3-Cushion
Last week, I asked a hundred people which groundbreaking 3-cushion achievement they LEAST expected to happen any time soon. In other words, what would be the most difficult milestone record to set:
- a run of 30
- a tournament average (five matches minimum) of 3.000
- a match average of 10 (40 in 4, or 50 in 5).
Before I tell you which of these records is considered by many to be the toughest, let's go over the current situation. That should give us an idea of how far away the top players are, from reaching these dizzying heights.
The high run in 3-cushion, as most of you know, is 28, shared by Komori, Ceulemans, Forthomme and Caudron. A few 30's and higher were made in practice, some of those were witnessed and almost certainly true, some are totally unverifiable stories. It doesn't matter: we should disregard them all. No referee, no score sheet? No record. It's as simple as that.
But 28, four times already? That's pretty close to 30, you say? Well, I happen to disagree. It's an ocean away from 30. Here's my argument: We've had a 28 since 1993. The level of play has risen spectacularly in the past 24 years. The number of players over 1.500 has quadrupled (at least), tournament averages have gone up in leaps, the tables have become quicker and more reliable, the cues (and tips!) are better...and still nobody ran a 29 in competition, in that quarter of a century.
Yes, the first person to get to 29 has good odds to also make the 30th. But Komori, Ceulemans, Forthomme and Caudron also had good odds to make the 29th. And they didn't. This week in Luxor, we could have a 29, and a 30, thirty seconds later. Or we could have a 29, and no 30 for another decade. Or we could have NO 29, for another five years.
This is an incredibly tough record to break.
Then there is the 3.000 tournament average. The current (World Cup) record is 2.739, shared by Blomdahl and Sánchez. Caudron has the record to 40 points: 2.790 (240 in 86). Other tournament average records (to 50, or in sets) are lower. Blomdahl actually got to 3.000 average once, in an invitational in Japan, but it was only four matches to 30. Not enough points, not enough matches for a world record.
If you want to average 3.000 in a World Cup over five matches, you need to win the tournament in 66 innings or less (200 pts), or do extremely well in the first four rounds and lose the final with a great average. The current record of 2.739 equals 200 in 73. So that is still seven innings too many.
You'll always have this one horrible match, where the positions are shitty, you make some errors and end up with a disastrous average of 2.000 (40 in 20). That means you now have to make 160 points in 46 innings. Think about it.
This is an insanely tough record to break.
Third. A match average of 10, that's 40 points in 4 innings or 50 points in 5. This is where I am going to tell you how my 100 people thought about it. Fifty times, the run of 30 was named the most difficult. Thirty-four times, the 3.000 tournament average was chosen. And only ten people thought a match of 10 average would be the last one to be achieved. Hence, the title of this column.
But nobody will blame me if I say, for the third time: This is an absurdly tough record to break.
Haeng-Jik Kim: not a world record, still awesome
Let's forget about 50 in 5 for a moment, and concentrate on the "easier" 40 in 4. The current situation is, that Caudron (twice), Zanetti, Haeng Jik Kim and Jaspers share the record: 40 in 6. That's two innings away from 40 in 4. And again, that's an ocean.
Suppose you run a 9, then you add 23 in the second inning. As unbelievable as that would be, you STILL need to produce 8 points in the next two innings! After all you've gone through emotionally, that is like climbing Mount Everest, and when you are on top, someone asks you to run the 110 meter hurdles. I was in the audience when Jaspers was an inch away from 40 in 5, so I know THAT can be done. Shave off another inning? I don't know. We are getting close to what is humanly possible here.
Which milestone will be the first to be reached? We have no idea, do we? All we know is, that high runs have a better chance of happening in longer matches. In my personal opinion, we can afford to play to 50 on the final day of World Cups. There is no scheduling problem, no time pressure. It's just the semi's and the final, and these four players will always deliver: two hours and forty innings would be a "worst case scenario", a hundred minutes and 28 innings would be par for the course.
Without having researched this, I'll stick my neck out and say that (I think) most players in the top-14 would prefer 50 points over 40, in the semi and the final.
Would you?