I was introduced to the world of billiards when I was a young boy. Wherever I saw a table in a canteen, a pub, campsite, or hotel I immediately started nagging my dad to play. When I was about 15 or 16 I discovered the coffeshop which opened the door to table-football and pool. I still played a lot of rugby too those days and only played pool during the weekends. I used to play Rachid, the owner of the bar, all night long and the money I lost was always acquitted. At 20 I could no longer play rugby, my body was severely damaged and I was content to drown this lost dream and disillusion in the coffeshop…AND PLAYING POOL OF COURSE. I was also enrolled as a student those days but let me not now devote more time to that than I did then. Those days was mainly just doing things here and there, freewheeling, and becoming increasingly dedicated to pool. In 1996 I won the national championships for the first time, I made it to the semi-finals on an Eurotour in 1998 and in 1999 I won the German Open and the World Pool Masters. FANTASTIC!!! The victory in the Emirates in 2002 was also a very good one, I love playing 8-ball!! Sometimes…. Pool in The Netherlands has increased immensely over the past few years. It is impressive to see how fast it all went and how quickly pool has spread over the country. There are so many men now who are good 9-ball players; great kicks, breaks, pots, and safeties. You have to play a lot better than before; if you're not careful you can easily get slapped around the ears by a run-out and a break in one by virtually anyone if you miss a ball. This is of course a very good development because you are forced to turn to yourself to win a game; you cannot rely on your opponent to miss a ball, you have to win by your own merit. Which gives the game lots of positive pressure. Naturally the luck factor is there. To some degree I do believe in commanding luck. When you are playing positively everything will all just go right. That's why it is so difficult to remain positive when everything seems to be going wrong. When for example you again have no position for the third time on the 1-ball after the break while your opponent only gets ‘Tom Cruise-outs'. Yes, that sucks but you have to go on, stay composed and at some point luck will be on your side again. It must be said however that that can happen not before the next game or even tournament. Well I hope this has been a good read, I hope to see you soon, and I don't know the weather situation where you are but where I am it makes me leave my cues where they are for the moment and I'm racing off for the beach. Alex