3-Cushion
WONJU - The Inter Burgo Wonju Hotel in Seoul will be the stage for the resurrection of international billiards from today, Monday. Seventeen months after the last World Cup in Antalya and the long, painful break in the world, the UMB, the world federation, is organising its first official tournament.
UMB's new Korean partner, Five&Six International, will host the World 3-Cushion Grand Prix in South Korea. The new start will be launched with a marathon of high-level matches. At four billiard tables and filmed by lots of cameras, 32 participants, including many big names from the world top, meet each other. 250 matches will be played over the next two weeks. The players vying for the final victory, who have qualified for the final group of eight, play a total of 21 games.
The Round Robin format is unusual as the color of the cloths (dark grey) at the Gabriels tables. The matches are in principle not in distance (caroms), but in time. For a match of two won sets of 25 minutes each, players have 15 minutes (or 17 points). The shot clock is 30 seconds, unlike the Scotch Double (only 15 seconds shot clock), which was played after most non-Korean players came out of quarantine. There is one time-out per set. The sets in progress are always played to the end after the time-out. So it is conceivable that in the next two weeks we will see some higher runs, maybe even over 20 points.
The participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the material over the past four days. From July 1 to 3 was the Scotch Double tournament, won by the duo Dani Sánchez and Sung-Won Choi ahead of Dick Jaspers and Jung-Han Heo. The Europeans should also have recovered well from the two-week quarantine, so the tournament could start today, Monday, at 12.30pm local time (5.30am in Western Europe).
