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YUSHAN, China, March 17 (Xinhua) -- For the third year in a row, snooker legends like Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui will soon pack up and travel to Yushan, a southwestern county in China's Jiangxi Province, to attend the Chinese Pool World Championship.
Chinese pool is played with 15 numbered object balls and a cue ball. If one player chooses the solid group, the opponent is assigned the stripe group, and the shooter attempts to get his group off the table before attempting to pocket the black eight to win the rack.
The sport, which emerged in China in the 1980s, had changed its names several times to things like "16-colored" and "eight-ball" until being renamed Chinese pool. Despite the unstable name-shifting, the sport has been enjoying growing momentum in China, now boasting more than 60 million fans.
Just like snooker in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese pool was originally seen as a game played by seedy people in unsavory places, for example, in smoky basements. But now, live TV broadcasts and support from Chinese Billiard and Snooker Association make it a more serious power in world sports. The Chinese Pool World Championship, which owns independent intellectual property rights for the game, has received the recognition of the World Pool-Billiard Association, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and the International Billiards and Snooker Federation.
What's the source of Chinese Pool's unique charm? The answers are varied. It requires an aggressive playing style; it's fast-paced, and quite exciting. In the period between the first edition and this year's World Championship, the number of participating countries and regions has increased from 25 to 41. The number of players has increased from 305 to nearly 400 in that same period. Because only the top 96 receive the prize money, nearly 300 players come to play at their own expense.
The tournament attracts not only snooker legends, but also masters from pool (both nine-ball and eight-ball) just like the first and the second year respective runners-up, world No.1 Selby and Michael Hill. The domestic players are also gradually playing a bigger part in the sport. In this year's championship, Chinese players occupied all four berths in men's and women's finals for the first time.
This year's championship is also the first time that players can head into first round off their performance in overseas qualifiers. " Chinese pool will also root and sprout abroad," said Ian Anderson, president of the World Pool-Billiard Association at this year's Chinese Pool Development Seminar held in Yushan.
After the seminar, Wang Tao, general secretary of the Chinese Billiard and Snooker Association, revealed that the export of tournaments, sporting culture and industry will be crucial steps on the path to Chinese pool going global. Oversea qualifiers will also increase in number.
Whether or not Chinese Pool will someday take a place "next to snooker" as Joe Perry predicted, remains to be seen. But its global expansion appears to be proceeding at a steady and promising rate.
