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www.insidepool.com 58 30 < On the Cover Relative unknown 70 German player Thorsten Hohmann surprised many with his first place win at Cardiff, Wales, over Alex Pagulayan. of Cover photo by Lawrence Table Contents Lustig. Features 30 Hohmann Hooks World Pool Championship by InsidePOOL Staff Wins in Cardiff over Pagulayan in the Instruction Finals 10 Ask Allison 38 The 2003 BCA International Trade Columns by Allison Fisher Expo 8 There It is There 62 How to Go Pro by Sally P. Timko by Sally P. Timko 12 What’s the Move? The Best Show Ever! 74 What’s in the Case by Jimmy Reid 40 Regional Tour Review Monica Webb Banking and Kicking by InsidePOOL Staff 76 Site Seeing 14 That’s What I’m Find the Tour That’s Right for You by Dain Anderson Talking About 52 7 Ways to Prepare for the Match of High Tech May Get You Half by Keith McCready Your Life Price The Dipsy-Do 66 by InsidePOOL Staff 78 The Good Old Days 16 Grady’s Grad School 54 Parica Sweeps Great Seminole by Mark & Connie Stellinga by Grady Mathews Seniors Open Rack ‘Em Up Aggressive but Intelligent by Paul Berg 80 What’s New? 22 Technically Speaking 86 The School for Scoundrels End-Game Play Wins Largest Payday in Senior History by InsidePOOL Staff by Steve Crutchfield by Chef Anton Departments 18 Beat People with a Stick 58 Williams Sets Off Florida Pro Tour 84 Hall Monitor The Myth of the Tangent The Grifter’s Dream 4 Pool on TV by Tom Simpson by Paul Berg by Paul Berg Line, Part 2 88 The Buss Stop 6 Advertiser Directory A Change of Perspective Wins Inaugural Fire Cracker Open Ghosts of Champions Fill 24 Pool Prayers by Jim Buss 96 League Report 20 Pro Pool Workout 62 North Conquers South in the Patriot Raleigh’s Brass Tap & by Richard Kranicki Where the Leather Meets the Regional Roundup by Bob Henning Cup Billiards Foot Alignment, Part 3 of 5 Glue 102 Northeastern The Set-Up by InsidePOOL Staff 26 On the Road with the Monk 90 Industry Ink 108 Southeastern Team Fury Defeats Team Lucasi by Tim Miller by InsidePOOL Staff 112 Central 66 The Iceman Melts Competition at Where Do You Stand in this The Players Tournament 118 Western Shooters’ 52 Game? New Online Marketing Tools by Paul Berg for BCA Business Members Avenges Loss to Davis with Finals Triumph at Peninsula Open 70 My Memories of Willie Mosconi 40 by Peter Burrows Recounted in a Letter to My Daughter 54 38 2 Inside Pool Magazine www.InsidePOOL.com 3 ly ever seen him play before. Of course, anyone who fol- was to visit Mr. Rambow often, and a few years later, he lowed pool in 1950 knew who the legendary Willie Mosconi moved his shop to 17 N.Wabash Avenue. Keefe & Hamer it My was. was called. I can still see my very first impressions in my Willie pulled out his second cue. Great players always mind’s eye. Mr.Rambow,with farmer overalls and an apron, carried a handsome case with at least one extra cue. It was black high button shoes! Yes, really. I can still see them. two pieces, which I was not used to, and Willie screwed it Wood shavings everywhere, some lathes of course, and Memories together and handed it to me. To this day, I clearly remem- wood shop-type tools, but mostly I remember the lovely ber the very first thing butts he was working on, that I did was rub my fin- and the ivory elephant of Willie ger across the blue leather tusks standing in a dusty tip. “Oh, no,” Willie said, corner, which he used for “that will get oil from your ferrules, inlays, and butt finger onto the tip,and we plates. Maybe the most Mosconi don’t want that.” First memorable was the childhood lesson from the majestic old cue rack with master. glass doors that hung high Recounted in a We played a couple of up on the wall. Mr. quick racks, and lots of Rambow explained that Letter to My people watched, and then he had made a duplicate Willie set up a very fancy of every cue he had made Daughter trick shot, with the 1-6 for most of the world’s balls set in the middle of handful of great players, the table. He leaned over beginning with people and whispered into my like Schaefer and Layton, ear exactly how to play The author’s student identification card when he was Hoppe and Greenleaf, to the shot, just which ball to attending the University of Colorado. the present: Crane, by Peter Burrows hit, where, and the english Mosconi, Ponzi, Caras