VENOM RETURNS, AND THE PHILLY FLASH OUTRUNS THE FIELD

multiple props. The stream table was highlighted by last year’s Trick & Fancy and Special Arts Champion Abram “Too Tall” Diaz, 2023 Masters Trick and Fancy champion Steve “Philly Flash” Markle, and New Jersey’s Andrew “The Driver” Sozio. After taking a four-year hiatus, internet sensation Florian “Venom” Kohler returned to competition with a vengeance and won both disciplines in round 1 with scores of 37/40 in Trick and Fancy and 39/40 in Special Arts. Florian also was the number one seed after round one.

and make the cue spin all over the table. Many of the shots in this round are variations of shots that can come up in a regular game of pool. Jamie picked a few of the “regular pool” shots and showed off why he is a 630 Fargo-rated player. When round two was over, Florian won another discipline, shooting 38/40 in follow. Brian Pauley captured the draw title with his first-ever perfect score of 40/40. Through four disciplines, Florian and Brian stayed as the top two seeded players, with Florian still leading Brian by eight points.

From May 18th through May 20th, the League Room in Parkersburg, West Virginia, was once again host to Artistic Pool. As a past venue for the WPA World Artistic Pool Championships, the League Room was delighted to host the 2023 US National Artistic Pool Championships. Artistic Pool

Players from all over the US were competing for the eight-event discipline titles as well as the overall National Championship.

Day one saw players shoot 30 shots through the first six disciplines of Artistic Pool. Each discipline has a maximum of 40 points possible, and the player with the highest score wins that discipline. Round one consists of the Trick & Fancy discipline and the Special Arts discipline. The Trick & Fancy discipline consists of shots making various set-up shots where the player is pocketing multiple balls at a time. Special Arts is made up of speed and timing shots, as well as shots with

Round two comprises the Draw and Follow Disciplines. Florian joined Brian “Superman” Pauley, who was the number two seed after round one, and 2023 Masters Draw Champion Houston’s Jamie “The Bayou Bullet” Moody on the stream table for round two. The draw and follow disciplines allowed the players to let their stroke out

Round three encompasses the Bank/Kick and Stroke disciplines. The Bank/Kick discipline has players shoot all types of famous bank and kick shots such as “The Hustler Bank” (made famous from “The Hustler” movie,) the 5 rail kick shot that won Willie Mosconi a World Championship, “The Pool Hall Junkies Kickshot” (made famous from the “Pool

Hall Junkies” move, and the famous “Efren Reyes Kick shot.” The stroke discipline really tests a player’s stroke and technique. All shots in this discipline see the cue ball no further away from the object ball than a ball width. There are many shots that require a fouetté stroke that are measured with a 2mm gauge. A fouetté stroke is a very loose whip stroke that allows a legal hit on a cue ball with a 2mm distance away from the object ball. These 2mm draw shots are very difficult but are crowd-pleasers when executed. The stream table was made up of previous bank/kick and stroke discipline winners in Tim “The Dragon” Chin and Jason “The Michigan Kid” Lynch, as well as 2023 Masters Special Arts Champion Massachusetts’ Jimmy “The General” Glanville. Brian rode the momentum from the last round and won the Bank/ Kick discipline with a score of 39/40. Abram Diaz won the stroke discipline with a score of

35/40 and outlasted Steve Markle in a discipline tiebreaker.

Day one ended the same way it started, with Florian Kohler, the number one-seeded player, and Brian Pauley, the number twoseeded player with only five points between them. Abram Diaz was the first person outside of Florian and Brian to win a discipline medal. With the seeding so close, day two would sure to prove most suspenseful.

Day two started off with the round 4, the final round of the preliminaries. Round 4 has the two fan-favorite disciplines in Jump and Masse. “This is where we make the cue ball cry,” as Jason Lynch likes to say. The top 3 scoring players were featured on the stream table. The top 3 players after day one were Florian Kohler (201), Brian Pauley (196), and Jason Lynch (164). All three started strong, but both Jason and Brian faltered in the masse discipline. Florian proved why he is the best at jump and masse and won both disciplines with a perfect 40/40 in jump and 37/40 in masse. The end of the prelims marked the next phase of the tournament, the playoffs. The players were seeded based off their prelim scores and put in a single elimination bracket. The playoff format is like a game of H.O.R.S.E. in basketball. Players lag to start the match, with the winner determining who leads out which discipline. The matches are made up of two parts: the discipline round and the wild card round. Players will alternate leading in each of the eight disciplines, with the opposing player having to duplicate the shot. After those eight shots, players have four shots they can pick from anywhere in the 120-shot program. The only rule is players can not duplicate a discipline in their wildcard picks.

There is usually a theme that materializes at these events. This event’s theme was rematches.

The first round of the playoffs had two matches to get down to eight players for the quarterfinals. The stream table match saw the first of the rematches in Jimmy Glanville (8) vs. Andrew Sozio (9). These two players matched up at the 2022 WPA World Artistic Pool Championships, with Andrew winning that match. In the rematch, however, Jimmy Glanville pulled out the win this time. The second first-round match was the seven-seed Jamie Moody versus the ten-seed Cary “That Trickshot Guy” Wallace, with Jamie Moody advancing to the quarter-finals.

The quarter-finals kept up with the rematch theme with Jamie Moody (7) vs. Tim Chin (2). Jamie had not had any luck in matches against Tim in the past but finally upset Tim at this event, moving into the semifinals. The other rematch in the quarterfinal round saw Brian Pauley (3) vs. Abram Diaz (6), a rematch from the quarter-finals from the last event that saw Brian get the best of Abram. Like the two rematches before, the opposite player won, with Abram upsetting Brian to move on to the semifinals. Number one seed Florian Kohler matched up and defeated number eight seeded Jimmy Glanville and took the third semi-final spot. The stream table saw Steve Markle (4) and Jason Lynch (5) battle it out for the last spot in the semifinals. Steve Markle got past Jason and took the remaining semifinal spot in only his second tournament back from an eight-year layoff.

As with the playoff matches before, there was a theme with the semifinals: playing against your friends. The first semifinal match saw Florian Kohler (1) vs. Steve Markle (4). These guys made a tandem trickshot video years ago and have been friends for a long time. Fans were treated to a great match, with both players missing very little. Florian missed a couple of Steve’s picks and found himself down. Needing to get back into the match, Florian hit two 10-point shots back-to-back on the first try to gain some ground on Steve. It was a great attempt but fell a little short, with Steve Markle edging out Florian to take the first spot in the finals. The second semifinal match pitted road partners Jamie Moody (7) vs. Abram Diaz (6). These two know each other so well and have played against each other so many times that it is hard to come up with a game plan. The match went back and forth until Abram eventually pulled away and advanced to the finals.

The finals were another treat for fans of artistic pool and a great story. This was Steve Markle’s second tournament back after a long layoff, and he was chasing his first major win. Abram was chasing his second US National Artistic Pool title in three years. The players went back and forth, making shot after shot. The crowd and the other players were watching with much interest, seeing who would get the upper hand first. The score stayed close the entire match. With only a few shots left, Steve got out to a lead that Abram could not overcome. In just his second tournament back, Steve Markle won his first major championship over a very game, Abram Diaz.

The fans at the League Room were treated to an amazing event that even saw a visit from BCA Hall of Famer and Artistic Pool Legend “Tennessee Tarzan” himself, Mike Massey. There was some time before the finals, and Mike jumped on the TV