Our distorted memory of a phenomenon.

By Bert van Manen

See if you can recognize these giants of the game from the very brief description.

-          His concentration at the table is the envy of most other top players, his birthdays are more frequent than his unforced errors.

-          He is the showman par excellence. With his turbo-charged cue, he can make balls do things forbidden by laws of nature. 

-          A thinking player, a technician, a master of subtlety, simplicity and 3-cushion finesse.

Before you read on: which one was the hardest to guess?

Let’s start with the easiest one: Nr. 2 is obviously Semih Sayginer. My guess is, not a single reader of this column missed that. Spend a half hour on Youtube, and you’ll find literally dozens of videoclips with Mr. Magic flashing that winning smile and producing one jaw-dropping shot after another. I don’t want to get too technical here, but when you watch those artistic shots in disbelief: do realize that several of them are only possible with heavy use of silicone spray on the balls. Even if you have a monster stroke yourself, you would not be able to reproduce this in your club, on old cloth.

Nr. 1 should have been fairly easy also: Dick Jaspers. My crystal ball says we should watch him like a hawk in 2013, because he is going to kick some serious ass. Lost his top spot in the world ranking, got beaten badly by Caudron in the JTC in Spain, did not win a "major” since the Lima WC in 2011. Just the right conditions for him to bounce back. This guy’s career may oscillate, but it is not going to go downhill any time soon. He is  way too good for that, and his spirit is unbroken. Take that little "40 in 11” from last week (German Bundesliga) as a warning sign, okay?

Now how about Nr.3?  I probably owe you a cold beer at the bar if you guessed it, because I have tried to trick you. Nr. 3 is once again Semih Sayginer. And every word of that description is true. 

Semih’s billiard persona has become defined by his artistic ability and showmanship, and he has been away from top level competition for a few years now. Put that together, and we are in danger of forgetting how he actually played 3-cushion. He did NOT use his sledgehammer stroke whenever there was half a chance. He did NOT invent an outlandish 9-rail shot to avoid a difficult 3-railer. He did NOT prefer a standing ovation for a single point to a quiet run of 5. In the nineties, Semih’s ambition was to become the best player in the world, and he had soon figured out that he would need lots of self-control and restraint to get there. Maybe not in his twenties, but certainly from his late thirties on, he played grown-up, creative, never-in-panic, beautiful 3-cushion, his eye always on two things: creating a line that would give him the "biggest” third ball, and finding the best zone for the first object ball. If, once in a while, he used his artistic skills and chose a spectacular solution, he did that because (for him, at least) it was the shot that had the best chance of making.

It is my honest opinion that - from roughly 2003 to 2008 - Semih was as good as Jaspers, Caudron and Blomdahl in most aspects of the game. But even though he won World Cups and was once World Champion, he never reached the stature of those three, and rightly so. His hands and billiard brain may have been as good as theirs (if not better); becoming world nr. 1 in 3-cushion is only marginally about being a genius, and mostly about getting to work and doing a job. Beating lesser opponents consistently. Grinding out ugly, defensive matches, and winning them. Not hating difficult tables. Semih was never good at that job, and he did not particularly like it. And, as much as I hate to say this about a player I admire: he could painfully, inexplicably choke from time to time, and be unable to make his last point no matter how routine the position.   

To underline my point about his 3-cushion play, I have found two links and created two more, from a match we played in NY. If you look at these four short clips, they will give you an idea of how his mind works. Here’s the first link, an absolutely unique shot. "This is one of the best three-cushion points I have witnessed in my entire career” said double world champion Marco Zanetti. Note that if he misses, he probably leaves nothing. If he makes it, he has a good chance of position! And finally: can you see any other solution to this problem, any shot that would even have a chance of 1 in a 100? I can’t.

  

The second clip is one of those situations where different players would come up with different solutions, all in the "under 5%” category. And I bet most of those players feel a bit silly once they have watched this. Sometimes a simple solution is right there under your nose, and you don’t see it. No sledgehammer stroke required.

 

Here we have a position where just about everything is awkward. Two or three "normal” solutions are available, but you would hate to play any of them, wouldn’t you? Semih decides that a "difficult” shot with well-placed balls is better than a "normal” shot with balls placed a bit wrong. Try this one, and you’ll find it is demanding, but not as hard as it may first look.

 

The 4th clip is again from our match in the Carom Cafe. I’ve intentionally left in a few points that preceed the fabulous precision shot at the end, because the ones leading up to it are all interesting in their own way. The decision to go 4-cushion on the opening position, the way he places the white on the second point, and especially the choice of shot on the 4th. And then the hit. OMG, as they say these days.

  

Not your typical Sayginer extravaganza? You thought it would be all reverse 7-rail force-follow through hoola-hoops with semtex bombs going off? I tell you, he was (and I certainly hope, IS) one of the most disciplined, elegant 3-cushion players in the world, with the touch of a painter. Any World Cup organizers have a wildcard to spare?  

PS. We sat behind the rail in the Carom Cafe, after midnight in August 2007, watching Semih practice by himself. Ten of us, mostly accomplished players. Semih made a run of 5, and we applauded him for MINUTES. I am not kidding you: I have never seen anything like it before or since. What made that run extraordinary? He had only two balls on the table. His new "game” was to hit the only other object ball, run three or more rails, and then hit that object ball AGAIN. No, not using warp speed. Simply by perfect judgment of the two ball trajectories. Feel free to try it yourself. Or, you could try to get a date with Angelina Jolie. Because that would be easier.