Shane's World – 2023 pool

[Sam]

After the roaring success of the 2022 pool thread, it's time to get the 2023 thread rolling. Shane Van Boening is the reigning 9-ball world champion, Francisco Sánchez Ruíz is world Nineball no. 1 and world 8-ball champion after the best season of his career in 2022 and Wojciech Szewczyk currently rules the roost in 10-ball. And lurking just over their shoulders, all the time, is the spectre of Fedor Gorst: possibly the best all-round player in the world, but unable to show that at the top competitive level last year due to being Russian. Now he's allowed to compete again, and presumably will continue to be allowed for the whole year, he'll make some waves.

Matchroom were loud and proud near the end of 2022 about how many more events they'd be adding to the 9-ball tour for 2023 and plans for increased prize money. There's no official word on the latter just yet, but they've certainly come through with more events: the provisional Nineball schedule for 2023 (which includes Matchroom's own events and those of affiliated organisers) contains 34 events, of which 30 are ranking events (the exceptions, as ever, are the World Pool Masters, Premier League Pool, the World Cup of Pool and the Mosconi Cup). They're adding an Asian tour taking in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as the Asian Open, and are adding an English Open in May, which will be as well as rather than instead of the UK Open (this doesn't actually add to the number of events in England this year, because the World Pool Championship will be held in Poland).

Predator are continuing as title sponsors of the Pro Billiard Series, which this year will again include a six-event US Pro Billiard Tour plus the 10-Ball World Championship in late February / early March, and along with Kamui are reintroducing the World Women's 9-Ball Championship, which will be held in Atlantic City later this month.

The Nineball world rankings enter their second year; they're going to become two-year rolling rankings, by which I presume Matchroom mean that this time next year events will start to drop off players' ranking earnings after 24 months. But we'll see, because the way Matchroom phrase things like this can sometimes be a bit odd.

I won't attempt a full rundown of every event because that got chaotic last year as events were added during the year (especially with more promoters coming into Matchroom's Nineball fold), and that will probably be repeated this year. But the main ones, as I see it, are:

- World Women's 9-Ball Championship – 19–22 January in Atlantic City. This event hasn't been held for four years, with the last edition having been in Sanya, China. If you pay any attention at all to women's pool you'll be unsurprised to hear Kelly Fisher is the defending champion.
- Derby City Classic – 20–28 January. A 9-ball, one pocket and banks pool event with a buy-back system that makes all three tournaments effectively double elimination right up to the final. It's cheaper to pay to play than it is to buy a spectator's ticket, and probably for this reason it attracts the largest field of any tournament I'm aware of: there were over 500 entrants to the 9-ball division last year. There's also an invitational 10-ball tournament for (I think) 16 top pros played on a 10-foot 'bigfoot' table. The 9-ball starts on 25 January, and is a Nineball ranking event (FSR is the defending champion). Last year's event was played before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Gorst won the one pocket and banks events in pretty much the first time he'd ever played one pocket. It was also the first time in DCC history that none of the three main events had been won by a North American. Will the European invasion be repeated?
- World Pool Championship – 1–5 February in Kielce, Poland. The Matchroom-run 9-ball world title. SVB is the defending champion.
- World 10-Ball Championship – 28 February–4 March in Las Vegas. Szewczyk is the reigning champion.
- World Pool Masters – 6–9 May, probably in Gibraltar. An invitational for the top 16 players on the Nineball rankings.
- UK Open – 30 May–4 June at the Copper Box in London. 9-ball, where Joshua Filler will defend his title. The English Open is on the provisional schedule for May, but without a set date or venue yet.
- World Cup of Pool – 20–25 June, venue TBC. A 9-ball doubles tournament. Spain are the defending champions (FSR and David Alcaide were their team last year).
- European Open – 8–13 August in Fulda, Germany. Albin Ouschan is the defending champion.
- APP Asian Championship – 'Summer' according to the provisional schedule. A Matchroom 9-ball event (none of the Asian tour dates or venues are confirmed yet).
- US Open – 25–30 September in Atlantic City. 9-ball. FSR is the defending champion.
- International Open – 30 October–4 November in Norfolk, Virginia. This event is the 'true' continuation of the 'old' US Open 9-ball (it's run by the guy who used to promote the US Open, and you might hear commentators, especially Jeremy Jones, refer to it as 'the old US Open' at times). There were also one pocket and 10-ball 'bigfoot' divisions in 2022. The 9-ball division is a Nineball ranking event, and was won by Jayson Shaw in 2022 (Gorst won the bigfoot and Tony Chohan the one pocket).
- Mosconi Cup – date TBC, but it's normally the very end of November into the start of December, and this year it's Europe's turn to host, so Alexandra Palace is the most likely bet.

