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Next Time, Don’t Skip Science: The Physics of Billiards

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As the 1959 animated short film Donald in Mathmagic Land taught us, billiards is a game of mathematics, specifically of angles.  Remembering that the angles of incidence and reflection are the same, or understanding the table’s diamond system, benefits a player greatly.

Every bit as important as the mathematics, however, is the science. The physics of billiards is critical to the game, as the sport is all about transferring energy from the cue ball to an object ball.  A player’s ability to leverage the two forces at work – linear momentum and angular momentum – separates the top athletes from the rest of the pack.

Think such wonkish topics don’t make for compelling entertainment? Think again. At least three different documentary television series have delved into the science to bring these concepts to life. Those series are Time Warp, Discover Science, and Outrageous Acts of Science.  Let’s dive in.

Time Warp

Time Warp, the oldest of the three series, first aired on the Discovery Chanel in the United States in March 2008.  The series features MIT scientist Jeff Lieberman and cameraman Matt Kearney using high-speed cameras to capture and slow down everyday events for the purpose of understanding the physics.

The first-season “Samurai Sword Master” episode (November, 2008) examines the physics behind various cue strokes made by billiards professional Liz Ford. (At the time, Ms. Ford was a top-ranked pro on the Women’s Professional Billiard Association tour. She has since retired from competitive pool to run the Green Mountain APA Pool League, as well as write articles for PoolDawg, a sponsor of my blog.)

The first shot is the break, examined at 170x slower than normal speed.  This is followed by her stop spin and massé shots.  The highlight is watching her backspin shot, “time-warped at 2000 frames/second,” which enables the viewer to see the cue ball rotate five times before finally retracing its path backwards. Even Ms. Ford seems impressed.  The full episode is available to watch here.

Discover Science

Discover Science is a DVD series from 2012 that focuses on “spectacular experiments to sharpen your sense of science.” Starting with the first episode that sought to explain how 500 eggs could support the weight of a 1700 pound camel, the series utilized a team of “Experiment Rangers” to lead the experiments through trial and error and ultimately demonstrate the physical laws of nature.

“Let’s Play Long Billiards,” the 11th episode in the series, seeks to answer the question “how long does force travel?” by shooting a cue ball into an ever-increasing number of billiards balls. Professional billiards player Hideaki Arita (currently ranked #52 in Japanese Professional Billiards Association) joins the experiment as the expert cue ball stroker.

The episode begins with the experiment of shooting a cue ball into 16-foot long consecutive line of 90 balls to see if the 90th ball moves. (Yes, it does, easily.) Subsequent experiments increase the ball count eventually to 630 balls (114 feet), with the final ball still successfully moving. While the episode is clearly aimed at a young demographic, “Let’s Play Long Billiards” does a great job of revealing how the slightest imperfections (e.g., two balls not completely touching) can cause problems with accuracy and the transfer of forward momentum.

Outrageous Acts of Science

The final series is Outrageous Acts of Science, a Science Channel program in the US that features professional scientists, mathematicians and engineers reviewing and explaining internet videos of homemade science experiment and stunts, often accompanied by warnings of “don’t try this at home.” Now in its tenth season, the series first aired in April 2013.

In January 2015, the third season kicked off with the episode “Fact of Fake?” that includes a jaw-dropping billiards trick shot in which the cue ball, starting at the left back corner pocket makes a near-parabolic path around a straight line of approximately 40 balls bisecting the table to then pocket a ball in the right back corner pocket. The episode can be watched here.[1]

While the shot stuns some of the series’ experts, billiards enthusiasts will instantly identify the shot as real because the shot-maker is none other than Florian “Venom” Kohler, perhaps the world’s top trick shot artist and the (current) owner of six Guinness world records related to billiards.  As Venom modestly says, “Why would I fake it when I can do it?”

But, even if we know it’s real, we appreciate the explanations from the episode’s experts, physicists Helen Arney and Saad Sarwana, who contrast how “us mortals just hit a ball straight, giving the ball forward linear momentum…but, Florian is giving it linear momentum and [a lot of] angular momentum, where he strikes the ball off-center to make it spin very fast.”

So the next time you start tuning out when the conversation turns to science, just remember in billiards it’s all about the physics (and the math).

[1]      A huge thank you to my professional colleague, Metis Chief Data Scientist Deborah Berebichez, who is one of the experts on Outrageous Acts of Science, for informing me about this episode.

