Vietnamese Billiards: The Geometry of the Table and the Ambition to Reach the World's Summit

On a carom table measuring two meters and eighty centimeters long by one meter and forty wide, there is not a single pocket. Every shot is only counted when the cue ball hits three cushions before making contact with the two object balls. There is no pocket for the ball to fall into as an escape, no luck to lean on. Only pure geometry. And within that roughly fifteen square meters, Vietnamese billiards has written a chapter few sports in Southeast Asia could dream of. Before analyzing a cushion path, tell me where the cue ball has been placed. That is the question I always pose whenever I sit down in front of a screen to rewatch a 3-cushion carom frame. Because unlike pocket billiards or snooker, carom does not forgive careless positioning decisions. You cannot recover with a lucky shot when the cue ball is already in the wrong place. Miss by thirty centimeters on the first path, and by the third cushion that gap can multiply fourfold. That is why I began spending years recording every position, every reflection angle, every gap a player leaves behind. In Vietnam, 3-cushion carom has become a cultural phenomenon more than a mere sport. From small coffee shops in District 5, District 10, or Binh Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City to billiard clubs with admission fees measured in tens of thousands of dong, any evening you can find groups gathered around a table, silent and tense as if watching a world final. They argue about cushion paths, about cue-ball placement, about whether to attack or retreat into defense. This is a distinctive trait: Vietnamese billiards does not just have players; it has an entire analyzing community. Where does the story begin? People often remember the moment Duong Quoc Hoang won the WPA World 9-ball Championship in 2026, when he became the first Vietnamese player to lay hands on a world championship trophy in the pool discipline. That was a symbolic milestone, bringing Vietnamese billiards out of the shadows of the world map and into the light. But if we look only at that trophy, we miss the foundation laid over many decades before it. The truth lies in this: carom 3-cushion is Vietnam's true spearhead, and it was built patiently, quietly, from national-level tournaments to continental-level ones. I have followed UMB World Cup events held in Vietnam for many years. What caught my attention was not the beautiful shots, but the density of the audience and their level of understanding. Spectators here applaud not only when a ball is potted but also when a player chooses the right defensive option. A single row of seats in Ho Chi Minh City can immediately recognize when a player leaves the cue ball in a favorable position for the opponent. This is an understanding that even some developed billiard nations in Europe do not possess. So what truly turned Vietnamese billiards from a local pastime into a force with a voice on the world map? The answer lies not in individual talent but in structure. Picture a three-layer system: the first layer is a nationwide network of clubs and billiard halls, the second is a system of national and continental tournaments creating a constant competitive environment, and the third is the elite players sent out to international arenas. These three layers do not exist independently; they feed each other in a closed cycle. If we use a football comparison, this is the model European youth academies have pursued for decades, but Vietnam has done the same in billiards at far lower cost. A national tournament needs no stadium, only a few dozen tables side by side. A training session needs no gym or recovery room, only stable lighting and a level table. The frugality of infrastructure has allowed this model to scale faster than any team sport. A playing system that sounds perfect is only trustworthy when I can find its weakness. And the weakness here lies in scaling itself. When everything becomes accessible, competitive quality risks drifting horizontally rather than vertically. That means Vietnam produces many players at a good level, but the number of players at an excellent, world-beating level is not large. This is the problem I want to analyze in depth. Going deeper into the mechanism: carom 3-cushion is an almost purely test of cue-ball control. Top players such as Torbjorn Blomdahl, Dick Jaspers, Frederic Caudron, or Marco Zanetti all demonstrate one principle: roughly seventy percent of a shot's quality is decided before the player lays the cue tip on the table. In other words, it is the reading of the position, not the technical execution. And reading a position, in the end, is a problem of spatial geometry. I have a habit of redrawing each position by hand after rewatching a frame. Each 3-cushion frame by a world-class player usually contains three to five decisive situations, where a small error in angle or distance changes the entire complexion. I pay particular attention to the distance between the cue ball and the first object ball, because it determines how the player chooses speed and the contact point on the cushion. This is the kind of data that no statistics table ever displays, yet it speaks most about skill. When analyzing a player, I divide their ability into three tiers. The first tier is basic technique: the precision of the stroke, the ability to keep the cue tip steady through each contact. The second tier is reading the table: the ability to calculate cushion paths, predict the ball's reflection off the cushion, determine the cue ball's position after the shot. The third tier is game management: knowing when to attack, when to retreat into tightly defensive options, when to accept letting the opponent take a passive position. These three tiers must be evaluated separately, because a player can be very strong at tier one yet weak at tier three. Looking at Vietnamese billiards, I believe the current generation has reached international class at tiers one and two. Vietnamese players can execute complex three-cushion shots, tight-to-the-cushion gathering options, reverse-direction cushion paths that many European players must handle carefully. But at tier three, a gap remains. The decisive moments in big matches are usually where match experience and tactical composure are weighed, and that is precisely where Vietnamese players still have much to learn. This is easy to misunderstand. Many people think the psychological factor is