9-Ball Billiards

Fifth and Last IPT Qualification Event BeginsThe last International Pool Tour qualification tournament kicked off this morning at House of Billiards in Weert, The Netherlands. Room owner Maurice Houben reported being pleased to host the IPT’s event, having had many large European events here in the past.There are only four players from the U.S.: Louis Ulrich, Frankie Hernandez, Steve Moore, Gary Abood, and Robb Saez. The largest player factions come from Germany and England. It is rumored that the Filipino players had difficulties receiving visas, so Santos Sambajon Jr. is the only representative.Like at the previous qualifiers, the IPT is again offering $500 to players who sink the 8 ball on the break, and $5,000 for players who run six racks consecutively in competition. Mike “The Mouth” Sigel is not present in Holland for challenge matches, but there are whispers of some tour members coming in Saturday instead.

Ga-Young Kim Snags WPA Women's World ChampionshipNine Ball crowned a new heroine tonight in Taipei, Taiwan. Ga-Young Kim finished a tough day and even tougher week with three consecutive victories, finally besting another former champion, Shin-Mei Liu, to take the highest honor in the game.She had to get past Jeannie Seaver in the quarter-finals, then Akimi Kajitani before stepping up for the final time against Liu. It was a long day of battle and it began with the quarter-finals rounds.Ga-Young Kim of Korea came into her match against Jeannie Seaver of the USA as the favorite. She had already won the event in 2004 and that experience, along with her skills, should have carried the day. But early in the match the mistakes came to her rapidly. In the very first rack she missed an eight ball she was expectd to make and Seaver finished the rack to take game one. Now owning the break, Seaver broke and ran the next rack to go ahead by two. In rack three Kim came to the table only to foul a ball while removing the rest and again Seaver cleaned up behind her to go up 3-0. Finally, in rack four, Seaver made an error of her own and scratched on the break. Kim returned to form and ran the rack to take her first point.The next rack was the first to give Kim a good roll. She made a ball on the break, sank the one ball and then played a three-nine combination to draw within one. But the errors returned in the next rack when Kim just flat missed a half-table shot on the one with an easy layout behind it that Seaver went through with a good pace. The score was 4-2.

Viking Cues Photo Caption Contest Winner for FebruaryViking Cues Photo Caption Contest (/content/view/41) for the month of December. The winning caption was, Earl Strickland, forever the innovator, takes Artistic Pool to a new level in this Dancing with the Stars episode. James has won a Viking Pool Cue (http://www.vikingcue.com/) that has a retail value of $300-400 and a one year subscription to InsidePOOL Magazine. InsidePOOL Magazine and InsidePOOLMAG.com host the Viking Cues Photo Caption Contest (/content/view/41) every month. The winners are announced on InsidePOOLMAG.com and in InsidePOOL Magazine. The photo for this month features Vincent Facquet having a little fun with a rack. Visitors can submit entries via email by going to the Photo Caption contest page. You can enter every day, one time per day.Submit your entry to the Viking Photo Caption Contest. (/content/view/41)Visit InsidePOOL Magazine for the Viking Pool Cues Photo Caption Contest. (/content/view/41)

Hopes Rise and Fall After First Day in Women’s World Championship-Staff, Mr. Tu SportsThe first day of play is now complete at the WPA Women’s World Nine Ball Championships in Taipei, Taiwan. Representatives from the events main sponsor, Amway, watched on as some players had days of great promise while others will come into play tomorrow bearing a sense of desperation. We are in the round-robin stages and only three out of the six players in each group will survive the stage. By Friday morning twenty-four of the forty-eight players from throughout the world will have had their tournament hopes quashed while an equal number will continue on to fight through the championship rounds.Highlights of the day included the opportunity to watch two former World Junior Champions in action. Meng Meng Zhou of China is making her presence known here, first with an impressive win over American powerhouse Monica Webb 5-4 followed by a double-hill loss to Charlotte Sorenson from Denmark, the number three ranked player in the EPBF.