3-cushion billiards became very popular in the united states back in the late 1980's when world champion sang chun lee moved from his native korea to flushing new york. if your really serious about seeing the very best 3-cushion billiard players in the united states i live 8 minutes away! the name of the place is carom cafe, here is their web site, it's amazing, cause, it shows you all about three cushion automatically, and then you could click on all of the pros shots! go to
www.caromcafe.com
carom has 10 state of the art verhoeven tables, with state of the art lighting. every july all the greatest pros come here for a tournament. you should see the players here, although not world class, they are the best in the u.s.a. for more info, the best 3-cushion billiard players in the world right now are, fredrick cauldron of belgium, very neat, calculated and simple in thought plain, great player. raymond cuelemans of belgium "mr. 100" he has won somewhere around 160 tournaments! although now, in his mid to late 60's many experts claim, he's at the top of his game! his style is play 3 cushions and no more. semigh sayginer, of turkey, amazing stroke, a bit of a hot head, and a show off, when he's hot, he's hot and when he's off he stinks! sang chun lee of korea, by far the most creative banker, and full of unique ideas, dramaticlly different, and great. dick jaspers of holland, a machine, gets down shoots and scores, nothing crazy just the most solid player on planet earth, some believe he is the greatest right now. and finally, torbjorn bloomdahl of sweden, the single greatest 3-cushion player ever! he is a brain, incredible! fantastic! check him out!
as far as 3-cushion billiard cues are concerned, there are only a few compared to the thousands avaliable for pool, the billiard cues are as follows, helmstetter, yes, that's the same as the pool cue maker, adams, another pool cue maker, longoni, they also make pool cues, sang lee, he has a maker in korea, and the best 3-cushion billiard cue of all--- schuler. the cloth is completly flat, with zero felt feel! much, much faster than simonis 860 cloth. the cloth prefered is simonis rapid 200.
the table is heated not too make it faster as most people would believe. it's heated because in europe, it rains a lot, and it screw up the angles, and billiards is all cushions and angles, so they decided to heat the tables, so they play exactly the same, weather it be sunny, or rainy. the cues are one inch shorter than pool cues, they are 57 inches, and the shaft is wide thick and stiff, reason being, most shots are hit with what the players call maximum english, so much so, they miscue often. check out robert byrne's classic book "the standard book of pool and billiards" it's great! anyhow, the carom cafe web site, should turn you on even further, have fun.