Niels Feijen
Frustration can come in a broad range of ‘flavors.’ It can happen in a pool game when your opponent is taking far too much time deciding which ball he (or she) is going to pocket and even more time to get down to it and actually make a shot. Or when an opponent gets ahead by four or five racks (in a race to 10). Or in an individual game, when you make a careless mistake. But arguably the most annoying ‘flavor’ of frustration comes about when you’ve made a late-match run to tie things up (in our example here, 8-8), only to have your opponent pop your balloon of hope in a modest run of 2 and win the match.
Albania’s Eklent Kaci was on the wrong end of that scenario with his late-match run of four against Niels Feijen in the finals of the SBE’s Diamond Open Players Championship yesterday (Sun., April 14). It was his, and in fact, the only run of that length by either of them and it tied the score at 8-8. It was followed by two in a row that won it for the Netherlands’ Niels Feijen. Adding insult to injury, after Feijen had reached the hill at 9-8, Kaci had the break, sinking the 1-ball and looking at a fairly decent connect-the-dots run to tie the score (with one tricky but not unsolvable issue). In an attempt to solve that issue as he was attempting to pocket the 5-ball, not only did Kaci make the issue a little trickier (the 7-ball and 9-ball were now in close proximity, just on and off the short rail), but the 5-ball didn’t drop. Feijen was looking at a proverbial ‘sitting duck.’
Feijen jumped out of his chair and took a quick glance at the 5-ball, sitting on the very edge of a corner pocket with a number of ways in which it could be dropped into the hole and allow the cue ball to end up in a position to drop the 6- and after, the almost-tied-up 7-ball, hidden somewhat by the 9-ball. Critical juncture. Feijen made his choice and worked it perfectly. Down went the 5-ball, with the cue in perfect position to make the 6-ball and then, come back around, not only to drop the 7-ball, but to kick the cue ball down toward the 8-ball at the opposite end of the table. Basically, end of story.
They call him The Terminator, for his ‘there is just the job at hand’ energy at the table and his ability to stay focused on that job in the midst of any and all distractions common to an arena, only some of which have to do with the game. Away from the table, Feijen, though tall and broad-shouldered, is more Tom Hanks than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Look at how big this thing is,” he said, hefting the Diamond Open Championship trophy, a very large, galvanized metal ‘cup’ on a wood base that weighs somewhere in the vicinity of about 10-15 pounds. “How am I going to get this home?”
Through what seemed like an endless series of ‘selfie’ photos requested by fans after the presentation of it (many refused assistance in taking the photo because then, as one insisted, “it wouldn’t be a selfie”), Feijen beamed and smiled his way through it, in every picture, looking for all the world as if he’d known the ‘selfie’ photographer all his life.
He’s no stranger to the pool community at large, having won multiple world titles (check his AZBilliards’ profile at https://www.azbilliards.com/person/niels-feijen/ for a complete list). He’s been a member of 12 European Mosconi Cup teams and was their MVP four times. Two years ago (2023), he became a member of the BCA Hall of Fame, during which time he offered guests at the Hall of Fame dinner a slide/video presentation of his own career, with a little ‘stand-up comedian’ flare to it that was as entertaining as anything ever said by a pool player, anywhere.
He has been, however, something of a stranger at the Super Billiards Expo’s Diamond Open Players Championship recently. In discussions after he’d collected his trophy, he used the word “crazy” to talk about winning it this year.
“I haven’t played in this in 20 years,” he said, noting that the frequency of chasing pool earnings all over the global map has decreased for him in recent years. “I’m not as committed to it as I once was and I’m at peace with that.”
Feijen gets out in front early and holds off late-match surge by Kaci
There’s no evidence that in his last SBE appearance, this Terminator invoked ‘Ah-nold’s’ now-famous expression, “Ah’ll be back,” line from the original Terminator film (1984; Feijen was seven years old at the time). His return did lack the explosiveness of the original Terminator’s ‘return’ in the film, the truck that drove through the front entrance of a building. Feijen just walked in, stepped to the tables and executed his game that in its own way was as efficient as Arnold’s ‘truck through a brick wall’ solution to his problem.
Fiejen won two matches on the winners’ side of the original, 128-entrant, double-elimination bracket, downing Steve Way in the opener and Raphael DaBreo in the second round. It was Ukraine’s Vitaliy Patsura who sent him to the loss side 10-4. On the loss side, to qualify for single-elimination play, he downed two members of the 2024 USA Mosconi Cup team (Billy Thorpe 10-5 and Skyler Woodward 10-3) with a 10-5 victory over Hong Kong’s Lo Ho Sun in the middle.