merely a matter of spirit and cannot be measured. But I believe it can be analyzed objectively through data. For example, a player's success rate on positions of equivalent difficulty in the early and late stages of a match will reveal a great deal. If that rate drops significantly in the late game, it is a signal of a psychological issue, not a technical one. I have applied this cross-referencing method to several matches and found fairly clear patterns. From another angle, the development of Vietnamese billiards is also an economic story. A professional player needs three income sources to survive: tournament prize money, sponsorship contracts, and income from exhibitions or teaching. Tournament prize money varies widely, depending on the level and scale of each event. For a 3-cushion World Cup, the prize for the champion can be tens of thousands of dollars, but for a national-level event, the figure may only cover travel costs. As a result, the income structure of Vietnamese players tends to lean on the other two sources, and this partly shapes how they choose tournaments to enter. The diagram printed on paper is only the residue of every decision that happened on the table. In billiards, that means any record of results tells only half the story. A player can win a short tournament but fade in a long one. The length of a competition format is an extremely important variable, and it is often undervalued in public analysis. Understanding this helps one more accurately assess the value of each title. Let us talk about the competition format, because this is a key point. Carom 3-cushion has several formats, from round-robin points play to single elimination. Each format creates its own type of pressure. Round-robin demands consistency across many days; single elimination demands the ability to explode within one match. A player suited to one format may not suit the other. This is why comparing achievements between tournaments can be a flawed comparison unless the format is accounted for. There was a period when I believed one player's dominance on the world stage was a sign of a superior training system. But after rewatching many matches, I had to adjust my view. Dominance usually comes from an individual with a special ability to read the table, not from a perfectly designed system. This holds true for billiards and for many other sports. Training systems can create a high baseline of quality, but producing a top-tier player requires a hard-to-replicate factor: innate spatial thinking honed through thousands of hours of practice. Returning to Vietnam. What I believe is Vietnamese billiards' greatest advantage lies in its playing culture, not its technique. In many countries, billiards is seen as a pastime, even a somewhat disreputable hobby. But in Vietnam, especially in the carom community, players are respected as true athletes. There are tournaments where spectators arrive very early, sit in silence for hours, and applaud only when a difficult position is solved. This respect for the sport creates an environment in which serious training is not considered a waste of time. But this very culture also raises a big question. When the environment is too friendly, does it inadvertently reduce players' drive to venture into the big sea? I notice an interesting pattern: many Vietnamese players are extremely strong in domestic tournaments but struggle more when competing abroad, despite technical skill being no less. The difference lies in the competitive environment, in language, in travel rhythm, and in the prolonged feeling of being away from home. These are variables that never appear in technical statistics, yet they directly affect results. I do not watch a frame of billiards for entertainment; I watch to find the moment the game begins to collapse. In a frame of carom 3-cushion, the game rarely collapses suddenly. It collapses gradually, through each slightly off cue-ball placement, through each wrong speed choice, through each time an object ball is left in an unfavorable spot for the next cushion path. The ordinary viewer sees only the final moment when a ball does not go in, but the analyst sees a chain of causes stretching back several shots. This is the point where I want to challenge a common notion. In the billiard community, people often praise beautiful shots, spectacular cushion paths, difficult scoring plays. But from my observation, consistency is the most important quality of a champion. Blomdahl is not famous for flashy shots; he is famous for almost never erring on easy positions. Jaspers is similar. These players understand a simple principle: in a long format, the winner is the one who makes fewer mistakes, not the one with more beautiful shots. If we apply this principle to Vietnamese billiards, we see a problem in tactical education. Many young Vietnamese players are trained mainly by learning beautiful shots rather than being drilled in game management. They can execute a complex three-cushion shot with a high success rate but do not know which option to choose on an average position. Technique runs ahead of tactics. This is a pattern clearly observable when following youth tournaments. At the same time, I believe this trend is being corrected. The arrival of international tournaments held in Vietnam has brought a form of direct exposure to world-class standards. When Vietnamese players face Blomdahl or Jaspers directly at home, they learn more from one real match than from dozens of video sessions. Facing pressure directly, with difficult positions and accelerated rhythm, creates a learning process no classroom can replace. A tactical system is only trustworthy when I can find its hole. In Vietnam's billiards development model, the hole lies in the transfer stage: the gap between the national level and the international level. There are many players who reach excellent national class, but very few cross the threshold to become regular opponents of the world's top players. Crossing that threshold demands not only technique but also the ability to compete continuously at a high level over a long period, and that requires financial resources and organizational support. This is where the story turns to the commercial side. A billiards scene that wants to develop sustainably needs an economic ecosystem. In Vietnam, most tournaments are organized thanks to sponsorship from clubs and individuals who love the sport, rather than a system of large-scale commercial sponsors as in Europe or China. This