The Skins Billiards Championship, promoted by Allen Hopkins Productions and Billiards International (the late Matt Braun), unlike most pool tournaments that pit two players head-to-head, featured four players at the table. It was patterned after the “skins” game in golf, designed to tap into the public’s then-booming fascination with gambling-style competition. Think the early-2000s Texas Hold ’Em craze with Chris Moneymaker. Each player put up a $5,000 entry fee, with the promoters adding $50,000 to the pot. The total purse came to $130,000, which was big money in 2004.
The top three payouts from that event: Niels Feijen; $42,500, Rodney Morris, $25,000; and Thorsten Hohmann, $22,000. Keith McCready won about 5- or $6,000, if memory serves me right.
At the conclusion of the event, I noticed a young, rather shy Thorsten Hohmann from Germany sitting alone in the distance. I remember admiring his blond hair. I got the nerve to walk over and sit next to him because I wanted to ask him a question about whether there was much money in pool back in Europe. He shook his head no. I thought that would be the end of the conversation, thinking maybe he didn't speak English well. But then he spoke. He told me he preferred competing in the United States because there were simply more opportunities here for a professional player like himself. I asked him about the big, often whispered-about Asian money tournaments, the ones frequented by Alex Pagulayan, Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, and so many of the Filipino greats. Thorsten said most of those were restricted to Asian players, something that surprised me at the time. Well, times sure have changed in 2025.
Photo of Thorsten Hohmann at the Skins tourney. If my math is right, he'd have been 25 years young.