Since
last year's edition of this article we have seen many changes in the billiard section of the blogosphere. New blogs have appeared while others have ceased to exist. Here's a short rundown of the year in billliard blogs:
New blogs
A number of new blogs were launched this year. Here are some of the ones I found most interesting:
Players
The Finnish "Iceman"
Mika Immonen has been a top pro for many years. He is a former world pool champion and this year he won the prestigious US Open trophy. In his blog he reports from the major events. His straight-forward informal style is very refreshing.
Jeanette "The Black Widow" Lee is possibly the one player in the world best known by people outside the sport. She has alway been terrific at promoting herself and the sport and her online presence is no exception. Her posts are honest and informative, giving you an insight into the WPBA.
Another top player to join the ranks of the bloggers this year is Dutchman
Nick van den Berg. Although his posts are quite short it's nice to hear yet another voice from inside the circuit.
Katrine Jensen is one of Denmark's top female players. She is also the partner of top pro Niels Feijen. She writes in a personal tone about the events she plays, the drills she do and whatever else goes on in her life. She also reports from her travelling with Niels to the major events.
Caroline Pao is an up and coming player. It will be interesting to follow her pursuit for success on the WPBA Tour.
It's very interesting to follow the exploits of the pros but the amateur game can sometimes be equally fascinating. The goal of
Roy "D'Fish" Steffensen is to win the Norwegian Championship. This is a blog/diary about his weekly practise-routines, tournaments he attends and other pool related things he experiences on his way to achieving that goal. He even has a camera hooked up so you can watch him play.
News & results
Pro Snooker Blog was launched in August of 2008 and provides daily reports from the world of professional snooker. It contains the latest results, breaking news, player bios and links to other news sources. The author is a keen follower of the game and he also reports directly from the events he attend. This is a great resource for anyone interested in top level snooker.
... and now for something completely different.
Snooker Sceney is also covering the major snooker events. It's very much written in tongue-in-cheek style though. I wonder if you can guess
what other blog it refers to :-).
Judging by the number of blogs in German about snooker the interest for the game in the country must be on an all-time high.
Kalbs Snooker Break is found on the Eurosport site. Rolf Kalb is the snooker commentator for the German version of the channel and here he provides some well-written articles about the pro game.
billiardblog is another German blog, covering the world of pool. During the 2008 Mosconi Cup they provided daily results and also displayed video from the event.
Pool & Billiard Magazine has been online for 13 years and they now have their own blog.
Poolmag's 8-Ball Blog is primarily focused on the major pool events.
Billiards Digest is another magazine with a strong online presence. Jeanette Lee and Tony Robles are two of the authors in the
Blogs & Columns section.
Other
Pool Student's Blog is a very promising blog about learning the game of pool. It's written by John Biddle from Florida. He has studied the game in detail and hopes that his posts will help others, and also expects to see improvements in his own game as a result.
The Pool Pack Blog is the newest member of the billiard blogosphere. Their mission is quite simple, namely to aggregrate, collate and discuss the best of what's going on in pool. So far they've already written about such varied subjects as snooker match fixing inquiries, computer games and aiming systems. Colin Colenso is the founder but he's also looking for others to contribute. Email him if you're interested.
More
Here are the rest of the blogs found in 2008:
Dead blogs
A blog is rather uninteresting if it's not being updated on a regular basis.
Some blogs have not had any new postings in 2008 and have therefore been removed from the blog roll:
Others have died or have been closed:
... and some have been password protected:
All this leaves us with about 120 blogs in the blog roll to your right. That's 20 more than last year. Let's hope that number will increase even more in 2009!
Related posts
Frédéric Caudron from Belgium successfully defended the World Cup event in Sluiskil, Netherlands.
Posts