limits the ability to host large-scale tournaments and also limits players' motivation to pursue a professional path. I once had the chance to compare prize structures across several tournaments. The very disparity in value between big and small events creates an interesting effect: it encourages players to concentrate on a few big tournaments rather than maintaining steady form all year. The result is that overall competitive quality is polarized across events. Some tournaments are very high quality; others merely sustain the movement. This is a characteristic that needs to be viewed objectively rather than judged emotionally. Now, let us discuss an aspect few mention: the role of technology in billiards development. In recent years, video analysis has become much more accessible. A smartphone camera can capture the angle of a shot, and video editing apps let players review frame by frame to assess their precision. This is a major change from the previous generation, when learning relied mainly on direct observation and advice from elders. Technology has democratized the learning process. However, technology cannot replace thinking. I have seen many young players spend hours reviewing footage of top players, trying to copy the motion, yet not understanding the geometric principle behind that motion. The result is that they imitate the stance but fail to build independent tactical thinking. Copying a shot without understanding its reason is the shortest path to stagnation. This is a trap I want young Vietnamese players to avoid. Returning to a foundational question: what separates a good player from a great one? After analyzing many matches, I believe the answer lies in self-awareness. A great player knows clearly their strengths and weaknesses, knows which positions they execute well and which they should avoid. They do not try to be perfect; they try to optimize advantage and minimize risk. This is a mindset very similar to that of a risk manager in finance. From another angle, I want to emphasize the importance of verifying data. In one analysis, I received a statistics table showing a player had a very high success rate on a specific type of cushion path. However, when I reviewed the video, I found the data only counted successful shots and did not count situations where the player deliberately declined to attempt it, deeming the risk too great. This means the statistic omitted half the story. From then on, I built the habit of always cross-checking numbers against video before drawing any conclusion. This is the principle I apply to all my analyses: do not trust numbers blindly, and do not trust the eye absolutely. Numbers can be distorted by collection methods, and the eye can be deceived by camera angles. Truth emerges only when these two sources are seriously cross-referenced. In billiards, where errors are measured in millimeters and thousandths of a second, that cross-referencing becomes all the more important. In the quiet of a big tournament season, data is not loud, yet it speaks most clearly. I have spent much time comparing the form of Vietnam's top players across tournaments. What I found is a fairly stable pattern: players who maintain consistency across many events tend to have a controlling style, while explosive players tend to have more volatile results. This is logically reasonable, but it also raises a question about how to assess achievement: should we judge a player by their peak, or by their consistency? I lean toward consistency, because carom 3-cushion is a sport of long sequences. One beautiful shot cannot save a match if three bad placements follow. A player with good control may never reach dazzling peaks, but they almost always sit in the leading group. And in a sport where a whole season's results depend on accumulated total points, consistency is what decides. At this point, I want to offer a counter-intuitive view. People often assume that to develop billiards, more talented players are needed. But in my view, what Vietnam needs even more is a class of professional tournament organizers, people capable of turning a billiards event into a product attractive to audiences and sponsors. Talent is not lacking; what is lacking is the ability to connect talent to the market. This is a potentially controversial judgment, but I believe it reflects reality accurately. Look at how tournaments are currently organized. Most focus on the pure competitive aspect, with little effort in creating an audience experience. A table set in a large hall, with unoptimized sound, with limited media coverage, cannot attract a broad audience. Meanwhile, if properly invested in, a billiards match can become an event as compelling as any other sport. The tense silence before a decisive shot is a powerful emotional experience. I believe this is the point where Vietnamese billiards must learn from other sports. The development of a sport rests not only on professional quality but also on the ability to tell a story. A talented player can inspire, but for that inspiration to spread, there must be people who tell the story compellingly. This is the role of media, of content creators, of those who understand that a match is not just a result but a story about people. A champion is not someone unbeaten; they are the one who makes fewer mistakes under the same pressure. This holds for players and for those building the sport. No development path is without mistakes. What matters is the ability to recognize mistakes, adjust, and continue. Vietnamese billiards has gone through many development phases, with ups and downs, but overall it has moved in a positive direction over the years. Now, I want to return to a more specific technical aspect. When analyzing a frame of carom 3-cushion, there is one factor I always pay special attention to: the speed of the cue ball. Speed determines not only whether the ball goes in but also the cue ball's position after the shot. A player who hits too hard pushes the cue ball too far, while hitting too softly leaves the cue ball in an unfavorable position for the next cushion path. Choosing the right speed is one of the hardest skills, and it is often underrated in technical discussions. There is a principle that the world's top players often follow: hit at the lowest speed necessary to accomplish the goal. This principle allows better cue-ball control and minimizes risk. At a high level, a precise soft shot is better than a powerful shot with a large error. However, at the amateur