Looks like there's still a date and venue pending (and indeed any confirmation it'll even be taking place) for the World 8-Ball Championship, which Predator sprung on us as rather a late (but very pleasant) surprise last year, when it was held immediately after the Puerto Rico leg of the 10-ball US Pro Billiard Tour. That particular leg is scheduled for some time in November this year, so watch this space.

[Sam]

And I'll occasionally document my own progress as well, as I did last year. Having started weekly classes a few months ago, I've really started to notice a big improvement in my game in the last few weeks. In particular my teacher's given me one exercise that's led to a big leap in my potting accuracy over a wide range of angles (which she commented on a couple of days ago). My position play is a bit behind that, but I'm starting to get the hang of the angles and can now reliably find various paths around the table with the cue ball more often than not (albeit not always in combination with actually making the ball). I'm starting to think that if we go to the UK later in the year then by the time that trip happens I might actually be at a level where I'll be mulling over possibly upgrading my cue shaft to a low-deflection model (easier to get hold of in the UK and bring back in my suitcase than to buy here).

My dream back in April when I first contacted my now teacher (who was in the States at the time, and didn't return until July or so) was that by the end of 2022 I didn't want to be shit any more. I think I've managed that: certainly I'm pretty sure that if I could jump in a time machine and play a few racks against the me of nine months ago, I'd win quite comfortably. I'm a bit of refinement at my current drills away from my teacher starting to work on next-ball position with me. In the interests of dreaming big so that if you miss the target, you still make progress, I'll go for this: by the end of the year I'd like to be able to break and run a rack of 9-ball on the tables in my pool hall (9 feet with 4.5 inch pockets and rails that tend to send balls a little short).

[Sam]

Another Turning Stone tournament, another win for Jayson Shaw – his third in a row at this event and his ninth overall. And it sounds like a thrilling final.

[Sam]

Derby City is underway, as is the Women's World 9-Ball Championship (they've got the words in the right order for the branding now). Several matches each day on the main table of the latter are free on the World Billiards TV YouTube channel. Fedor Gorst's matches at Derby City are free on his own YouTube channel (the others will cost you a hefty stack of dollars to the official broadcasters. I tend to wait for the highlights to go up on YouTube later in the month/year).

[Sam]

The Women's World 9-Ball Championship has a new name on the trophy, after Chou Chieh-Yu of Taiwan whitewashed Allison Fisher (who's been 9-ball world champ four times, most recently in 2001, and only returned to playing full time last year) 9–0 in the final on Sunday. Allison missed an elementary 9-ball which would have made it 1–1 and barely had a clear shot at the table for the rest of the match, with Chou playing other-worldly stuff at times. Chou becomes only the second player to hold the women's world championships in 9-ball and 10-ball at the same time, joining Kelly Fisher (who won the 10-ball title in 2011 and the 9-ball title in 2012) in the club. Seoa Seo and Kristina Tkach were the losing semifinalists.

[Sam]

And in happy news, Darren Appleton's back uploading videos to his YouTube channel, so is presumably out of the woods health-wise (see the last page of the 2022 thread for mention of his heart attack in December).