Steve Davis: Snookerstar DJ

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There’s no shortage of famous musicians who can shoot a mean game of pool.

Snookerstar DJ

Elvis Presley’s Billiard Room

Elvis Presley, who favored 8-ball and rotation, loved pool so much he outfitted his basement Billiard Room at Graceland with 300 yards of an elaborately printed pleated fabric covering every square inch of the floor and ceiling. [1] John Lennon was an avid player, whose properties housed gorgeous snooker tables. Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, who counts cue ace Jimmy White as one of his friends, remarked that the one item his ex-wife could not auction off was his prized baize table. [2] Lemmy Kilmister, lead singer of Motorhead, said shortly before he passed, “I’m going to hell anyway, that’s where the pool tables are. You can’t imagine a pool table in heaven can you?” [3] Even Mozart was a pool fiend.[4]

But, identifying billiards players who are expert musicians and music buffs?  That’s a bit harder. Until you consider Steve Davis, the subject of the recent short film Steve Davis: Snookerstar DJ, which highlights Mr. Davis’ performance at the March 2016 Bloc electronic dance music festival at Butlins Resort Minehead in Somerset, England. The film is available to watch here.

Steve Davis? Sure, the Englishman was one of the best snooker players in the world, dominating the sport in the 1980s when he won the World Championship six times and was ranked number one player in the world for seven consecutive seasons.

But, a DJ? As famous as he was for snooker, Mr. Davis was equally well-known for being, well, boring, due to his lack of emotional expression and somewhat monotonous interviewing style. Mr. Davis would be the first to acknowledge his reputation, saying to his electric idol Holly Herndon in the movie, “You don’t know my history. I was the most boring snooker player on the circuit. I had no facial expressions whatsoever.” In fact, he even mocked his own demeanor by publishing a book entitled How to Be Really Interesting.

Snookerstar DJThis personality paradox, of course, is what makes the 9-minute documentary so enjoyable.  Directed by Chris Martinez for BBC Music and released in the UK in April 2016, Snookerstar DJ revels in the juxtaposition between Steve Davis, the Automaton, and Steve Davis, the Music Man.  As Barry Hearn, the man who discovered and managed Mr. Davis to global success and stardom, says in the film’s opening, “Something that doesn’t sit along his boring image is his taste in music.”[5] 

The film assumes its audience knows Mr. Davis’ snooker accomplishments, so there is little billiards shown or discussed.  But, the director correctly anticipates that most people are unaware Mr. Davis has been broadcasting his Interesting Alternative Show on Phoenix FM, a community radio station in England, since 1996. So, it’s eye-opening to see Mr. Davis at the local turntable – and this is before he heads to the Bloc Festival.

As a result of his local show, Mr. Davis, along with his co-presenter Kavus Torabi, has been invited to the Bloc Festival, a popular electronic dance music festival in England that will feature headliners, such as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, as well as techno legends Jeff Mills and Carl Craig.

For the unflappable Mr. Davis, the upcoming concert reveals a rare moment of vulnerability. “I’m absolutely crapping myself, I really am…I’ve walked out of the Crucible of big matches, played in front of thousands of people live, millions of people on television, but that’s my job.  This isn’t my job so much…so I hope it goes well.”

Snookerstar DJSimilarly, in the days leading up to the show, Mr. Davis shares he has no idea how to act on stage. “[I was] told to be myself and enjoy it and dance around, and I can’t do that. I had a dream. It was half a nightmare. I only brought six records and I messed up.”

As the crowd shouts “Steve Davis,” obviously amped they are about to witness a crossover moment in history, Mr. Davis takes the stage. Only a few moments of his set are shown, but it’s clear he’s enjoying himself, and later declares the performance to be “brilliant.”

With Mr. Davis’ metamorphosis complete, former manager Mr. Hearn ends the film with the perfect comment, “This change in Davis is something I have great deal of difficulty coming to terms with. I spent years creating the ultimate robot. And now I find him the most unlikely disc jockey in the world. It is a frightening prospect for music lovers in this land.”

