No shortage of pool sharks at Princeton

Colonial Club will host the annual Intramural Billiards Tournament tonight at 9:30 p.m., with "Intramural Champion" t-shirts awarded to the winners of both the men's and women's divisions and points awarded to intramural teams based on numbers of participants.

The tournament will bring some of Princeton's finest pool players out of the woodwork, allowing them the chance to test themselves against each other and lay claim to a place among the sport's on-campus elite.

The University-wide event will be a welcome change for students accustomed to playing billiards primarily at the local level at their residential colleges or eating clubs rather than in an organized tournament setting.

While pool tables can be found scattered throughout the entire Princeton campus, the quality and quantity of competition varies.

At eating clubs, pool tables are often an integral part of the social scene and a reflection of student priorities. The second-floor library of Colonial Club was recently converted into a game room that houses a pool table. At the same time, one of the two pool tables at Tower Club is now almost permanently covered, so as to facilitate games of Beirut.

"We have two pool tables here at Quad, and it's not a real competitive atmosphere," said junior Rehan Shamin, intramural manager for Quadrangle Club, echoing a common description of the eating club billiards scene. "It's more of an after-dinner, chill kind of thing to do."

For underclassmen, pool tables hidden away in the basements and common rooms of the residential colleges serve as diversions from studying and sites for social gatherings. In the case of the table in the basement of Lourie-Love Hall, the majority of its players are students waiting for their laundry to finish.

Often, though, a pool player with a desire for stronger competition or an interest in exploring new social options seeks more centralized places to play. The most popular among these are the two pool tables located in the Mazo Family Game Room on the 100 Level of the Frist Campus Center. There, students can sign out balls and cues from the Welcome Desk and play in an open setting that allows them to see and be seen while taking on all challengers, either for the sake of befriending them or vanquishing them.

Among those seeking to achieve the latter are a good many of Princeton's most highly regarded pool players. According to many, the best of the best is junior Skip Perry, the two-time defending champion of the annual Tower Club pool tournament and the founder of the Mazo Invitational Tournament, played in Frist each May since 2002. For Perry, billiards is all about seeking new challenges.

"One of the great things about pool," Perry said, "was that it kept my competitive juices flowing after I stopped playing varsity golf second semester freshman year. Instead of hitting balls and chipping around for three hours every day, I got to play real games against real people."

While Perry holds court among upperclassman, freshman Danford Lau is beginning to attract the attention of pool players in the residential colleges. Lau has recently begun to look outside of the game rooms of his native Butler College, turning to the Internet to drum up new competition. The group he created on thefacebook.com, "Corner Pocket," has 17 members, including Perry and last year's Tower tournament runner-up, junior Dan Greco.

The group's mission statement reads, "To bring together a gathering of people who can hit the cue ball and to enlighten and enrich those who are not blessed with shaft and ball control."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Mainstream promotion of this sort is relatively rare within Princeton's competitive billiards community, running contrary to what some players say attracted them to the sport in the first place.

"The thing about pool here is that it's underground," says sophomore Steven Brown, a member of the "Corner Pocket" group. "People don't know it. It's its own little society. I mean, when I go to a table, if I know people there, I'll play and we'll have our moments, but if I don't know people there, I keep walking, unless I really feel like beating up on someone."

If successful, events like tonight's tournament threaten to strip players like Brown of their anonymity and the sport of its decentralized nature. Rest assured, though, that billiards lovers across campus will rejoice over the new occasions for "beating up" on their fellow Princetonians.