump. You can’t do anything right, for weeks – or even months – your averages have been well below your standards. You try hard, but the balls seem to have a will of their own. They cling to rails, find awkward spots or cover each other to reduce your options. And what gets under your skin the most, is that you play so horribly unlucky! If there is a 61,7 mm hole, your 61,5 mm ball will creep through it, time and again. “I hit that so well, how can it miss? And how can that happen to me, three innings in a row. What are the odds? The universe is conspiring against me.” Continue reading The noble art of climbing out of a ditch→
Rugby players have it easy. Billiard players are the ones who know what pain is. There’s no team to share the hurt with. We have no coach, no mechanic, no caddy, no doubles partner. There is never any help. If we get it wrong, there are no good excuses, only lots of bad ones.
It can be scary, to walk SO alone. Which is why billiard players look for a crutch. The table is a jungle, and finding your way can wear you down and confuse you. You’re looking for a compass, a navigating device. An arrow to point you in the right direction. Where to aim, how to hit. You know what would be great? If you had a set of instructions you could follow, in every possible position. You need a billiards manual. You need a SYSTEM! Continue reading Don’t do math when you should be playing billiards→
If you and I devoted some time to it, we could easily come up with a list of two dozen things the top players do better than mere mortals. But which are crucial? Where is that difference between 0.6 and 1.6 really made? Is it a matter of improving details across the board, gaining 0.01 here and 0.01 there? Or are there a few big chunks, responsible for tenths at a time? I will make an effort to give you the four major categories in which the 1.6-ers are far ahead of the 0.6-ers. I am pretty sure this isn’t fiction, which is why I want to call it F.A.C.T. Continue reading The long road from 0.6 to 1.6→
Not a lot, actually. In 2014, a Grand Prix was held in Oosterhout, the Netherlands. It was played on van den Berg tables with Simonis rapide cloth. The 32 players in the main tournament – 16 seeded, 16 qualifiers – played a combined average of 1.134. A year later, that same room again hosted a GP, on the same tables, but now they were fitted with Royal Pro 4 cloth. The 32 players averaged 1.135… Continue reading Royal Pro cloth: what does it do to the averages?→
A few months ago, I bought a Molinari cue. It’s the Sung Won Choi model CRMSC1-9, and it’s a beauty. Ever since I did, people have been asking me to write a column about it. A surprising number of people, actually. It’s all very flattering, but those who expressed an interest in my opinion, did not realize that I am not a cue expert at all. Continue reading Will this be my last cue?→
When I first saw Glenn Hofman play in the Dutch league, he was 14 years old. He was never fascinated by the classic disciplines, did not spend much time on the 1.15 x2.30 tables, which are popular in Holland. No, Glenn played 3-cushion on the match table right off the bat. He already had a stroke, but little knowledge about choice of shot. The difference in our averages was then considerable, but I took nothing for granted and played like I would have against anybody, defense and all, and won by a big margin. Continue reading Married, armed and dangerous→
If you just let your eyes wander from nr. 100 to nr. 1, it looks okay. Fairly unknown names in the nineties, familiar names in the sixties, good players in the forties, all the giants of the game in the top 20. But if you actually go over the columns, you’ll see that our current ranking system is built on political compromises. It’s not designed to list players in order of quality. Its main purpose is to keep the federations and the confederations happy. Continue reading The world ranking needs to be fixed. It’s a mess.→
Semih started his comeback about a year ago, and it has not been a march of triumph so far. We all could have told him it was going to be tough, and he probably knew. In the eight years he was not in World Cups, the level went up considerably. There’s another thirty or forty players who can average 1.3 or better for a season, make 25 in 10 if the balls roll well. The World Cup qualifications are a minefield, and Sayginer is yet to make it to the other side unscathed. Continue reading Tenth place. But he’s back.→
Don’t get me wrong, I love Kozoom to death. Best invention since sliced bread. But from time to time, the commentary I read next to the screen sends my blood pressure up to dangerous levels. Today was one of those days, when Blomdahl played Jaspers in the semi’s of the Porto World Cup. Continue reading Don’t get me wrong→
Billiards was probably the last thing on Sinatra’s mind, when he sang that immortal line. But it sums up the AEJ/Dallinga season, if you only look at averages, records and titles. Was there a shadow side? Yes. The sponsor had bitten off more than he could chew, could not keep his promises. He did not pay his four star players in full, several event organizers did not get paid at all; the three year commitment will now end after a single season and the dream team will split up. Continue reading It was a very good year→
The game is bigger than everyone else! "Torbjorn Blomdahl"
We’ve all been there: in a slump. You can’t do anything right, for weeks – or even months – your averages have been well below your standards. You try hard, but the balls seem to have a will of their own. They cling to rails, find awkward spots or cover each other to reduce your options. And what gets under your skin the most, is that you play so horribly unlucky! If there is a 61,7 mm hole, your 61,5 mm ball will creep through it, time and again. “I hit that so well, how can it miss? And how can that happen to me, three innings in a row. What are the odds? The universe is conspiring against me.” Continue reading The noble art of climbing out of a ditch 
Not a lot, actually. In 2014, a Grand Prix was held in Oosterhout, the Netherlands. It was played on van den Berg tables with Simonis rapide cloth. The 32 players in the main tournament – 16 seeded, 16 qualifiers – played a combined average of 1.134. A year later, that same room again hosted a GP, on the same tables, but now they were fitted with Royal Pro 4 cloth. The 32 players averaged 1.135…