[Sam]

Derby City has come to an end, and Fedor Gorst has joined Alex Pagulayan, Shane Van Boening and the greatest of all, Efren Reyes, in an exclusive club: he's won Master of the Table for the best overall performance in the one-pocket, banks and 9-ball tournaments for the second year running. Even more impressively, he's also become the first player in DCC history to win two of the three headline events two years in a row: last year he took the banks and one-pocket titles, this year he won the banks and 9-ball. One-pocket specialist Tony Chohan won that division, avoiding another European whitewash in the main events, while SVB took the bigfoot 10-ball invitational. I've yet to see any matches other than the ones Gorst live streamed (I'm watching one of his final-day match-ups as I type, against Tyler Styer), because as mentioned above the streaming package for the DCC costs more than is reasonable, but I look forward to seeing some highlights in the next couple of weeks and throughout the year. I also look forward to watching Efren, because astonishingly, at the age of 68, he was still going (and indeed still unbeaten) on the penultimate day of the one-pocket event, and by all accounts playing phenomenally.

The top players now have to hot-foot it over to Poland, because the World Pool Championship kicks off on Tuesday.

[Sam]

The World Pool Championship is underway, and casual fans might be interested to note that as for their tournaments last year, Matchroom Pool's YouTube channel has all the action from table 2 on a live stream – and this year it's got commentary as well. Those who pay for whichever service is showing it in your region (or, as I do, for Matchroom Live in countries where there isn't a broadcast partner) can get tables 1 and 2 with commentary and, for the first time, table 3 with just ambient sound, which is great. Fortunately I didn't have any work to do this afternoon.

Jayson Shaw almost fell victim to a big shock, after being pegged back from 8–5 to 8–8 by Francesco Candela of Italy, but won 9–8 in the end. He said in his post-match interview that having finished his last match at Derby City at 6 in the morning (the final, between Fedor Gorst and SVB, ended at 9am!) he then only slept for a few hours before getting an early morning flight over to Poland via London. He was visibly struggling to keep his eyes open at one point while his opponent was at the table.

Snow in Texas means Skyler Woodward, who'd decided to go home for a day before heading to Poland after his Derby City campaign ended, has seen his flights cancelled and has had to pull out of the tournament.

And Fedor Gorst isn't there either. He's currently applying for a US green card, and while he is allowed to leave the States, it's apparently a big hassle for him to sort out a visa to enter Poland at the moment (wonder why ...), and leaving would also complicate his US immigration process somewhat, so he's decided to stay put.

[Sam]

The last sixteen of the World Pool Championship will be played on Saturday, and defending champion Shane Van Boening is still in it after coming through a tense match against Aloysius Yapp, 11–9. Jayson Shaw falls at the last 32 stage for the second year running, beaten 11–10 by John Morra, while three Poles are still in it on home soil. There are also two Taiwanese, three Austrians, a Vietnamese, a Spaniard, an Estonian, a Serbian, a Syrian and a Netherlander. Last sixteen starts at 12:00 CET tomorrow.

Wiktor Zielinski v Chang Jung-Lin
Shane Van Boening v Duoc Quoc Hoang
Albin Ouschan v Matheus Sniegocki
John Morra v Mario He
Francisco Sánchez Ruíz v Denis Grabe
Max Lechner v Wu Kun-Lin
Sebastian Batkowski v Mohammad Soufi
Aleksa Pecelj v Niels Feijen

Of that lot, only SVB, Ouschan and Feijen have won the title before, so lots of scope for a new name on the trophy.

[Sam]

On Saturday, sixteen became four, and with none of the semifinalists having been 9-ball world champion before, we're guaranteed a new name on the trophy.

In the round of sixteen, Shane Van Boening's title defence came to an end in an 11–10 loss to Duong Quoc Huang of Vietnam. That was one of three hill–hill (deciding rack) finishes in that round, with Austria's Mario He seeing off Canadian John Morra and Syrian underdog Mohammad Soufi besting local Sebastian Batkowski both by the odd rack in 21.

