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August 14 and 15, 2026. Kannai, Yokohama.
Introducing the players to watch at SANSIAS presents Yokohama 14-1 Summit.
I asked why he keeps playing 14.1.
“Got nothing better to do.”
He said it, and laughed.
But it’s been thirty years.
He hardly ever plays in tournaments.
When I asked his high run, he said, “Played three games the other day, high run was 16 (T_T).”
He laughs it off, but in the 14.1 championships he has beaten more than a few pros.
Not long ago, he made the last 16 at the Kansai 14.1.
Thirty years of “nothing better to do” are built from matches like those.
I asked about his cue.
“Modded it so much I’ve no clue what cue it started out as.”
That is how long he has spent making it his own.
When I asked who had influenced him,
Kuranomae-san, Kosugi-san, Keiji-san… the names kept coming.
“And loads of other players. I’ve been influenced like crazy.”
Thirty years of encounters, right there.
He has been inside billiards all along.
I ask about his strength.
“Eh? Don’t ask weird stuff.”
I asked what matters most to him in practice.
“Trying not to wreck my back.”
He won’t say it straight.
He doesn’t care for the spotlight.
But for thirty years, he has been holding up the people around him.
He doesn’t play the tournaments.
He stays out of view.
Even so, he never left the side of this game called 14.1.
There were friends to play with.
There were young players trying to get better alongside him.
Again and again, he gathered with them around the same table.
And so thirty years went by.
And then he started the 14-1 Summit.
The spotlight belongs to the players.
What mattered more was that the event keep going.
He was content to stay behind the scenes.
Only someone like that could have done it.
That 14-1 Summit has passed to Masato Fujita.
Fujita, who has long looked up to Mizutani-san as his teacher, is bringing it back in Yokohama as the Yokohama 14-1 Summit.
I asked how he felt about this one.
“Hoping I can somehow find my way to the venue.”
Words to hide his shyness.
But he is coming to Yokohama.
The teacher, making the trip to the place his student brought back to life.
He needs no greater declaration than that.
His blog introduces itself like this: “An old guy who’s kept at billiards for years, never learning his lesson, scribbling down whatever half-baked things come to mind.”
Read it and you’ll see.
He loves billiards.
He loves his friends.
He loves the culture of this game.
He just won’t say so plainly.
Which is probably how thirty years happened.
Shinji Mizutani
Affiliation: Osaka Miyako | Class: Amateur A
Years playing 14.1: about 30
👉 Mizutani-san’s blog, “Go! Musashi-Koyama Billiards Squad” (Ike! Musashi-Koyama Dokyutai)
👉 Yokohama 14-1 Summit 2026: event details
👉 Player stats