Well last night was the grand final of the Battles in Bangkok this past week. The big match was Shane Van Boening versus Darren Appleton at Hustler’s Pool hall. There were well over a hundred pool hounds in attendance including a contingent who did the two hour drive up from Pattaya, the other big pool scene in Thailand with two excellent pool Bars, Megabreak and Legends.
As always the pre-match negotiations were important and a bit of controversy arose before this match. Shane had apparently forgotten that the agreement reached by e-mail was for alternate breaks. Once reminded of the agreement he acquiesced gracefully. However the debate over what racks to use was a different matter. Shane was strong on his preference to use the wooden rack which is what he practices with and on which he has shown a consistently strong break. Darren dug in his heels. I don’t know if he was bluffing or not but he said he wouldn’t play unless they used the plastic mat. Darren won the argument and they used the plastic mat.
They lagged for first break and Darren won. It was a race to thirty and the early games couldn’t have been more even. It went one game to Darren and one to Shane up until about 8 games each. Shane was actually breaking extremely good with the plastic mat but for some reason couldn’t get the roll of the balls. He was snookered or without a decent shot in five out of the first seven racks he broke though he was getting balls down almost every break. Darren’s break wasn’t as good as Shane’s with a success rate of possibly only fifty per cent (no accustats here , sorry.) The first eight or ten games saw a lot of safety play which ended pretty even. Shane produced a jump cue for the first time on this trip and showed an impressive jump shot.
Shane finally began to get a decent roll of the cue ball on his powerful break and started breaking and running games and then cleaning up on Darren’s breaks. The score went to 18-11 for Shane and ended up 30-18 for Shane. It wasn’t that Darren played badly at all. Shane just got hot and took the match away. Hopefully he’ll stay this hot for the Doha World 9 ball Championships. That’s all for now folks. I appreciate the comments from some of the AZers reading the thread. I’ll check back and will be happy to answer any questions coming my way. I did talk quickly with Corey Duel and he said they all enjoyed the week in Bangkok. All the guys handled the fan attention very well.
If you want more on the pool scene in Bangkok you can check out my book, “Bangkok Pool Blues” available on Amazon.com
As always the pre-match negotiations were important and a bit of controversy arose before this match. Shane had apparently forgotten that the agreement reached by e-mail was for alternate breaks. Once reminded of the agreement he acquiesced gracefully. However the debate over what racks to use was a different matter. Shane was strong on his preference to use the wooden rack which is what he practices with and on which he has shown a consistently strong break. Darren dug in his heels. I don’t know if he was bluffing or not but he said he wouldn’t play unless they used the plastic mat. Darren won the argument and they used the plastic mat.
They lagged for first break and Darren won. It was a race to thirty and the early games couldn’t have been more even. It went one game to Darren and one to Shane up until about 8 games each. Shane was actually breaking extremely good with the plastic mat but for some reason couldn’t get the roll of the balls. He was snookered or without a decent shot in five out of the first seven racks he broke though he was getting balls down almost every break. Darren’s break wasn’t as good as Shane’s with a success rate of possibly only fifty per cent (no accustats here , sorry.) The first eight or ten games saw a lot of safety play which ended pretty even. Shane produced a jump cue for the first time on this trip and showed an impressive jump shot.
Shane finally began to get a decent roll of the cue ball on his powerful break and started breaking and running games and then cleaning up on Darren’s breaks. The score went to 18-11 for Shane and ended up 30-18 for Shane. It wasn’t that Darren played badly at all. Shane just got hot and took the match away. Hopefully he’ll stay this hot for the Doha World 9 ball Championships. That’s all for now folks. I appreciate the comments from some of the AZers reading the thread. I’ll check back and will be happy to answer any questions coming my way. I did talk quickly with Corey Duel and he said they all enjoyed the week in Bangkok. All the guys handled the fan attention very well.
If you want more on the pool scene in Bangkok you can check out my book, “Bangkok Pool Blues” available on Amazon.com
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Shane is definitely one of favorites to win W9B this year but then so can at least 50 other players win it 