 

[1]       http://www.threadsmagazine.com/2011/12/09/elvis-fabulous-upholstered-pool-room

[2]       http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ronnie-wood-fights-to-keep-hold-1347654

[3]       http://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/636971/Lemmy-Kilmister-dead-Motorhead-funeral-BBC

[4]       http://www.wqxr.org/story/mozarts-likes-eight-random-things-composer-couldnt-resist/

[5]       In fairness, there were early signs of Mr. Davis’ musical predilections. In 1986 he joined several other snooker stars to form the backup vocal group the Matchroom Mob for musical duo Chas & Dave on the novelty record “Snooker Loopy”, which was a Top 10 hit in the United Kingdom, and was #3 on my Top 10 Billiards Songs and Videos list.

Manitoba Sharks (in production)

It took me a few months to track down Amanda Kindzierski, the documentarian behind the forthcoming short film Manitoba Sharks.  I first read about the film in a press release from the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (WAFF).  According to the release, Ms. Kindzierski had won a $20,000 “pitch contest” from MTS Stories From Home, which is a collection of original, made-in-Manitoba programming created exclusively for MTS TV customers.

Manitoba Sharks

Director Amanda Kindzierski

While the release stated that Manitoba Sharks would “tell the story of pool in Manitoba [a province of Canada] through the eyes of Aboriginal proprietors and players who are among the best in the world,” the real story, as revealed to me by Ms. Kindzierski in an interview this past March, is far more fascinating.

Ms. Kindzierski began with a fundamental question:   Why does Winnipeg have so much billiards talent for such a small city?  (The population is about 660,000.) “We go to these Canadian tournaments and we clean up,” proffered Ms. Kindzierski animatedly.

Though my own post-interview research could not confirm that the citizens of Winnipeg (or Manitoba) win a disproportionate amount of Canadian titles, I was nonetheless hooked by Ms. Kindzierski’s personal story and her mission quest to make this film.

A born cinephile, Ms. Kindzierski became obsessed with movies early, deciding at age 8 that she wanted to become a director.  After some life decisions took her off that path, she ultimately pivoted, giving up her job, apartment, and car, to pursue film.  She was one of nine Canadians accepted into the National Screen Institute New Voices program, in which she attended a nine-month broadcasting school and then, two years ago, made her first short film, The Path.

But, as an active “middle-of-the-road” pool player, she also knew she had another story to tell. “Winnipeg has one of the largest pool leagues in the world,” she shared.  In fact, the Aactive Pool League has more than 4,000 members and 450 teams.  She asked herself: Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?

Born to a Polish/Ukrainian mother and an Ojibwe Cree father, Ms. Kindzierski wanted the world to know about Winnipeg’s talent – and more important, wanted  that story to be told from an indigenous Canadian point of view.  As evidenced by the success of her 3-minute pitch (to a panel that included actor Adam Beach, currently starring in the heavily anticipated summer movie Suicide Squad), a lot of people wanted her to tell that story, as well.

Manitoba Sharks

Joe Ducharme

To represent that story, Ms. Kindzierski opted to focus on two individuals of two different generations.  The first was her father, Joe Ducharme.  A highly experienced amateur player, Mr. Ducharme has won both the Aactive Championship League and placed second in the 2007 Valley National 8-Ball League Association (VNEA).

Manitoba Sharks

Shannon Ducharme (photo by Richard Walker)

The current generation in Manitoba Sharks is represented by Shannon Ducharme (no relation), whose exciting career has been checkered by both a stint in jail and a bout with cancer. A full-time construction foreman by day, Mr. Shannon Ducharme, who once won the Western Canadian 8-ball title at age 19, recently slingshot his career by placing 2nd in the CBSA Canadian Men’s Open 9-ball Championship, and then competing in Doha, Qatar at the 2015 World Nine-ball Championship, where he made it to the fourth round before losing 9-6 to the heavily favored Warren Kiamco from the Philippines.

But, as Ms. Kindzierski narrates the tale, the real impressive story is that “Shannon can only play pool his spare time.  The fact he is competing with these guys is incredible.  Shannon lost to a [top] guy [at the World Championship].  And Shannon couldn’t even find a sponsor.  He was allowed three logos on his shirt and he couldn’t find anyone.”[1]  She adds, “Guys [like Shannon] are digging ditches and driving trucks and then competing against people who play for a living.”

As of two months ago, Manitoba Sharks was in post-production with a rough cut almost completed.  According to Ms. Kindzierski, the next step is to send the estimated 20-minute film to MTS for approval so that it will be released on Stories From Home. Once that happens, Ms. Kindzierski will then turn her attention to securing a distributor in Winnipeg and submitting the documentary to film festivals so a wider audience can view it.

