Charity 8-balll pool tournament, in the memory of Dave Edwards, will take place on February 2^nd, 2008 at the Q-Club in Terre Haute, Indiana, and will help to raise money to brain cancer research. The tournament manager is the well known trick shot master Tom Rossman (who is mainly known as Dr. Cue). 

Dave Edwards was a local pool player who died of glioblastoma multiforme, a fatal type of brain cancer in 2006. His colleagues from the area’s billiards circuit wanted to perpetuate his name by dedicating a charity pool tournament in his memory, which will benefit brain cancer research. 

The 1st Annual Dave Edwards Memorial 8-Ball Tournament raised several thousands dollars, which were donated to the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University and two more brain cancer research organizations. 

The 2nd Annual Dave Edwards Memorial 8-Ball Tournament is scheduled to Saturday, February 2, 2008, starting at 10 AM. Throughout the tournament sets, Dr. Cue will be performing his trick shots mastery. 

On top of being highly respected Olympic sports, billiards traditionally belongs to the family of drinking games or pub games. These drinking or pub games involve sipping large amounts of beer, as penalize for foul, declaration of victory or any other part of the game rules. Since lots of pubs include a pool table (or more) as part of their setting, many variations of standard pool games were reinvented as drinking games. 

Stripes and Solids, for example, is a drinking variation of 8 ball pool. As all drinking games, it doesn’t have an obliging set of rules and it rules may vary from one place to another. 

In short, the group of solid balls is placed in the normal location of the rack. The striped balls are organized along the side rails of the pool table. The goal of the pool-drinking game is to pocket all striped balls. When a player pockets a ball he must drink the number of the pocketed ball. All pocketed solid balls are being re-spotted, as long as there are still striped balls on the table. When the last of the striped balls is pocketed, the game is over. 

Another drinking game inspired of the billiards world is Shot Pool, which is a drinking variation of snooker. To play the game you must have the standard snooker equipment, beer, red bull vodka, black Russian and a steal liver. The game is played according to ordinary snooker rules with some drinking additions. Each time a player pots a red ball he has to drink the red drink and when a colored ball is potted, the player swigs beer. The winner of the game swallows a dose of black Russian, or orders the losing player to drink it.

The 10th annual Derby City Classic has finally come to its end with Francisco Bustamante claiming the all-around title. Bustamante who was a quarterfinalist in the 9-ball bank event, a semifinalist in the one pocket and a finalist in the 9-ball event, took home the $30,000 bonus prize. The finalist and semifinalist at the over-all competition are Gabe Owen, the winner of the one pocket event and Larry Nevel, respectively. The 9-ball division was won by Ralf Souquet, for the third time in his career.

The Derby City Classic action was so hot on Thursday eve that two fire squads had to stop the 9-ball and one pocket tournaments from proceeding while clearing off the audience from the area. The entire break took less than an hour before the action was back at the tournament room at the Executive West Hotel, which hosts the 10th annual Derby City Classic for over a week. 

Thursday’s night fire alarm and evacuation postponed the last round in the one pocket tournaments in a day. By then, last year’s one pocket champ, Efren Reyes dropped off the competition along with Shannon Daulton and Darren Appleton. The 7th round (out of eight) ended with Ralf Souquet triumph over Ron Casanzio. 

Final round of Derby City Classic one pocket tournament was completed with Cliff Joyner defeat to Gabe Owen, who, earlier this week, has amazed the audience by pocketing 60 balls out of 75 at the one pocket challenge. Owen aka "The Babe" is the only player besides Larry Nevel who hasn’t lost in any of the matches in the Louisville pool event.

Derby City Classic is still in progress. The 9-ball bank part of the event ended with Larry Price’s victory, his second Derby City Classic bank championship since 2002. But last year’s All-Round winner Filipino magician Efren Reyes, kissed his title goodbye as he was wiped out of the bank pool competition on Sunday, during a match against Tony Fergeson. Reyes still got a chance to recover his credit during the one pocket competitions, due to start today.

Were women really disallowed to play billiard games in fear they would tear up the table’s cloth? This ancient billiards fact, or myth, is still alive in many billiards halls across the globe. Stockport in the UK and Southampton in New Hampshire, are two recent examples that things haven’t change that much in the last couple of centuries, at least not regarding women and billiards. 

Suzie Opacic, Snooker Ladies’ World Junior Champion had planned to take part in the Southampton Social Club league match at the local snooker Netley Central. But since the club rules forbid women of playing snooker, and her snooker team had to play without her. And on the other side of the Atlantic, members of the Great Moor snooker club in Stockport voted against changing the 68 years old ban on participation of women in the club’s snooker activities.

The 10th Derby City Classic started out on Friday, January 4 at the Executive West Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Throughout the 9 days of the pool tournament the 2008 Derby City Classic will include contests in almost every various field of billiards including 9-ball, one pocket, straight pool, 10-ball, and artistic billiards.

Coming up are the one pocket events followed by the 9-ball tournament which will close the 10th annual Derby City Classic. The player who will make it to the 9th day of the event with the highest score, will be named The Masters of The Table and will be awarded with a $30,000 prize. This year, the All-Round Division includes 5 additional titles: to the bank, one pocket or 9-ball player with the highest score under 16, under 21, over 62, over 70 and a female player of any age.

I’m sure you can all recite by heart how to break in 9-ball, but what about the 8-ball break? There you go, the ultimate beginners’ guide to breaking in 8-ball ball pool: 

When breaking in 8-ball, you should break open the rack with the cue ball behind the head string and pocket a ball or at least drive four balls (not including the cue ball) to the rails of the table. Moreover, you should do this without scratching, jumping any ball of the table not to mention pocketing the 8-ball. 

1. Your target is the apex ball, in this case the 1-ball (solid yellow ball). Therefore, shoot directly in front of it (imagining a straight line from the cue ball to the yellow ball sometimes helps in aiming).
2. Grip the cue stick lightly; yet get ready to move your body powerfully to perform the power break (yes, as opposed to any other strokes in pool, when breaking the body has to move along with the arm to intensify the stroke).
3. When you are finally ready to shoot, move the weight from your back foot to your front foot and give all you have to give. 

Did it turn out to be something like this?

Please, send us videos, pics, stories or any other documented evidence of your 8-ball breaks!