You're watching Carlo Biado line up a three-rail kick in the hill-hill game at the 2024 US Open. The cue ball's on the bottom rail, the nine-ball's buried behind a cluster near the side pocket. Biado chalks up, bends down, and fires the cue ball cross-side at what looks like an impossibly thin angle. Three rails later, the cue ball makes contact so clean the referee doesn't even hesitate. Here's what you didn't see: Biado didn't calculate diamond trajectories. He didn't mentally compute rebound angles. He looked at the table and knew. The same way a jazz pianist knows the...

Duong Quoc Hoang was down 9-6 to Shane Van Boening at the 2023 World Pool Championship. The defending world champion was rolling. The Vietnamese player—ranked 26th globally at the time—looked cooked. Then Hoang ran four racks straight. Hill-hill. The crowd in the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports Hall went silent. Hoang broke and ran out. The 11-10 upset sent shockwaves through the sport—not just because Van Boening lost, but because of who beat him and where he came from. That match in February 2023 was the moment the pool world finally understood what the grinders already knew: the map was changing....

Most of us grew up on 8-ball. It's what's waiting in every bar, every basement, every "you break" handshake in America. But there's a bigger world on the cloth — games that sharpen instincts you just can't build shooting stripes and solids. If you haven't mixed it up in a while, maybe it's time to rack something different and remember why you fell in love with the table in the first place. One-Pocket: The Master's Game There's nothing slow about one-pocket once you understand it. It's chess played with chalk dust. Here's what actually happens: you leave the 6-ball frozen...

Jeanette Lee never needed a microphone to command attention. She just walked into a room, and the game got quieter. Dressed in black, cue in hand, she carried herself like someone who knew the table owed her respect—and usually, it gave it. There was something magnetic about her presence. You didn’t just watch Jeanette Lee play; you felt it. Every pause, every glance down the line of her cue, every slow exhale before the break — it was a kind of stagecraft only the table could teach. You could hear the hum of the lights, the faint tap of chalk,...

Every serious player starts somewhere — a dusty garage table, bar-table battles, or late-night racks in the basement. Then something clicks. You start caring about how the cue feels in your hand. You start noticing the roll. That’s when it happens: you stop playing for fun, and start playing for real. If you're feeling that pull, it’s time to level up your space — and your mindset. 1) Turn Your Table Into Sacred Ground Got laundry on the rails or crumbs in the corner pockets? Time to change that. Respecting your setup is step one in every player’s growth. Wipe...

You ever notice how pool players get treated like background noise? We’re the “bar game,” the sideshow. Not athletes. Not artists. Just folks killing time with a stick and a drink. But here’s what they don’t see: the long hours spent dialing in a break. The slow burn of a three-hour match where every miss costs you pride. The deep breath before a pressure shot that determines everything. They don’t see the discipline. The strategy. The obsession. And when they look around a pool hall — they don’t see style. Not the way they see it on a golf course...

Picture this: you're standing at the table, chalk in hand, but your confidence isn't. Three matches down. Maybe four. Each shot feels heavier than the last, and suddenly the table that used to feel like home feels like enemy territory. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone — and more importantly, you're not broken. You're just in the middle of the story. "Confidence isn’t built in victories. It’s revealed in the way you handle defeat." The Psychology of a Losing Streak When your confidence takes a hit, your brain shifts into survival mode. It replays every mistake, trying to prevent...

Ask any player about their cue, and you’ll get a story. The first one they bought. The one that warped in a hot car. The one that still smells faintly of bar smoke. Because a cue isn’t just a stick of wood. It’s an extension of your touch, your timing, your trust. And over the years, that touch has evolved — from the warm grain of maple to the space-age precision of carbon fiber. The Maple Era For most of pool’s history, cues were carved from hard rock maple — the gold standard for strength, balance, and feel. From the...

Every few years, the cue world lines up its shot at the Olympics — and so far, it keeps rattling the pocket. Paris 2024 said no. Now all eyes are on Los Angeles 2028. The question isn’t whether players want it. It’s whether pool in the Olympics can check the boxes the IOC cares about and finally land on the sport’s biggest stage. Where Cue Sports Stand Right Now Since 1992, the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS) has represented pool, snooker, and carom under one umbrella recognized by the IOC. That’s step one. Step two — getting a discipline...

At the 2022 World 9-Ball final, Shane Van Boening was two racks from the title he'd chased for fifteen years. The arena in Doha was electric. The pressure was biblical. Carlo Biado, across the table, had already proven he could run with anyone. And Shane? He looked like he was running drills on a Tuesday afternoon in Rapid City. That's the thing about Shane. The bigger the moment, the smaller his world gets. Just him, the cloth, and the next shot. Everything else—crowd noise, stakes, history—it's all static he learned to tune out a long time ago. Born Into It...

You’ve fed that coin slot a hundred times. Quarter drops, click echoes, game on. That sound isn’t just habit—it’s belonging. Before coin-ops, pool lived in private halls and gentlemen’s clubs. After them, it became ours. The coin-operated pool table didn’t just make the game accessible—it made it personal, loud, and impossible to ignore. The Day Everything Changed The first coin-operated pool tables appeared in the 1930s, and they flipped billiards culture overnight. No more country clubs. No velvet ropes. All you needed was a quarter and a little pride. Bar owners installed them by the thousands, and players who’d never...

Let’s be honest — some losses don’t just sting. They shake you. You don’t want to talk. You don’t want to hear “good try.” You want to rewind the clock, take that one shot back, and stop the spiral before it started. But there is no rewind. There’s only reset. And the players who figure that out fastest? They’re the ones who rise. Step One: Sit With It (But Not Too Long) Don’t bury it. Don’t pretend it didn’t matter. That sick feeling in your stomach? That’s your brain screaming: “This matters to me.” Good. That means you care. But...