In the quarters, Soufi then raised the roof and pulled off the shock of the tournament by beating Albin Ouschan 11–8, coming back from 8–6 down thanks in part to a series of absolutely ludicrous flukes. See the tweet below for two of them in quick succession as he made it 8–8, but there were others besides, including a length-of-the-table shot that should have been a simple pot but accidentally turned into a double bank (i.e. a treble, in snooker parlance) of the sort Efren Reyes used to call and then make deliberately in exhibition matches.

https://twitter.com/MatchroomPool/status/1621950295667253253

Soufi's a funny player to watch: his technique looks all over the place, but he's certainly got the job done this week. And one thing that video doesn't show, but which stands out even more than the flukes, is how quickly he plays. He seems to think the shot clock is set to ten seconds rather than thirty. Here is the entirety of the final rack, and I assure you Matchroom haven't edited this down to get the video to two minutes. He breaks and runs out in a minute and a half!

https://twitter.com/MatchroomPool/status/1621953236642009091

Elsewhere, former champ Niels Feijen was beaten by Mario He in a close quarterfinal, while the other two quarters were more one-sided: Kun Lin-Wu of Taiwan beat Duong and world no. 1 and US Open champion Francisco Sánchez Ruíz beat former 8-ball world champion Chang Jung-Lin, both 11–4. Kun's win was on the back of building a comfortable early advantage and then boxing clever to finish off Duong, whereas FSR was 3–0 down behind and watching Chang rattle through the racks before the Taiwanese gave the Spaniard just one small opening, and in what seemed like no time it was 9–3 to FSR and all but over.

The semis are races to 11, and consist of an all-Asian tie and an all-European tie, one after the other on table 1: Kun v Soufi is first, from 12:00 local time, then it's He v Sánchez Ruíz after that. The final is a race to 13, and will start at 18:30 local time.

[Sam]

We have a winner! Francisco Sánchez Ruíz beats Mohammad Soufi 13–10 in the final, ending Soufi's fairytale run and extending his own lead at the top of the world rankings. It wasn't the highest quality final, but it was tense throughout as FSR could never get quite clear enough to not be looking over his shoulder. In his acceptance speech he said Soufi would have deserved the title more than he does, and dedicated the win to Darren Appleton following Appleton's heart attack in December.

FSR wasn't kidding about Soufi deserving it, either, though I suspect he meant as much for Soufi's life story as for his pool: Soufi grew up in a town on the Syrian coast and fled to Lebanon when the war broke out. Once there, he was forced at gunpoint (having never been in a boat before) to pilot a small boat across the Mediterranean to Turkey overnight, and managed to do so successfully (obviously), before eventually making his way to Germany as a refugee. He's lived there for seven years and barely gets to practice his pool game because he can rarely afford to do so, but he scrapes together enough money to enter EuroTour events now and then and has managed two quarterfinal and one semifinal finishes in those. The US$30,000 he gets for finishing second here means that in the last five days, he's won five times more money than he managed to win in his previous best year as a pool player. It also puts him into the top 14 in the live Nineball rankings (13th, in fact), as a result of which he's been invited to take part in the World Pool Masters and Premier League Pool in May. Those aren't ranking events, but they do guarantee (some) extra cash in his pocket.

FSR becomes only the third man to hold the World and US Open 9-ball titles at the same time (Darren Appleton was reigning US Open champion when he won the 2012 World Championship; Joshua Filler was reigning world champion when he won the 2019 US Open), and with all of the chasing pack in the rankings apart from semifinalist Mario He having fallen some way short in this tournament, he's built up a big cushion at the top that'll be hard for anyone to claw back before we get to the end of the year, when the rolling two-year system will really kick in.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I watched the Ruiz-He semi this afternoon, and a very good game it was. Even involved one rack won by Ruiz potting the 9 ball by cannoning the 5 ball into it, which doesn't happen often enough. One question, what's the little plastic diamond for that remains on the table until the break's over? Is its purpose to 'trap' the 9 ball in the middle of the table, as that seems to be what happens?

