Tran Quyet Chien entered a difficult group in an exciting 3-cushion billiards tournament.

The main round of the World 3 Cushion Survival Billiards Tournament 2024 will take place from August 22 to 25 in Seoul, South Korea. This tournament will feature many strong players, ranked at the top of the World Carom Billiards Federation (UMB) rankings. Before that, dozens of players will compete in the qualifying round to compete for 4 tickets to the main round. Vietnam's 3-cushion carom billiards has 3 players scheduled to be present from the main round: Tran Quyet Chien, Bao Phuong Vinh and Chiem Hong Thai.

Difficult draw for Vietnamese players

The main round of the World 3 Cushion Survival 2024 billiards tournament has 24 players, divided equally into 6 groups (4 players each group). Vietnam's No. 1 player Tran Quyet Chien is in Group A, which is considered difficult, when he has to face Tasdemir Tayfun (Türkiye, ranked 7th in the world), Tolgahan Kiraz (Türkiye, ranked 14th in the world) and 1 player who passed the qualifying round. The two Turkish players are not too unfamiliar names to Vietnamese 3-cushion billiards fans. Tasdemir Tayfun is a veteran player. Meanwhile, Tolgahan Kiraz left a good impression when competing in the 3-cushion carom billiards World Cup in Ho Chi Minh City (in May 2024). At Nguyen Du Stadium, Kiraz stopped in the semi-finals, after losing to champion Tran Duc Minh.

Not only Tran Quyet Chien, Bao Phuong Vinh and Chiem Hong Thai also fell into very "tough" groups. Bao Phuong Vinh is in group D with Nikos Polychro. (Greece, world rank 15) and Marco Zanetti (Italy, world rank 11). In the survival format, Nikos Polychro (champion of the World 3 Cushion Survival 2023) is a very formidable player, often launching big series of points. Meanwhile, Chiem Hong Thai is in group E with "prodigy" Cho Myung-woo (Korea, world rank 3), Eddy Merckx (Belgium, world rank 5) and Berkay Karakurt (Türkiye, world rank 16).

Dao Van Ly once caused a surprise in a tournament with "huge" prize money.

At this tournament in 2023, Dao Van Ly (who was then outside the top 100 in the world rankings) caused a big surprise. He passed the qualifying round and went straight to the final. Van Ly even came very close to winning the championship, when he started well in the final match and led quite a bit of points compared to the rest. However, the opponent's explosion in the final stage caused Van Ly to only finish in 3rd place overall. Meanwhile, Tran Quyet Chien stopped in the semi-finals.

World 3 Cushion Survival is known as a tournament with an attractive format, especially with a very high prize money. The tournament in 2023 witnessed the prize money considered the highest in history (up to now). The champion was awarded 64 million won (about 1.2 billion VND). The runner-up was awarded about 600 million VND. Dao Van Ly ranked 3rd and received 12,000 USD (about 300 million VND).