Billiards Digest — Pooldawg Stroke of Genius, Pool Videos

Player: Jose Parica
Event: 2008 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship
Date: Oct. 23, 2008

Just how close was the fifth-round, winners-bracket match between Jose Parica and Shane Van Boening at the 2008 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship? The battle between the defending champion — 25-year-old Van Boening — and the two-time runner-up — 59-year-old Parica — went to a deciding rack at 10-10, and the players had tallied nearly identical Accu-Stats ratings of .907 and .901, respectively. Clearly, this was a match that should be decided by something other than an ordinary runout.

Van Boening had a chance to win in the previous rack, but jawed the 8 ball on a 6-foot shot up the long rail. Parica mopped up the rack to force the hill-hill game, and then broke for the match, sinking the 7 and 8 balls on the stingy Diamond table.

A slight miscue on the 2 ball gave Parica an awkward angle on the 3. He sank the scarlet ball, but the cue ball went rogue downtable and knocked the 6 into the 9. Filipino players are nothing if not imaginative, and Parica quickly sized up a daring shot that would best be described as a bank-kick-carom-combo-carom.

Parica took aim at a cross-side bank on the 4 ball, realizing that the cue ball would hit the rail and then the 5, knocking the orange ball into the 9, which then would glance off the 6 and into the corner pocket. At least, that was the plan. After about 30 seconds of scoping out the shot, Parica gave the cue ball some slight left English and let it fly. The balls behaved as planned.

“I sank the 4 ball,” Parica said afterward, excited by the perfect execution that would have kept him at the table even if the 9 hadn’t dropped.

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(Check out Accu-Stats’ full library of great shots and amazing matches at www.accu-stats.com)