As for the question, Why does Winnipeg have such a high concentration of billiards players?, Ms. Kindzierski acknowledges the obvious answer of the weather.  “We have winter from October to April.” But, she continues that the real reason is that there is a “huge amount of teaching and coaching and sharing of knowledge that doesn’t happen in big cities.”

[1]       Mr. Ducharme will again represent Canada in the 2016 World Nine-ball Championship in Doha, Qatar.  An online fundraiser is underway to help him raise $2000 to attend.

The Road Scholars

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Do you know what a tush-hog is? When you hear the name “Daddy Warbucks,” do you picture Hubert Cokes rather than the bald guy from Annie? If someone says to you he has “the nuts,” do you realize he’s not talking about salty snacks?

Road ScholarsIf you answered “no” to these questions, then watching The Road Scholars is like attending your third cousin’s 50th high school reunion and sipping rum punch while no one offers you even ten seconds of attention. However, if you answered “yes,” then you’re likely going to bask in your front row seat to 70 minutes of war stories delivered by some of the most famous and fabulous pool hustlers of the 1960s and 1970s.

Filmed in 2008 at the annual Derby City Classic by pool photographer and historian Diana Hoppe, The Road Scholars originally consisted of eight hours of informal video interviews with 11 of the most well-known hustlers of the second half of the twentieth century. They were: Ronnie Allen, “Buffalo Danny” DiLiberto, Jimmy “The Philly Flash” Fusco, Freddy “The Beard” Bentivegna, Truman Hogue, Billy “Cardone” Incardona, Wade “Boom Boom” Crane, “Champagne” Eddie Kelly, Grady “The Professor” Mathews, “Hippie Jimmy” Reid, and Vernon Eliot. Ms. Hoppe then spent about two years editing the content down to 70 minutes for the DVD release in 2010.

For those expecting a movie or a documentary or anything even close to a narrated story, prepare to be broken. There’s nothing here for you. Without setup or introduction, except an opening slide that reads, “The finest professional pool players and hustlers known collectively as the Road Scholars,” Ms. Hoppe drops the viewer into a back room (at the Derby Classic), where a roundtable bull session is in progress and Mr. Incardona is holding center stage.

The sound production quality is average, the camera work rarely captures the whole 11-person posse on screen, and there is an absolute disregard from the attendees that this video recording may be watched by someone in the future. Yet, it’s this nonchalance, coupled with the obvious camaraderie among the men that produces such candid, honest, and ribald storytelling.

Some of the stories are more enjoyable (and easier to follow) than others. I loved hearing Mr. Incardona regale the group with his tale of Artie Bodendorfer playing one-handed pool in Vegas and outlasting all the other players so that he could break them down over a period of days. (In The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers, the Beard similarly describes Mr. Bodendorfer, saying he could “play for 2 or 3 days on coffee only…He would pee about once every 24 hours. Playing against him was so brutal that Artie had two people drop dead playing with him.”)

Mr. DiLeberto shares a great yarn about conning Pool Wars author Jay Helfert out of money with three-to-one odds by throwing a golf ball 130 yards. The Beard, ever the raconteur, recounts an incredible tale (that he also chronicles in The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers) of beating James “Texas Youngblood” Blunt out of $1600, only to have give the money back after Blunt’s stakehorse, Al Sherman, threatened the Beard with a 9mm automatic, thinking the Beard had gotten Blunt to dump the game, when in fact the Beard “beat him on the square.” The Beard also relates an inconceivable story about trying to dupe Archie “The Greek” Karras into thinking he was an eccentric billionaire. That clip is available to watch here.

Woofing aside, some of the best parts of The Road Scholars are the most intimate ones. For example, it’s a tender scene when the Professor inducts Mr. Kelly into the One Pocket Hall of Fame. After accepting the award gracefully, Mr. Kelly, who was the only attendee to have been inducted into the Billiard Congress Hall of Fame (2003), said that being “considered by many peers in the late ‘60s to be the best all around player…that meant more to me than all the trophies.” Or, when the Beard turns to Mr. Eliot and praises his character by saying how he let the Beard off the hook by not accepting his wager that he couldn’t make a particular trick shot. Of course, the single best line goes to the Professor, who offers to bring the roundtable to a close by offering “thanks to all the wonderful ladies and the great pool players. I’ve enjoyed all the matches and all the nights of love-making.”

