Local billiards buffs prepare to cross the Atlantic

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This article was published 11/05/2011 (5316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not just anyone can enter a golf tournament with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, or a tennis event with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but four Winnipeggers will soon be playing English billiards against the world’s best.

Al Senkiw, a Garden City resident who has been playing in the Winnipeg Veterans’ English Billiards League since 1976, is one of the local players who will be testing their skills in the English Open, a major event taking place in the town of Bury St Edmunds on May 21 and 22.

“It’s a good opportunity to meet some world class players and to get to play with them,” said Senkiw, 59, who hasn’t played in an event this prestigious since the 1984 Canadian Open, at which he finished sixth.
English billiards is a game that all but vanished in North America as 8-ball and 9-ball took over. Senkiw said the Winnipeg league, which was started in 1921 by veterans who learned it while serving in the United Kingdom, is the only one of its kind in North or South America.

With only three balls — one red, one yellow and one cue ball — on a six-by-12 table, players get two points for caroming the cue ball off the other two balls, three points for potting the red ball, three points for potting the cue ball off the red ball, and two points for potting the cue ball off the yellow ball.

“If you don’t have perfect cueing, you can’t perform the shot properly,” Senkiw said.

Senkiw holds the Winnipeg league’s all-time record for most points in a single turn with 143. He had a league-high break of 125 points this year as well. For many of the players he’ll be facing in England, that’s just a warmup.

“It’s not uncommon for them to get 300 or 500 in a break,” he said. “All you can do is sit there on your butt and watch patiently how he does it and hopefully you can do as well as he does when it’s your turn again.”

Two of the Winnipeggers who will be competing in the event are Greg Harder and Dave Blacklaw, who finished first and second, respectively, in the Lockwood Trophy. That local tournament’s sponsor, who chooses to remain anonymous, is paying their way to England.

Fraser Durham and Senkiw are paying their own way for what Senkiw calls a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

The English Open, which is one of five tournaments in the English Billiards Open Series, puts players in a five-man group for the round-robin stage with the top 16 advancing to the knockout rounds.

Making it to that stage would be a huge accomplishment for any of the Winnipeggers, Senkiw said.

“Our top players will be lucky to make the top 16,” he said. “There’s just a lot more competition over there.”

No matter how the local players fare, they can expect to be treated as equals by their European peers.

“Those guys are all gentlemen,” Senkiw said. “They all have a great respect for the game.”

avi.saper@canstarnews.com