[Sam]

No, it's to ensure all the balls are touching so the rack is nice and tight and the balls spread properly when hit. Gaps in the rack can result in clusters of balls or even, if the breaking player is allowed to inspect the rack before breaking (which Matchroom don't allow), predictable patterns of how the balls will spread and in some cases a nailed-on route for the 9 straight into a corner pocket if you break from just the right place and at just the right speed. The Magic Rack helps prevent that without the referee having to spend ten minutes trying and failing to get everything touching. The 9 doesn't actually get trapped by it, though I know that's how it looks: if everything's touching then a firm break will leave the 9 somewhere near its spot with or without the Magic Rack, unless it gets kissed by another ball coming back off a rail. This is also true to a slightly lesser extent in 10-ball, and is a big reason that one of the drills every player is told to practise quite early on by their coaches (including me!) is to pot balls off the spot from a variety of cue ball positions, because there's a big chance that the 'money ball' to win the rack is going to be somewhere in that part of the table. If it just rolls a tiny bit the plastic might be enough to stop it rolling another half inch than it was going to, but nothing more than that.

[Sam]

Rogin the Armchair fan, here's a ten-minute explainer of frequent patterns the balls travel in when broken in a 9-ball rack. Note that some of these have the 1 on the spot with a break from the side rail while others have the 9 on the spot, breaking from the box. The latter is the break Nineball ranking tournaments have been using from the European Open last year, because it produces more varied ball distributions and makes it harder to control the cue ball while making something.

The guy mentions a few minutes in that he has his table 'trained'. This means the rack area has a slight depressions in the cloth for the balls to sit in, which hold them tightly together without the need for a rack or plastic template.

[Sam]

And for everyone, here are the official highlights of the final.

[Sam]

Barely two weeks on from stunning everyone to finish as runner up at the World Pool Championship, everyone's new favourite Syrian sportsperson has won his first major title! Mohammad Soufi won the EuroTour event in Tallinn at the weekend ... and he did it by beating FSR in the final, 9–6!

And he's not the only one showing some drastic improvement this year, because in yesterday's class my teacher worked me hard on rotation patterns and I ran five balls in order on two occasions. She started teaching me a few safety shots a couple of classes ago, and has now also started teaching me kicking systems.

[Sam]

I've bought a break cue! I won't see it for six months, as it's going to be delivered to my parents' house for me to pick up when I'm over in England, but all the reviews say it's spectacularly good value, and it's no longer in production; the online UK store I found just happened to have what appears to be the last one available anywhere apart from the manufacturer's website, so I snapped it up now while I could. I shall now spend six months trying to decide whether I want to go with a Mezz or a Predator as my new playing cue.

In less important news, Wiktor Zieliński has won the Las Vegas Open 10-ball on the Predator US Pro Billiard Series for the second year running, beating Dương Quốc Hoŕng (whose name has just given me a fascinating tour through Windows' Character Map, and who might not be treated to his full complement of diacritics every time he's mentioned on this thread ...) in the final. I shan't report on the result of the women's tournament yet, because I've not watched the final of it. The US PBS this year has cut down on the shootout (which the players hated) in quite a nice way: rather than being two races to four with a shootout if each player won a set, it's now best of three, but a shootout is held if the third set goes to 3–3. This means more pool and fewer shootouts, but still the possibility of that tension and drama. Overall, it's a change I like.

The World 10-Ball Championship kicks off right away, also in Las Vegas. The matches in this one will be straight races, rather than in sets. All live on the World Billiard TV YouTube channel.

[Sam]

Oh, and this is the break cue I've bought, in the unlikely event that anyone's interested.

[Sam]

I shan't report on the result of the women's tournament yet, because I've not watched the final of it.

Turns out that when I wrote this, the quarters hadn't even ended, because the women's event finished the day after the men's. It was won by Korean Seo Seoa, who got to I think the semis in the Women's World 9-Ball Championship a few weeks ago, and has now added her first major title. She beat Australia's Meng-Hsia Hung in the final.