level, players tend to hit harder than necessary, believing that high speed increases scoring chances. This is a technical illusion. Another factor I want to analyze is cue-tip placement technique. Top players have the ability to place the cue tip steadily on the cue ball in any stance, including complex ones such as standing far from the table or shooting from a table corner. This stability comes not only from technique but also from preparation. They determine the contact point on the cue ball before bending down and keep that decision until execution. At the amateur level, players often change their decision mid-execution, and that is the cause of most errors. I once rewatched a match by Frederic Caudron and counted that he spent an average of about fifteen seconds per shot, most of which was for observation and calculation before bending down. Such a long observation time is not hesitation; it is an essential part of the process. It allows the player to precisely determine the cushion path and the desired cue-ball position. In Vietnam, many players shoot faster, and this sometimes leads to avoidable errors. At this point, I want to talk about a topic I consider important but rarely noticed: nutrition and physical fitness in billiards. Viewers often think billiards is a static sport requiring no fitness. This is a misunderstanding. A carom 3-cushion match can last many hours, with continuous mental pressure and a demand for high concentration. Physical fatigue directly affects the ability to keep a stroke steady. Therefore, professional players often pay attention to sleep, diet, and exercises that help maintain alertness. In Vietnam, this aspect still has much room to develop. Many players still rely on personal experience to manage their health rather than applying scientific methods. The lack of a support system for fitness and nutrition may be one reason Vietnamese players struggle in long matches. This is a factor I believe will become more important in the future, as the level of competition on the international stage keeps rising. I also want to address the role of family and community in nurturing talent. Many of Vietnam's excellent players come from families with a tradition of loving billiards or from local communities where the sport is strong. Family support is an important factor, because the path to becoming a professional player is not always seen as an economically safe choice. Having a family that believes in and supports you helps a player get through difficult periods. Besides that, I notice that the Vietnamese billiards community has a precious trait: connection between generations. Veteran players are often willing to share experience with younger ones. In some billiards scenes, fierce competition can lead generations to withhold secrets. But in Vietnam, I see a more open spirit. This creates a good learning environment where knowledge is passed on naturally. However, openness also has its limits. Transmitting experience based on observation and intuition can be useful, but it cannot replace a structured training system. To develop sustainably, Vietnamese billiards needs to shift from an apprenticeship model to a program-based training model, where skills are systematized and objectively tested. This is a transition that takes time and resources, but it is a necessary path. Let us return to the central question: can Vietnamese billiards maintain and expand its position on the international stage in the coming years? According to my analysis, the answer depends on three factors. The first is the ability to sustain the flow of talent from the grassroots. The second is the ability to build an economic ecosystem so players can make a living. The third is the ability to learn and adapt to changes in the international competitive environment. These three factors are closely related, and weakness in any one will affect the other two. On the first factor, I am fairly optimistic. Training facilities and the billiards movement in Vietnam are still developing, and the number of young players grows steadily. The popularity of the sport among young people, especially in major cities, is a positive sign. The problem lies in converting quantity into quality, meaning from having many players to having many players at international class. This process requires focused investment in a few promising talents rather than spreading resources thin. On the second factor, I am more cautious. Building a sustainable economic ecosystem for billiards is a major challenge requiring the participation of many parties, from the state to businesses to the community. There is no universal formula for success, and every successful billiards scene in the world has its own path. Vietnam needs to find the path suited to its conditions rather than copying another country's model. On the third factor, I believe this is the factor that can be improved fastest. The international competitive environment changes constantly, with the emergence of new players, new formats, and new technologies. The ability to adapt quickly is an advantage. Vietnamese players have proven their ability to learn fast, and this brings hope for the future. Before concluding, I want to stress one thing: sports analysis is not fortune-telling. Any judgment about the ability of a player or a sports scene rests on data and observation but cannot entirely eliminate uncertainty. What matters is that we must be honest with the data, acknowledge the limits of analysis, and always be ready to adjust our views when new evidence appears. This is the principle I have pursued throughout my career, and it is especially true for a complex sport like carom 3-cushion. I will conclude with a forward-looking thought. Vietnamese billiards no longer needs to prove anything to the world; it already has its standing. What it needs now is patience to build sustainable foundations, from the competitive environment to the economic ecosystem to tactical education. Great achievements do not come from leaps but from small improvements accumulated over many years. And if there is one lesson from the carom tables I have spent years studying, it is this: every complex cushion path is built from a precise starting point. The next question is not whether Vietnam can win the world title, but how to place each step along that road correctly. Because in billiards, the winner is not the one with the most beautiful shot, but the one who best understands the position of the cue ball after every shot.