Robert Byrne Author of several books on billiards gave us some time out from his busy schedule for an interview

Before I begin, let me say that I was in Sheffield for the world snooker championship in 1984.  Clive Everton got me a press pass. The article I wrote on the game was reprinted in Byrne's Advanced Technique.  Clive told me later that it was the best article on snooker that ever appeared in an American magazine.

  I devote 16 pages to snooker in Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards (1996), including J.B. Priestley's wonderful 1932 piece titled "At Thurston's."  Also in the book are nine pages of excerpts called "How To Win Without Actually Cheating," taken from the wonderful books on "gamesmanship" by British writer Stephen Potter (1900-1969).

1) Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you started to play billiards?

I started playing pool at age 12 on a table in our home in Iowa. Five years later I was one of the best players in my town of 50,000.  The games we played were mainly straight pool and snooker.  The snooker version we liked best was "six-ball wild," in which you can shoot the pink at any time and keep shooting it until you miss.  If you have some ball-control skill you can spot weaker players 100 points and still win.  My high run on a 5x10 snooker table was 240 points, meaning that I made the six (pink) 40 times in a row.  I've heard of runs much higher than that. In college we mainly played straight pool, either line-up or 14.1, snooker, and three-cushion billiards. I was the champion in all three in my senior year at the University of Colorado.  My first job was in San Francisco, where at the wonderful public room called The 924 Club I met many three-cushion billiard champions.  I fell in love with that game and have played little else since.

2) How did you start with the idea of writing your books and doing videos?

I was a magazine editor by profession and a pastime billiard player, though a fairly serious one.  After getting several books published on various subjects (see my website), my editor in New York, who knew I played as a hobby, asked if I could write one on how to play pool.  He had just seen survey results in the New York Times that 26 million people played pool at least once a year. Since there was very little on the market in 1977, I wrote back and said that I was confident that I could write a book on pool that would be hailed as the best ever. He said that would be a book he could sell.  A year later I submitted the text and drawings for Byrne's Standard Book of Pool and Billiards, which has become the best-selling book on any cue game in history, with over 400,000 copies sold.  It still sells a thousand copies a month with no advertising. Maybe you can tell me if any snooker instructional book has sold more copies.   The book was so successful that the publisher (Harcourt) kept asking for more, so one book led to another and now there are seven. When videotapes came on the scene, it was natural to enter that market, too; I think my six videotapes on pool outsell all the others combined. This success led to my being inducted into the Hall of Fame of the

Billiard Congress of America in 2001; I went in along with Belgium's legendary carom player Raymond Ceulemans, who has won something like 150 major tournament titles in various forms of carom billiards.

3) What is the main driving force that makes you play billiards?

I like three-cushion because of its elegance and beauty (when played well), its many nuances and subtleties, and the way it rewards imagination and creativity.  Once you get  good at it, potting balls seems rather boring and tedious. The shots are difficult compared to other games, and make an average of one point per turn at the table is extremely good.

4) You have won many competitions in your career.  What was your best win?

As a player of three-cushion, I am most proud of winning the

National Senior Championship (in Louisville, Kentucky) and the National Amateur Championship in the same year, 1999.

5) What has been your most memorable game that was not in competition?

Outside of tournament play, I remember with pleasure beating two top players in exhibitions, former national champion Charles Harris and legendary pool and billiard hustler Larry "Boston Shorty" Johnson.

6) What are the top three skills that a person must learn to win games?

To be a winner, you of course must be blessed with good eyesight and hand-eye coordination, you must have a competitive nature, and you must be so obsessed with the game that go to sleep and wake up thinking about it. Total absorption, which enables you to practice and compete for hours on end, is essential for the first five years or so on any player's climb to the top rank.

7) When your playing a shot that is the most important shot in a tournament,  what thoughts are going through your head at that time, and how are you keeping in control?

I try to avoid tightening up and I concentrate on keeping my stroke straight.

8) What do your practice sessions consist of?

I used to practice mainly by competing hard in pastime games.  I never practiced drills, though maybe I should have, but then playing the game has never been my profession. I'm what you might call an advanced amateur.  I play well enough to understand what the really good players are doing.   I've alway had a profession outside of the game.

9)Do you think that Golf has a good relationship to snooker, in the sense that they compliment each other?

I like to watch the top golfers on television, but I don't play the game.  Other than the fact that both games involve hitting a still ball, I see little relationship between them.

10) What other hobbies/activities do you do for fun?

I enjoy writing, and not just about cue games. I have a monthly newspaper column and I'm working on my seventh novel. Other interests include world history, travel, sleight-of-hand magic, and chess.

find out more at http://www.byrne.org/

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