my life of snooker

Team

The very first team I was in was the Hall 8 snooker team in NTU (Nanyang Technological University).
I played 4-ball then, I was quite strong in this department as I practiced a lot. Every year end there would be a competition call IHRG (Inter Hall Recreational Games), and snooker was a game in the IHRG. The format was 3 snooker tables and 2 4-ball tables. The winner is the hall that gets 3 tables first, i.e. the score is 3-0, 3-1 or 3-2. For 4-ball it was a race to 100 points. I remember winning the championship in my last year in the university, when I was the captain of the team, as I potted a blue and won my 4-ball game.

(photo of the very first team I was in. I'm 3rd from the left, my hall president 1st)

I got into the varsity team only in my final year. I played in the Nanyang House Open, and my opponent was Salleh, the captain of the varsity team. He's supposedly the best player in the university. I showed him my skills and how tenacious I was in our match. Although I lost to him on the final blue, he welcomed me to the team. We had a coach and I got my 2nd personal cue from him. It was a 3/4 cue, and it came with an aluminium case. I paid 210 dollars for it. With better control of the cue ball now, I had the concept of a break. A break of 40 points would mean you scored 40 points in your turn. You need good cue ball control to make a good break. The professionals make it look so simple on TV. Believe me, it is not.
We participated in the National Snooker League, and sent 2 teams. The league consisted of 6 divisions; Premier Division, and Divisions 1-5. We were in Division 2 and 4 I think, and I was in the Div 2 team with Salleh. The format was this: for each match up with a particular team there would be 2 matches, namely a home match and an away match, like soccer. The home team would provide the food and drinks, or rather, dinner for both teams for the night. Each match had 4 tables, each table played a best of 3 frames. You get 2 points when you win i.e. Your team wins 4-0 or 3-1. A draw or a score of 2-2 would earn you 1 point, and a lose 0 points. Only the top 2 teams had trophies and a cash prize at the end of the league season. We got to be champions that year. The next year I think I was put in the Div 4 team. I forgot the placing we got.

I stopped playing the game for a few years as I concentrated on my work. As fate would have it, I was brought back to the game. During my 3rd job, my work place was very near a snooker place in Toa Payoh called Snooker Zone, so I forsook my lunch for practice there. I got my 3rd personal cue, a one piece cue or full piece cue without any joints, and got to know the seller named Johnny. He was a cue collector from Hong Kong and is a lover of the game too. We started a group online with like minded individuals joining us and we played at a snooker joint called GF Billiards (no more around today) at Depot Road. I played at Snooker Zone for quite some time but didn't manage to get into any team as there were too many good players. The snooker saloon sent 2-3 teams every year for the league.
I ordered my 4th personal cue online, from a UK cue maker named Robin Cook, and waited around a year before it arrived. The cue was hand made from scratch and my wife helped in the design.

(Photo of my 4th personal cue from the UK. All in all I spent around 1k in total on this cue)

I got to know a player Chris, who was very good. And he wanted to start a business selling cues made in Thailand, and he let me in to be his partner. I got many of my friends to get cues from us, and I collected cash from them. I passed all the cash to Chris and I trusted him a lot. It never came to my mind that my partner would take the money and make a run for it, which he did. Then I came to know that a friend of ours, Gary had lost even more money as Chris bluffed him that he intended to bring in snooker accessories, but needed some cash upfront. Gary said OK and invested 1k with Chris, which he lost. As for me, although the cash lost by each person was not a lot, my reputation was at stake, as I was the one that persuaded my friends to get cues from us, and I only dealt in cash and can be seen as the accomplice! Thank God that my friends still trusted me after this incident.

Gary and his friend mounted a search for Chris who ran away with the money. Somehow Gary managed to find Chris and got him to sign an IOU in front of me Gary and his friend. The whole thing happened at the MacDonald's at Queensway Shopping Centre, I can still remember. Chris apologised and said he didn't mean to run away. He slowly repaid us every single cent that he owed us. Me and my friends got our money back, thanks to Gary and his friend. The sad thing is, the whole episode made Gary stop playing snooker. And he was such a good player.