And then there were three...
By Bert van Manen, January 2013Broadway
tickets to a show like "Chaplin” or "The Lion King” will cost you 70 –
100 dollars. A good seat in the Metropolitan opera to watch and listen
to "Aida”, 400 dollars, easily. With all due respect to these talented
and dedicated performers: they did the same thing yesterday, they will
do it again tomorrow. The lucky eighty-or-so people who walked into
billiard room "Den Hoek” in Zundert (Netherlands) last sunday, did not
pay a penny for admission, and they were witness to an event seen less
often than men setting foot on the moon.
The
astronaut of the day was Roland Forthomme, he is from Liege, in the
French-speaking half of Belgium. Big guy, but not the scary type: more
like Roald Dahl’s BFG. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth
and knows what it’s like to struggle. Having made a name for himself –
and a life – through billiards, he wants to get along with the world
around him, to seize the day in a jovial atmosphere. A well-liked figure
in the billiard rooms of Belgium, Holland and France, with an average
of 1.5 – 1.6. He has bad days though, a bit more often than his A-list
colleagues. He can let himself down at times. But his best days make up
for that in spectacular fashion. RF can find spells where he plays the
game with concentration so intense and willpower so strong that he
simply refuses to miss, and lifts himself up to the level of the
Blomdahls and Caudrons. And beats them.
A
few highlights from Roland’s career: he won two World Cup tournaments
(Hurghada 2005 and Volos 2006), four Belgian Cups (2000, 2002, 2005 and
2006), he beat Blomdahl in 2004, an amazing 50 pts to 6 in 11 innings,
probably the biggest margin by which the Swedish maestro has ever been
beaten, and he won the prestigious Sang Lee Memorial in 2008. That last
one, I would say, was the most formidable achievement in the list. The
field in NY that year was strong, the best Koreans were there, Blomdahl,
Ceulemans, Horn, Bury and Sayginer, and he had to beat Caudron in the
final. I was lucky enough to be present, and it was a match I’ll always
remember.
As
you all know by now, Forthomme played Merckx on 2 December 2012 in
Zundert, AND RAN A 28, equalling the world record by Komori (Zundert,
1993) and Ceulemans (Waalwijk, 1998). That’s not a statistic tidbit.
That is sports history.
Let’s
not discuss the world record (for the umpteenth time). Yes, people have
made – or claim to have made – more points than 28. Wikipedia says the
high run is 31, they are wrong. I know all the examples, ranging from
perfectly-true-with-witnesses to fisherman’s Latin, and they are NOT the
world record.
Official match. Referee. Score sheet.
The
one exception I will make (not the world record, but a special
mention), is Dick Jaspers’ continued run in the final of the 2008
European Championship in Florange. In his match against Blomdahl, Dick
ran a 13 to end the 1st set, finished the 2nd set in a single inning,
and ran 6 to start the 3d set. Those 34 points without a miss (but with
the benefit of a break-off) is certainly a rival to the three 28’s.
Very
high runs in 3-cushion are freaks of nature. A player can never produce
them at will. They HAPPEN TO YOU. You cannot predict where lightning
will strike, all you know for sure is, that two ingredients are
necessary: electricity in the sky and something on the ground to suck it
up. For high runs, those two ingredients are: a top class, steely
nerved player, and a little luck. Sometimes, a run of 15 consists of two
"normal” sevens, glued together by an unusual point in the middle. That
point does not have to be a fluke, it can be pure quality: a difficult
position solved, allowing you to continue a run where it would normally
end, and hopefully find another stretch of regular positions.
What are, from a psychological viewpoint, the best places to be in, if you want to make a high run? Obviously:
-
The break-off. You are not confused in any way, you are purposeful and
focussed. You’ve made 5, 6 or 7 points already and your judgment has
been spot-on every time. Your confidence is growing with each shot. You
are writing on a pristine sheet of paper, you’ve not smudged it with a
miss yet. You are enjoying yourself, and most of all: you are not yet in
doubt.
-
You are way behind without having done anything wrong. Things just went
your opponents way, it was all red, red, red on the roulette table. Now
it’s come up black, and you are going to make the most of that. It’s as
if you’ve had all the bad run of the ball so far, and you are now
entitled to good fortune, and good positions. There is a sense of
urgency also, you MUST do well now.
-The
equalizing inning. All the tension of the match just falls off. It
does not matter anymore, you cannot lose anything now, you can only win.
You can stop playing the occasion, and start playing the game. The
shoulders open up, the stroke is free, you think less and play more.
So
many high runs have been made from the spots: both Forton and Pijl have
equalized with a 13, Caudron lost 40 – 21 to Merckx and ran 18,
Tasdemir lost 50 – 26 to Tijssens and ran 21! Carlsen made his 27 from
the break. Last sunday, Forthomme topped them all, and he was the only
one who had the decency to do it with a camera rolling!
Thx for that, Roland (and Didier, of course, Merci!).
Here’s the top 9, as of December 2012:
28 – Komori – (van Kuijk) - Zundert – 1993
28 – Ceulemans – (van Camp) - Waalwijk – 1998
28 – Forthomme – (Merckx) - Zundert – 2012
28 - Caudron - (Zanetti) - Brandenburg - 2013 (update)
27 – van Kuijk – (Brants) - Turnhout – 2010
27 – Carlsen – (Jaspers) - Sprundel – 2006
27 – Caudron – (de Backer) - Geraardsbergen – 2006
26 – Merckx – (In Won Kang) - Fehrbach – 2011
26 – Merckx – (Hendrickx) – Merksem – 2012
26 – Jaspers – (Caudron) – Haarlem – 2001.
If
any of you happen to run a 20+ (match, referee, scoresheet!), be sure
to let me know. If I happen to run one of those, I will certainly let
YOU know. But don’t hold your breath.