In one of my previous posts I was showing some pictures of my vacation in Brazil. Let me add this...
My girlfriend Luciene comes from Araraquara. A for Brazil small city in the countryside of Sao Paulo state. Most of you probably have never heard of this city before. I could not believe it when I found out that one of the best Brazilian Snooker players lives in that city and a friend of Luciene's mother knows him. What are the odds ? We arranged a meeting with Wagner Monteiro at Araraquara's private sports and recreational club "Clube 22 de Agosto".
Wagner who speaks fluent English has spent several month in England to learn more about the game, introduced me to the Brazilian version of snooker. It's really more related to snooker than it is to pool except the fact that it's mostly played on a pool-size table. The cut of the rails, the cloth and the balls are very similar to snooker.
Here are some of the rules:
The game is played with all the colored snookerballs but only one red ball. (instead all 15). The player with the most points in the end wins the frame.
The player who begins the match has to play a safety. (can not score, but also can not snooker his opponent)
Red counts one point, yellow two points, green three, etc...just like in snooker
A player doesn't necessarily have to shoot the red ball first. He can choose to play a colored ball first. However, if the player misses the shot, his opponent receives seven points.
@Wei... you need to make a snooker table version of cuetable...
I played Wagner a few frames and I picked up the rules and strategy fast. At one point I almost ran the whole table at once.
Gave a speech to the members of this very nice club. I mentioned that I wish to see a Brazilian player in one of the future World Pool Championships and International events to represent their country. I think I made a lot of friends and fans that night.
After the "little exhibition" we went to Wagner's house, who by the way won multiple Brazilian championships. He owns one of very few full-size snooker tables in Brazil and we played some snooker and "pool" matches, which was a lot of fun. We made two teams and Luciene's daddy made the winning shot for our team !
On top of that there is another great player that lives only one hour drive away from the city. His name is Miguel Costa and he represented Brazil in the World Games 2005 in Duisburg, Germany. I was there too. When Miguel found out that I was in the city he came to Araraquara and we played some snooker. Man, he can play...
