3-Cushion
SEOUL - How spectacular will the level, the averages and the runs skyrocket when the world top of three cushion may only focus on attack playing? What's about the challenge, the limit, how attractive will it be to see world class players attack the same positions? The 3CC World Masters challenge, this week from Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 July in Seoul, South Korea, with 24 of the world's best players, will give the answer. The new tournament format, in which players who face each other will exactly receive the same positions, is made for offensive players. The challenge for the 3CC Masters: the best attack is the winner.
To put up an example of what we can expect: the Koreans Jung-Han Heo and Wan-Young Choi played a practice match contest in a billiards club in Gangnam. Jung-Han Heo, a top ten in the world player, and one of the participants at the 3CC Masters, made 71 caroms in twenty innings (3.550 average) from positions determined by the Mywebsport computer. The UMB has decided this week that the best runs during the 3CC Masters will be given a separate status on the record lists. The 28 world record run can not be improved at this tournament. There will be a separate world record for the 3CC World Masters, as the UMB also created with Scotch Double.
The UMB (world federation) and Kozoom have jointly worked out the plans for the new tournament cycle, which consists of three tournaments this year. The invitations were given to the 20 best ranked players, joined by four wildcards. The preliminaries are played in eight groups of three, the best two from each group qualify for the knockout with sixteen players.
Mywebsport computer system of Jimmy Riml, a 54-year-old Austrian, who was established in 2008 as a global distance training system, determines for each party separately and arbitrarily the twenty positions that the players are offered. The system works like this: player A starts with the break and scores as many points as possible. If he misses, player B comes to the billiards for the same inning. Then, from the second inning to the twentieth, for both players, the positions are determined by Mywebsport. The two players who face each other in a game, receive the same position in each inning and only sop the run when they miss.
Jimmy Riml invented an ingenious laser system to minutely place the positions of the balls on the billiard table. ,,The Mywebsport computers can now store some 150.000 positions including more than 2000 of the last three cushion World championship in Bordeaux. The positions that players receive are not known to anyone in advance. The computer determines the position, Cuesco, the Kozoom scoring system, shows the position on a big screen and Mywebsport places the balls on the billiards with laser. Jimmy Riml: ,,It will be very interesting for the viewers to see how two different world-class players attack the same position.''
The venue in the artistic Imperial Palace hotel in Gangnam, Seoul, will be further built up on Wednesday. In the arena are two match tables, there are stands for 150 spectators. The entry prices that spectators have to pay to see the final day are 250.000 Korean won (225 US dollars, 190 euro), the entry fee for a day session is 100.000 won, 75 euro. The Korean sports channel MBC, with around 1500 hours of billiard broadcasts a year the biggest billiard tv station in the country, provides live broadcasts with seven cameras. Kozoom, with the UMB the initiator for the new cycle, will also broadcasts the images live. Tomorrow, Wednesday evening, at 17.00 the UMB president at a press conference prior to the 3CC Masters will speak about the complicated relationship between the world federation and the Korean federation and about a threatening boycott by players in the international circuit.
The winner of the 3CC Masters will receive 40.000 dollars, the runner-up 20,000. The total prize money is $ 220.000. The tournament is played on the seventh floor of the Imperial Palace hotel in the heart of Seoul. The players receive special t-shirts for this tournament and are given the opportunity to pratice for one hour in a separate room.
The group layouts are:
Group A: Frédéric Caudron, Min Cam Ma, Yusuke Mori
Group B: Eddy Merckx, Jérémy Bury and Wan-Young Choi
Group C: Marco Zanetti, Eddy Leppens, Chi Yeon Cho
Group D: Dani Sánchez, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Roland Forthomme
Group E: Torbjörn Blomdahl, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Semih Sayginer
Group F: Murat Naci Coklu, Sung-Won Choi, David Martinez
Group G: Dick Jaspers, Jung-Han Heo, Tayfun Tasdemir
Group H: Quyet Chien Tran, Sameh Sidhom, Dinh Nai Ngo.
Schedule qualifications during the pre-rounds at 11.00, 13.00, 15.00, 17.00, 20.00 en 22.00:
Thursday:
11.00 (Korean time):
Heo-Tasdemir, Tran-Ngo
13.00:
Nguyen-Sayginer, SW Choi-Martinez
15.00:
Leppens-Cho, Polychronopoulos-Forthomme
17.00:
Ma-Mori, Bury-WJ Choi
20.00:
Jaspers-first match loser, Sidhom-loser
22.00:
Blomdahl-loser, Coklu-loser
Friday:
11.00:
Zanetti-loser, Sánchez-loser
13.00:
Caudron-loser, Merckx-loser
15.00:
Jaspers-first group winner, Sidhom-winner
17.00:
Blomdahl-winner, Coklu-winner
20.00:
Zanetti-winer, Sánchez-winner
22.00:
Caudron-winner, Merckx-winner.