Two of the attendees, Mr. Fusco and Mr. Reid, unfortunately do not receive on-camera time in the final 70 minutes. And, oddly, there is some unexpected footage at the very end of Larry Liscotti doing card tricks and of “Boston Shorty” Larry Johnson struggling to remember some of his accomplishments.

The Road Scholars is available to purchase on Amazon. She also just released this past November The Road Scholars 2: The Final Chapter, which includes never before seen footage of The Road Scholars, One Pocket Hall of Fame dinner, The Derby City Classic and The US Open.

For those (like myself) who did not grow up familiar with these legends of pool, I highly recommend also reading The Beard’s The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers. It provides backgrounds on all the attendees, includes many of the same stories shared on the DVD, and most important, brings the uninitiated into the wild world of pool hustling.

Road Scholars

The Road Scholars ends with a slide indicating it is dedicated to “Vernon Eliot and all the players we lost.” It is a terribly sad irony that since the DVD’s release, the billiards world has now lost almost half of the original group of 11. We mourn not only the passing of Mr. Eliot, but also that of Mr. Allen, Mr. Bentivegna, Mr. Crane, and Mr. Mathews.   Their stories need to be preserved and their impact on the sport needs to be told. Thank you Ms. Hoppe for helping to make that happen.

The Strickland Story

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Maybe it should come as no surprise that The Strickland Story documentary, produced and aired by Sky Sports Productions on November 27, 2013, provoked a lot of heated online debate, specifically around Earl Strickland’s claim, “I’m one of the greatest athletes America has ever produced.”

Strickland StoryIn the days after the documentary aired, billiards message boards and forums lit up with debates raging between ardent admirers and heated haters. Many professed their lifelong support for Strickland, calling him “amazing,” “a pool god,” and “brilliant.” On the other end of the spectrum, some of the borderline unprintable comments included, “Someone should just show him a picture of Efren Reyes and tell him to shut the f*** up!,” or “His arrogance and unsportsmanlike conduct make him an a**hole,” or “This guy is a nut sack! There is no talent here!! His ego is the only thing happening here!”

As a billiards movie blogger, and only an amateur pool player, I certainly do not feel qualified to deliver an opinion on whether Earl “The Pearl” Strickland is, in fact, the greatest. (Though given he won the US Open Nine-Ball Championship five times and the WPA World Nine-Ball Championship three times, I think anyone who tries to claim Strickland ‘doesn’t have talent’ should be forced to watch an endless loop of Strickland’s mind-blowing performance in the 1996 Million Dollar Challenge.) But, I do want to set the record straight on a few things:

  1. Strickland StoryThe documentary did not declare Strickland to be the “greatest player ever.” At some point in the lead-up to the film’s release or shortly thereafter, the title morphed into The Earl Strickland Story: The Greatest Ever, but this apposition never actually appears in the 46 minutes of film.
  2. Strickland is far from the first athlete to declare himself the “greatest athlete” in his/her sport. This superlative has been proclaimed, in one variant or another, by many, including Muhammad Ali (boxing), Ricky Henderson (baseball), Usain Bolt (track), Randy Moss (football), Federica Pellegrini (swimming), Maurice Greene (track), and Shaun Palmer (snowboarding). One or two of these athletes probably could make legitimate claims. Few, if any, probably set off such a backlash of anger.
  3. There have been many “Greatest Athletes of All Time” lists (e.g., Bleacher Report, ESPN). To my knowledge, not one of those lists has ever included a billiards player. Chew on that sad fact for a moment.
  4. Finally, Strickland’s complete quote was, “I’m one of the greatest athletes America has ever produced, whether the general public has acknowledged it or not. That’s how I feel.” Some may call this arrogance, others may call this confidence. In any event, it’s self-opinion from one of the most passionate, committed athletes alive.

Haters aside, there are probably two types of viewers for this documentary: (1) those who know very little about Strickland; and (2) those who know a lot about Strickland. Both viewers are in for a great documentary, which you can watch in its entirety here.

For those who know very little about Strickland, the documentary succinctly charts his biography, from learning to play billiards at the age of 8, when his father first snuck him into a pool hall in North Carolina to becoming “the best player in Houston by age 19” to entering tournament play and winning five US Open Nine-Ball Championships (more than any player in history) to participating in the Mosconi Cup. Some criticized the film for not including the Million Dollar Challenge or the Color of Money match against Efren Reyes, but with more than 50 titles and achievements to Strickland’s name, it would have been impossible to hit on all the highlights.