and to use, “Hit right between others. the three and the four ball, shoot Each cue was an identical mate, n 1993, my youngest daughter, Katie, the one of my hung around the place.There were three floors, two with hard with draw,”he said. Bam! All same, weigh, size, butt, etc., to three daughters who had showed the most interest in about fifty pool tables each, and one floor had many billiard six balls shot straight into six dif- the original. This way he always I pool was a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania tables also. It was a somber, old, and musty place, just per- ferent pockets. Lots of clapping had a cue so he could provide in Philadelphia. She was married in 2003 and is now finish- fect for pool. Row upon row of those heavy wooden tables and cheers, and little Peter beam- another and make additional ing law school in Baltimore. But in 1993 at the time of her with stout legs that I loved so much in my youth. Dark glass ing from ear to ear. A trick shot ones that would be identical birthday I wrote her a little note: shades above each green table glowed with a soft light, Willie had set up thousands of when one of the great champi- hardly a sound save the click of ivory balls against one times in exhibitions around the ons needed a new cue on short Merry Christmas another. The best sound in the world—my aphrodisiac. The country but the first time for me. notice. Sadly, sometime in the December 25, 1993 expansive room was thick with cigarette and cigar smoke. Some years later at college,I was to 1960s, someone broke into Mr. Remembering Willie & Mr. Rambow” Yes,a real old fashioned “pool hall,”not like the fancy,dolled- make the same shot when playing Rambow’s shop one night and up spots of today at all. Those places that now even let girls an exhibition there with him, I stole the entire rack of all those For My Daughter Katie: in! Imagine! think maybe 1957. old and priceless duplicate cues. And so one cold Chicago winter night forty years ago, Right after we first met him, Mr. Rambow was heartsick. This little book, Willie Mosconi’s Winning Pocket Father took me for the very first time to see the great Willie and he and Father became friendly, At our first visit, Father Billiards, is for you, my dear, and I thought that I would tell play. Wow! is about all I can say. He ran over 100 balls in Willie told Father about Herman J. ordered a cue to be made, speci- you of my memories of Willie Mosconi. what seemed like no time at all, played some delicate and Rambow, a wonderful old cue fying that it must be exact in For me, he was without question the very finest pool perfect safeties, and then ran out, winning the 125 point maker who had a shop high up in every way to the one that Willie player who ever lived, and his real love was straight pool, match by an ample margin. Truly amazing. My mouth hung a turn-of-the-century loft building Mosconi used. And so it was. known also as 14.1. This, as you well know,also happens to open. I think my own high run when I was that age was on S. Dearborn Street, at the edge This first cue has a four-point Dr. Samuel Burrows’ and Peter Burrows’ be daddy’s favorite pool game, although now today I enjoy maybe eighteen. of Chicago’s Loop. Straight away ebony butt, a black linen wrap Rambow cues on display with a signed copy three-cushion billiards (played on a table without any pock- Father took me over after the match, and I was intro- father and I went to see Mr. and a single ivory ring just above of Willie Mosconi’s book. ets) also. duced. Nothing shy about Dr.Sam. “Here,Mr.Mosconi,”(my Rambow. What a place he had! He the butt, with father’s name pen- I first met Willie Mosconi not long after I began to play father called him Willie, I’m sure), “I’d like you to shake was close to seventy by that time ciled just below the joint, “Dr. pool on our table at our North Sheridan Road home,“Quiet hands with my boy. He can run a whole rack of balls, and and had been making cues since the turn of the century. Samuel J. Burrows,” and his initials on the shaft. This was Nook,”in Chicago about 1948 or ‘49. Maybe it was a year or he’s only twelve.” I think Willie had run 100 balls when he Today his biography is legendary to those who have fol- standard format for Mr.Rambow,and I know that this cue is two later.