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Every great player was once a B-class or C-class player.
The joy of first holding a cue, the nerves that crumble in a match, the sting of not being able to win.
You may be carrying those same feelings right now.
And that’s fine. That’s exactly how it should be.
The next tournament from the Yokohama Open Organizing Committee is for players just like you.
Not how fast you grow, but how far you go
Now and then you hear stories like “I made A class in a year.”
That’s impressive, no doubt.
But say there is a player who took five years to reach A class.
When that player wins a major title, which of the two can be said to have “succeeded as a competitor”?
Isn’t the answer clear?
There is no need to be ashamed of how fast you grow.
No need to measure yourself against anyone else.
What matters is how far you can go.
What it means to stand on the same stage
We expect all kinds of players to gather at BC Battle.
People who have been smoldering in B class for years.
People who have been improving fast.
People who have only just discovered how fascinating pool can be.
People who want to win a title, any title, and move up to A class.
But once you stand at the table, none of that matters.
Right now, you are in the same class. That’s all.
You get down on your cue in the raw, prickling air of a match that counts.
There are no excuses there.
Only your skill and your heart.
Pool is life in miniature
Before every shot, you always picture “something.”
Once the ball drops, where will the cue ball go?
What angle will you leave on the next ball?
And what comes after that?
You choose where to strike the cue ball, and how hard.
And then, you shoot.
Does the object ball go in, or not?
Even when it does, the cue ball sometimes moves in a way you never pictured.
A shot that looked perfect can make the next position harder.
How do you recover from there?
The table is, quite truly, life in miniature.
When the result differs from what they pictured, each person shows a different face.
Some sink.
Some get heated.
Some don’t flinch at all.
There is no right answer.
It’s all right to sink.
It’s all right to get heated.
It’s all right to stay perfectly calm.
The only question is how you turn it, from there, into a win. That’s all.
That, I think, is where the real fascination of pool lies.
It isn’t only technique.
A person’s whole way of living shows on the table.
Because the match is real, it becomes frightening
“I want to win” and “I don’t want to lose” sound alike, but they are entirely different.
The urge to attack, and the urge to protect.
Both live inside the same match, sometimes blending together, sometimes colliding.
But those are feelings born only because the match is for real.
That tension plants doubt in a ball that would usually be nothing at all.
Your hand trembles, and you can no longer trust the hit you see.
A shot that should be easy suddenly becomes hard.
Isn’t that very moment the true essence of pool?
Think of high school baseball.
In pure skill, the professionals are far, far ahead.
And yet so many people are moved by those young players, fighting within the brief span of three short years.
Fleeting moments, piling up, and how fragile they are.
The effort poured into that one moment.
The hopes and feelings of that one moment.
Wins and losses decided by a few millimeters of “something.”
There is a heat there that the pros don’t have.
BC Battle will surely be that kind of fight, and we want it to be.
A place where nothing collides but the pure wish to win.
Like a boxing rookie-of-the-year
Boxing has its “Rookie of the Year” tournaments and its “A-class tournaments.” (Or are those gone now…?)
The prize money isn’t big.
But more than a few fighters have gone from there to win world titles.
That one stage changes a fighter’s life.
We want BC Battle to be that kind of tournament too.
Someday, a player who wins this title will be trading blows with the best in the world.
That is the future we picture as we plan this tournament.
The experience will change you
The prizes are still under consideration.
To be honest, they may not be large at first.
But we want the quality of the experience to be first-rate.
We want to stream it live, with professional play-by-play and commentary.
Your matches will be on record.
And more than that, you get to hear your own play talked through from a professional’s point of view.
Ideas you had never noticed, ways of thinking that carry you to the next step, ways of reading a position.
Those are the encounters with new perspectives we want this tournament to offer.
Just watching, just listening, something will surely change.
We want it to be that kind of experience.
BC Battle: this is your starting line
The things you can’t do yet.
The things you don’t understand yet.
These are not weaknesses, but room to grow.
For the Yokohama Open Organizing Committee, BC Battle is a very important tournament.
Who will step forward into the next chapter of Yokohama’s pool scene?
We truly hope that, before long, players will appear who can give the pros a scare.
This tournament is not only for the players.
For amateurs, of course, and for professionals too.
And for everyone who supports this sport, starting with the makers of billiards equipment: we hope you will keep an eye on it.
A new era for Yokohama begins here.
The details are still being worked out.
But it has already begun.
To enter, and to face an opponent in a real match.
Wanting to win, not wanting to lose: a match that counts.
The effort poured into that one moment.
A stage to show what your days of steady effort have built.
We will share the details as soon as they are decided!
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