The film also effectively weaves in interviews with Strickland, sports event promoter Barry Hearn, and pool legends Johnny Archer and Rodney Morris, among others, to present the complexity of Strickland’s character. As Archer says, “He is not understood well. I think he is a genius on the pool table.”

Strickland StoryThose interviews reveal Strickland’s obsession with the sport (“Pool has taken over my mind, my soul, everything. I eat, sleep obviously, but other than that, I go to the pool table. It’s almost like a drug, I got to have it.”); his volatility (“he’s borderline mad”); his antics (i.e., jumping on the table after his win in Cardiff and declaring, “I’m king of the world.”); his occasional aggression to the fans (i.e., threatening them with a cue stick and later breaking it at the Mosconi Cup); and his intensity (“You think it’s some kind of game or something. It ain’t no game. I’m dead serious. I’ll shoot your liver out and hand it to you.”).

But, The Strickland Story is equally enlightening for those who sought more than the biopic headlines. For example, it delves into his bipolar personality, or what Barry Hearn calls his “Jekyll and Hyde character.” The film also reveals how the same fans he has been known to chastise are the ones who enabled him to pivot from a career as a gambler to a career as a professional player. (“People don’t clap for gamblers. I felt something inside of me when people clapped. Someone asked me for my autograph. I changed just like that…a better life where I was appreciated.”)

Strickland StoryRegardless of one’s familiarity with Strickland, it is impossible not to be moved by the documentary’s ending. Blaming both himself (“I made bad decisions. It’s not pool’s fault.”) and the general public (“Years ago, I would have been proud of who I am. That doesn’t exist anymore. You stripped me of that.”) for his pecuniary condition, he laments the state of pool today, including the lack of respect and financial options available for players:

“I have to live in a city of 30 million to make some money…exhibition are gone…I’m lucky I still have a name…every time we get some hope, it gets dashed…we have no hype, we’re all broke…I don’t understand how you could desert this game, how could my country desert this game…I am here to protect and preserve this game the way I found it…if pool deserves to die and not get us respected and make us millionaires, then all sports deserve to die.”

In all the many posted comments I read about The Strickland Story, the one that resonated most with me was from Aleo on the Two Plus Two forum. He writes, “The sad thing about this documentary is that you can see how heartbroken [Strickland] is about the state of the game. Everyone always talks so much about how talented or explosive Earl may be, but as good as he is, what’s always impressed me most about him is how much he genuinely LOVES pool. Honestly I’m not sure anyone loves pool as much as Strickland does.”

Wilson Jones

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In October 2013, snooker returned to its birth country when the Indian Open, a professional ranking snooker tournament, was held in New Delhi.   It was the first ever ranking snooker event played in India. Among the 64 participating players from around the world, two of the lower-ranked players, Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, were both from India. Surprising many, both made it to the quarter-finals, where they played one another, and Mehta made it all the way to the finals, where he lost to China’s heavily-favored Ding Junhui.

Almost exactly one decade before that landmark historical event, the world lost one of the greatest Indian snooker (and billiards) legends, Wilson Jones, a man likely not well-known among many billiards fans, though surely revered by Advani and Mehta, who would have each been just 18 years old when Jones died.

Fortunately, the Films Division of India released from its vaults a 17-minute documentary film, Wilson Jones, about the snooker sensation.   Directed in 1971 by Vijay B. Chandra, the biopic reveals snippets of the life of this humble champion by interspersing billiards footage with family interviews and scenes of Wilson Jones presiding at his Bombay home and proudly displaying his stereo system. The film is available to watch here:

As is shared in the film, Wilson Jones not only won the amateur National Billiards Championship of India 12 times, and the World Amateur Billiards Championship (now known as the ISBF World Billiards Championship) twice, in 1958 and 1964, but also was India’s first world champion in any sport. He won numerous Indian awards, including the Arjuna Award (best sportsman), which is shown in the film (3:10), and the Dronacharya Award (best coach). At the time of documentary, Wilson Jones had already retired from billiards. He says the decision was driven to spend more time with his family, as well as a conviction that the best time to retire is when one is “at the top of [his] career.”

