Although the Billiards club meeting was cancelled this past Thursday, Nathan Miller was still in the Fairhaven Lounge, shooting pool. Miller is a junior at Western studying radio and broadcast production. He’s been involved with the club since last fall. According to Miller, 5-10 people show up to the meetings with their own equipment each week and the president of the club brings his professional quality billiard balls. “We usually just play pool and work on our pool skills. But sometimes we’ll do a mock tournament where we just play for fun,” Miller said. Last winter, they had an actual tournament at Western. They had others who were formally in the club who also played in the tournament, Miller said. “First place is usually a new cue stick and I played in that last year and I was actually the winner of that one,” Miller said. Even though he was knocked into the losers bracket, he made his way back to win the tournament. Pool sticks are commonly known as cue sticks. Miller started learning to play pool with his friend when he was younger and he’s won in any tournament he’s ever been in since. The competitions are divided by “seeds” which are their performance levels. It’s usually a double-elimination bracket. So if someone loses the winner’s bracket, they get bumped down to the loser’s bracket. Then each game is best two out of three. When you get to the finals, you play three out of five. These tournaments are usually in the course of one day, Miller said. He found out about the club in Red Square from the annual AS Club Fair. The club is open to anyone and everyone is welcome. The Billiards Club meets every Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
