Snooker and Pool: The year so far

It was a term to remember for the Imperial mints, as membership rocketed and records tumbled, in what was a fantastic ending to a difficult year.

The autumn term began, as it always does, with the madness of Freshers’ fair – an event at which Rob “robbing frames” Hughes excelled and embarrassed himself in equal measure. His decision to dress up as a pool table left him continually swamped by freshers, with several begging to borrow the outfit for the after-party and many more pledging to join the club. The gimmick, along with the club’s mini pool table, manned by president Max “maximum safety” Chalmers, clearly captured the imagination of the fair-going public as membership was up by 50% on the previous year by the time freshers’ fortnight drew to a close.

The Southern Universities 8-ball Pool Championships took place in the third week of term and the club departed for a sun-soaked Guildford with a number of new and exciting talents in tow. They had been selected from the hugely well attended – and extremely competitive – team trials tournament, which saw the club take over the whole of Rileys sports bar in Victoria.

The tournament might have been a complete disaster for our lads after all of them were knocked out of the Individual Championship in their first or second round matches. The team tournament also got off to an equally shaky start; with the firsts and seconds taking one frame between them (from a possible 18!) in their first three matches. Things began to look desperate, before they took a dramatic turn, with Markus “the Marksman” Frembs (a newcomer to the club), President Max and Ben “hardly ginger” Harvey putting in some stunning frames to inspire their respective teams.

From there the first team won all their remaining group matches to qualify for the championship, while the second team put in some excellent performances despite finishing bottom of their group and leaving a day early. While the first team was subsequently knocked out by a very strong Kent side, their 7th placed finish was the club’s best ever result in a pool tournament and they left the competition with their heads held high.

No national university snooker took place in the first term, but that didn’t stop the club holding a number of internal events, with the early rounds of the Freshers’ tournament taking place on commemoration day. Players of all strengths took part in the first-years only event, with LSE’s Charnon Boonnuch the first non-Imperialite to take part in the competition. He was only defeated in the final which he lost 4-3 to “the Marksman” who was making quite a start to his time at Imperial.

The Internal Snooker League had its opening group stage from November until the conclusion of term, with the competition as fierce as ever. A number of shock exits were seen, as this year’s freshers provided a greater threat than many had anticipated. Predictably, Bogdan, loser of only 2 internal matches ever, sailed through while “hardly ginger” Harvey won an impressive four out of four in what had looked like a tough group. The competition now splits into the Championship and Trophy in the spring term and there is all to play for – even for those whose luck didn’t hold in the first term.

The year came to an exquisite end in Telford, at the UPC 9-ball Pool Championships. Compared with Guildford, the tournament turned out to be somewhat of a reversal of fortunes, with the major triumph coming in the individual event and the team performance being a little disappointing. Due to the harsh nature of 9-ball competition, our three man team found themselves completely knocked out after only two losses, a result which disappointed Alex “magic cross” Lambrianos almost as much as the lack of sausage rolls at the event.

Similarly swift eliminations from the individuals were in store for both Max and Alex, but not for “the Marksman” of Deutschland. The affable German ran nurburgrings around his hapless opponents all the way to the Semis where he fell to fellow “auslander” Bernd Gentoner in a match which UPC’s Facebook page described as “arguably the best match we have seen in the history of the competition”. In finishing 3rd he became the first Imperial player ever to medal at an external pool tournament. What a player.