Wilson Jones 2The film’s narrative is not that revealing or insightful, though it’s interesting to hear one unnamed player describe him as an “extremely tough man to beat in competition because of his cool temperament and great determination,” and another describe him “as a person better than he is as a player because he is considerate, helpful, always willing to give a hand to any person who wants to learn.”

Perhaps, more disappointing is that the film itself is shot rather unimaginatively, given direction by Vijay B. Chandra and production by Pramod Pati, two leaders in Indian experimental film of that era. While there are a handful of unusual close-ups and camera angles sprinkled through the film, it’s still fairly vanilla, in comparison to Chandra’s surreal Child on a Chessboard or Pati’s psychedelic short film Abid.

Toward the end of the film, Wilson Jones says that, “in snooker [India is] a little way behind. The gap has been narrowed a bit [but] what we need is [for] these snooker boys to go out more often…and eventually, India should be very good.” It may have taken longer than he had hoped, but with players like Advani and Mehta now making global headlines, it seems Wilson Jones’ legacy has become complete.

Pichitas (billiards documentary)

A beauty of billiards is that it has no singular, global definition.  Played around the world, the game has morphed and been shaped by local customs, cultures and personalities, assuming various rules and strategies and relying on different types of equipment, depending on where it’s played.  The sport encompasses everything from goriziana (Italy) to keglebillard (Denmark), from kaisa (Finland) to sinuca (Brazil), from yotsudama (Japan) to pyramid (Russia). The sport’s celebrities, too, span the globe, forming a transcontinental pantheon of billiards all-stars:  Efren Reyes (Philippines), Earl Strickland (US), Pankaj Advani (India), Thorsten Hohmann (Germany), Ronnie O’Sullivan (United Kingdom), Mika Immonen (Finland), and many more.

Pichitas - billiards documentary

R.A. “Jake” Dyer

One country, however, that receives little mention is Costa Rica. Perhaps, that is a grave oversight.  Certainly, that is the conclusion of R.A. “Jake” Dyer, the preeminent pool author (The Hustler & The Champ; Hustler Days), historian, blogger, and former documentary filmmaker.  Back in 1991 or 1992, Dyer returned to Costa Rica, where had lived for three years shooting pool among “some of the country’s greatest players” to make a movie about Luis “Pichitas” Calderon, the “best hustler, the best pool player in the world.”  Shot on Super-8 film in black-and-white and running about 23 minutes, Pichitas: A Costa Rican Pool Documentary is Dyer’s personal quest to find and film the legendary Pichitas, a billiards player of near mythic status.  The full film is available to watch on Vimeo here.

The documentary features Dyer as director, interviewer, and Spanish translator, intimately talking with the denizens of “Center Pool,” a (now-closed) pool hall in the market district of San Jose that had 50 billiards tables and was reputedly a frequent destination for Pichitas.

Pichitas - billiards documentaryInterspersed between the interviews is footage of this “wonderful cast of characters, some of whom were vaguely disreputable,” with the popular Cumbia tune “Juana La Cubana” by Fito Olivares playing in the background. Dyer also packs into this billiards documentary some sociological history, comparing the role pool halls played in the lives of turn-of-the-century heterosexual American bachelors to the role they play for men in Costa Rica today.  “Most the men are married, but you wouldn’t know it from their behavior.  They are here literally all day…they are not unlike the lifelong bachelors that one time thrived in the US.” [1]

Of course, the great irony of the documentary is that Dyer set out to “look for Pichitas and make a movie about him because he is legendary. That’s what this movie is about, that’s what we’re going to do.” But as the film progresses, Dyer is unable to locate Pichitas.   One starts to wonder if he is like the Yeti of Nepal, el fantasma de Costa Rica.  Even Dyer expresses doubts (or at least frustration), saying, “They’ve told me Pichitas is here, Pichitas is there…I have no idea, I can’t find him anywhere.”

For fans of documentaries like Searching for Sugar Man, there is an expectation that the denouement will result in the big reveal.  But, it never happens, at least not for the audience.  The movie technically ends with Dyer running off camera to pursue a possible sighting.  But, in the epilogue, Dyer returns, triumphantly announcing that he did finally meet Pichitas, though the moment is not captured on film.  As Dyer subsequently explains, “We saw Pichitas.  He was everything we promised.  He was the best hustler, the best pool player in the world. He was a great guy…but we ran out of film, sorry, that’s the breaks…maybe next time.”