And tomorrow (Saturday) will be the last day of the Men's World 10-Ball Championship, which is played at the same venue. The semis kick off at 11am Las Vegas time with Francisco Sánchez Ruíz – who's aiming to become the first man to hold the world 8-, 9- and 10-ball titles at the same time – against Fedor Gorst, followed at 14:00 by Joshua Filler v Eklent Kaçi. The final will be at 17:30. Kaçi is the only player left in it who's won the title before (this is only the eighth running of the tournament: it was first played in 2008, but wasn't held in 2010, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18 or 20, meaning that the current edition actually marks the first time it's been held three years running). If he manages to reclaim the crown, he'll become the first man to be world 10-ball champion twice (Filipina Rubilen Amit has done so in the women's championship).

[Sam]

Eklent Kaçi won his second Men's World 10-Ball Championship, denying FSR the chance to complete the treble 10–7 in the final.

In 9-ball, Premier League Pool got underway on Monday. Two women are involved: Seo Seoa and world 9- and 10-ball champ Chou Chieh Yu. Khalid Alghamdi, who won the SVB Junior Open (held alongside the US Open 9-ball last year) is also in. Mohammad Soufi isn't, but will be involved in the World Pool Masters.

The US Open 8- and 10-ball championships are also currently going on. Both end on Wednesday. There doesn't appear to be any streaming for either, which is a shame, and obviously the field will be weakened by the fact that at least the top ten or so players in the world are currently at PLP.

[Sam]

A bit of housekeeping: Fedor Gorst won the US Open 8-ball, beating Mario He in the final. Fedor Gorst won the US Open 10-ball, beating Roland Garcia in the final. And Francisco Sánchez Ruíz won Premier League Pool, beating a very pissed-off Jayson Shaw in the final. FSR might be the man of the hour in the big, eye-catching events (and it's not just the Matchroom ones, because he is also the reigning world champ in 8-ball, of course), but once Fedor's green card is approved and he can leave the States and rejoin the international circuit there could be a hell of a modern rivalry brewing.

[Sam]

I really had better keep improving in the next few months, because when I arrive in the UK five months today, waiting for me will be not only the break cue I bought last month, but also a new playing cue I've just splurged on. I've opted for a Mezz, based partly on some very good online reviews (they're the only brand no one seems to say anything negative about) and partly on the opinion of my teacher, who plays with Predator and didn't even let me finish my question about whether to go with them or Mezz before going 'get the Mezz. They're the BEST.' So, a Mezz EC9 it is (specifically the EC9-W3, but the differences between all of those cues are cosmetic apart from the lack of linen wrap on the two cheapest ones).

[Sam]

No major tournaments to provide updates on lately, but since it's been a while and I'm excited about it I thought I'd share this photo from my mother, who took delivery of my new playing cue on Friday and my new case, chalk and a mini lathe on Tuesday (a cue extension will follow later in the week). Now I've just got to remain patient for the next four and a half months until I get my hands on them.

[Sam]

In less exciting news, a post on Fedor Gorst's socials a few days ago showed him and Kristina Tkach on holiday in the Dominican Republic. 'Ooh,' I thought, 'if they've left the US that suggests their green cards have been issued. And that should mean they're about to return to international tournaments outside the States ...' sure enough, Fedor's just confirmed he'll be taking part in the World Pool Masters next month, and is already signed up for Matchroom's UK, European and Spanish Opens.

[Sam]

Joshua Filler won the St Johann im Pongau EuroTour event, beating Poland's Daniel Maciol 9–4 in an impressive final. And I might be reporting on competition results of my own before long, because my instructor and her husband* have told me they reckon I should have a go at a category 3 tournament some time, and are going to put me in touch with the organisers.

*Against whom I lost 5–4 in an 8-ball match on Wednesday – a result I was very happy with because my previous best result against him was a 5–3 defeat. But also a bit frustrated because I got on the 8 first in the deciding rack, and missed it exactly the same way I'd already missed several balls during my class a couple of hours earlier.