On the surface of his single-elimination work, it looked as though each opponent he faced was giving him just a little harder time than the one before. This held true until the very end. He got by Bosnia/Herzegovina’s Sanjin Pehlivanovic 10-6, before Canada’s John Morra and Spain’s David Alcaide racked up seven against him and he advanced to the finals.
Kaci, in the meantime, earned his slot in the single-elimination Stage 2 of the event, with four straight on the winners’ side of the original bracket, downing USA’s Corey Cooper (2), Canada’s Vincent Beaurivage (5), Indonesia’s Koyongian and USA’s Shane Wolford to qualify for single-elimination. He opened Stage 2 with a 10-6 victory over Lithuania’s Pijus Labutis, who was runner-up to Jayson Shaw in the 2024 Diamond Open. Kaci then eliminated Spain’s F.S.R. (Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz) 10-8 and advanced to a semifinal against Fedor Gorst, who had just dominated in a winners’ side quarterfinal win (10-3) over last year’s champion Shaw. In only the second double-hill battle of single-elimination play, Kaci eliminated Gorst and stepped into the final.
Fiejen broke and ran the opening rack of the final. Kaci didn’t break and run the second game, but to coin a little ‘gunslinger’ terminology, he did ‘flash a little leather’ to win it. He came within a whisker of making a 2-9 combination, turned the table over to Fiejen briefly and did make a 4-9 combination to create the first of only two ties in the match. Niels came right back with a second break and run that launched a four-rack run that put him up 5-1.
Feijen broke dry and scratched on rack #7. Kaci ran the table to get back into the swing of things, sort of, and they traded racks for a while, with Kaci pulling to within three a couple of times, including rack #11 that made it 7-4. Kaci broke rack #12, found himself in early trouble and scratched shooting at the 4-ball. Niels ran the table, re-establishing his four-game lead (8-4).
Though Feijen would drop two breaking rack #13, it was the 2-ball that cost him the game. He missed a bank on it the first time, in what was otherwise a connect-the-dots table for him and then, after Kaci gave him a second chance, he made an unforced error shooting at it. Kaci cleared the table to close the gap to three again (8-5). It was the first of four straight that would eventually tie the score.
Kaci broke rack #14, but was forced to play safe shooting at the 2-ball. They played ‘chase the 2-ball’ for a while, before Kaci broke out of it and eventually went on to draw within two at 8-6. Feijen broke and scratched shooting at the next rack, and when Kaci ran the table to draw within one, Feijen added an item to the opening list of frustration ‘flavors.’
“I got frustrated at the scratches,” he would say later. “I had a chance to blow it open (with thar run of four racks). I wasn’t trying to steamroll him from there, but I was letting him in.”
Kaci dropped the 9-ball on the break of rack #16 and it was 8-8, creating a possible best-of-three set of matches for the championship title. Feijen broke and reached the hill on the next rack and finished it off of Kaci’s break of the final rack.
Fiejen has a YouTube channel on which he shares instructional videos on pool techniques and mental strategies. Asked, right after the match, which of his own instructional videos would best reflect his own advice as it applied to his winning of the 31st Diamond Open Players Championship. He pointed to advice that he offers in a YouTube presentation, entitled DON’T Give Your Pool Match Away! Use These 5 Techniques to Stay Strong in the Chair.
He spoke after the match about things that one can control and the things one can’t; crowds in general, cell phones, etc.
“Keep digging at it,” he said of any distractions. “Then flush them, like a toilet.”
Among the distractions he flushed was the transition from challenge matches he would play against amateurs at the Longoni Booth in the exhibition hall to the matches against the professionals in the Diamond Open arena. On the one hand, he noted, the freewheeling style he employed in the challenge matches had a way of spilling into his rhythm and approach in the arena. On the other hand, he noted, the challenge matches had him “playing a lot of pool, (which) helped.”
Another distraction, especially as Kaci got closer in the end, was the “momentum shift” of Kaci’s run.
“It was a grind, those four matches,” he said. “Just sitting and sitting and I was feeling cold and stale. Shooting at that final 8-ball, I was (nervous and apprehensive), but I hit it good and I hit it positive.”
In the end, he was of two minds about the entire event and his part in it.
“I’m happy,” he said, “and relieved.”
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