“Sorry, that’s the breaks?!”  It is arguably the cruelest of endings, a final vanishing act, a punch line at the audience’s expense.  Or, maybe it’s the perfect capstone to this supernatural quest.  If one goes online today, the only mention of Luis “Calderon” Pichitas is by Dyer. There are no other stories, no images, no artifacts.

In a December 2009 blog post, Dyer wrote that Pichitas was like a “trickster figure,” a legend shared through oral tradition.  He added:

I also recognized in each case messages about the “culture” of the pool room, in that they would communicate lessons about such matters as gambling etiquette, attach value to certain sorts of figures and heap ridicule on others, and define the language common to members of the “tribe”.

So, who was Pichitas? Where is he now? Does he exist?  I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.  I only know my passion for pool just got a little stronger watching the wonderful documentary Pichitas.

 

[1]       Dyer draws on the work of Ned Polsky from his book Hustlers, Beats and Others.

Chasing Wincardona

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Billy Incardona - Chasing Wincardona

William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona

In Moby Dick, Herman Melville tells the canonical story of Captain Ahab and his maniacal, obsessive pursuit of the great, white sperm whale.  Had Melville been writing today, rather than 150 years ago, he might have told a similar story about an emerging billiards talent Ronnie “Wiseguy” Wiseman and his 25-year pursuit of a re-match with William “9-Ball Billy” Incardona. [1]

The billiards community doesn’t have a Melville, but it does have documentary filmmaker Angel Levine, who interviewed Incardona and Wiseman the day after his quarter-century chase culminated with a game of one-pocket at the 1st (inaugural) Annual Southern Classic Tournament in Tunica, Mississippi.  The interview, along with a few snippets of the match, are presented in Levine’s nine-and-a-half minute 2013 film, Chasing Wincardona, available to watch below in its entirety.

http://youtu.be/eQwAB0kKrNs

Levine describes Incardona as a “former nine-ball champion and ex-hustler [who] through his expert negotiations and handicapping of the games he enters into, has played and beaten the world’s best, both in the tournament arena and in private one-on-one matches after hours since 1970.” Today, he’s also a member of the One-Pocket Hall of Fame, the “voice of Accu-Stats,” and a commentator for ESPN.

As the story goes, future Pro player Wiseman first met Incardona at Bogart’s Billiards on April Fool’s Day, 1987.  Incardona convinced Wiseman he didn’t know how to play nine-ball, and subsequently proceed to hustle him.  Says Wiseman: “I paid a couple thousand for my lessons [on that day].”

Wiseman spent the next 25 years following Incardona around the country, trying to win back his money and regain his honor.  As Incardona says, “Every time I see [Wiseman], he plays the same record…It’s in his craw.” The film doesn’t broach why Incardona didn’t give Wiseman a second chance all those years, or why this particular tournament broke the spell.  But, the two ultimately do play in a $2500 one-pocket game of two-against-one, with “Downtown” Eddie Brown as Wiseman’s partner against Incardona.

Given the 25-year desire to “revenge that loss,” it’s amazing to listen to the jocular spirit between these two.  Moby Dick fans will recall that when Ahab finally encountered his nemesis, he said, “From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”  There’s no such enmity here.  The two laugh, joke, trade barbs, and remind us all that the competitive spirit that governs play on the pool table doesn’t have to remain off the table.

Raising the HustlerThe Chasing Wincardona footage is just a tiny sample of the 600 hours of film that Levine has collected over the past seven years as part of her forthcoming documentary Raising the Hustler.  To anyone who hopes to see that opus on the large screen, I encourage you to support Levine through her current fundraiser, in which she is selling t-shirts to fund the film’s final editing and post-production. You can show your support at the Booster-Raising the Hustler website.

Also, as a final postscript, Chasing Wincardona was co-written and co-narrated by George Fels, who passed away on New Year’s Eve.  Fels was one of the most acclaimed and prolific billiards writers, earning the nickname “Pool’s Poet Laureate.”  Thank you for everything you did for the sport, Mr. Fels.

[1]       Melville may never have formally written about billiards, but there are occasional references to billiards in his writing.  For example, in Moby Dick, he likens preparing porpoise meat to making the meat “into balls the size of billiards balls.” And, when Melville first arrived at Oxford, he described the grass as “smooth as the green baize of a billiards table.”