So Ljubljana it was and I arrived in the Capital of Slovenia (a mini Prague) in the early evening. I had met a famous Opera singer on the train who helped me find a hotel and also invited me to rehearsal the next day. However it was the weekend so despite a long days travel I was keen to get out of my hotel and explore the city after dark!

It was a small but extremely city, only 300,000 residents made up mostly of students. The centre of the city, the old town covers both sides of a lovely river and is dominated by a large ancient castle on a hill. Despite it being a Sunday, the quietest night of the week I found several bars and ended up in the K4 club until about 3am in the morning.

I spent the next day sightseeing before popping in to see my first ever opera in the small but beautiful national opera house, the lead singer who I had met on the train was waiting by the back door as promised to get me in for a sneak preview of rehearsals. Although I only stayed for an hour it was amazing to see and hear such powerful voices live and without any amplified aids.

On my last day I finally found the local pool hall and spent almost 5 hours practicing for the Euro Tour which was now only a couple of days away! I needed the practice as I had practiced little in recent, but by the end of the session I felt a lot better about my chances.

The next morning I woke up early and caught the 10:28 express train to Monfalcone, Italy. It was only a two and a half hour journey and it wasn't long before I was in and out of my hotel and hitting balls again in the pool hall, albeit a different country! There were already several British players there but I managed to play for about 5 hours on absolutely stunning pool tables.

I had planned to get an early night but ended up having about 4 beers while waiting for the draw and match times to be finalised. I drew a fellow Brit, but worse still had to play at 9am!

I woke up early feeling not great after drinking the local full strength beer but managed to play ok and I won my first match 9:2. I went back to my hotel for a few hours to relax before my evening match, which was supposed to be against Thorston Hohman, ex World Champion. However when I arrived back at the pool hall I was told that he wasn't coming and I was through to the next round. Although this was good news I was still disappointed as I wanted to test myself against the best and I felt I had a decent chance of causing an upset.

I had a quite night again and the next morning I played a young Dutch player, I had a couple of lucky rolls but played solid and won 9:2 again.

I was now through to the final match of the double elimination stage and had two chances to get through to the single elimination last 32. I had played in two Euro Tour events previously and both times I had narrowly missed out on the last 32. Not only does the last 32 carry more ranking points but the 550 euros goes a long way to covering the costs of the trip.

The bad news was my next opponent was Stephan Cohan, long time professional who finished 3rd in the previous event in Prague. I started badly and went 2:0 down before pulling it back to 2:2. Cohan is famous for using an extremely soft break where the one ball barely makes it past the side pocket and the wing ball goes in the corner. In order to counter this proven technique I made sure I racked the balls as difficult as possible to ensure that the 2 ball always finished on the top rail making the run out as difficult as possible. This tactic worked well and I played pretty well to take an 8:4 lead. However I missed a couple of easy chances to lose out the match but eventually fell over the line for a 9:5 win.

Unfortunately I didnt get an easy draw in the last 32 and I had a 9am match up with Sandor Tot, former European No1. Nonetheless I knew I was playing well and was confident of doing well now the pressure was off somewhat. Sadly I made a few two many mistakes and combined with a couple of slopped 9 ball by my opponent I never really got into the match and lost 9:3.

The good news was I had earned another 275 ranking points which meant I jumped from about 180th to 121st in Europe despite only having played in 3 of the 6 scoring events. It will be very tough but if I can repeat these results in the next 3 events I will break into the top 32 which is my ultimate goal.

After I lost I caught the train to Venice which was only a 1.5 hour journey along the coast. It was a cloudy day but it was a city I had long wanted to see and I had a great time exploring Marco Square, the Grand Canal and the small back streets of this place.

I was disappointed to not make it back for the final but please that the British players had done well and Imran Majid had won his first title. It wasn't long before the beer had got the better of most of the players, Niels took over the DJ booth and I and a few others where dancing around the bar to Zorba the Greek! I also met the lovely Alexia and many of us ended up in La Bomba, more of a Latin Dance club than a disco until 6am!

RESULTS

• 9:2 EDGE Geoff
• 9:0 HOHMANN Thorsten (walk over)
• 9:2 BEEKERS Brian
• 9:6 COHEN Stephane
• 3:9 TOT Sandor

RELATED LINKS

EPBF Results (Group B)