As a teenager I was a member of a youth billiards club and I played in some youth competitions. At one point I was too old to still play in the youth division so I had to go play in the adult division. However, that was not that much fun, so I stopped being a member of a billiards club. I started playing billiards for fun with Jari (one of the other youth members) on Sundays at the cafe where the clubs were located. That has become a tradition and after more than 10 years we are good friends. We still play almost every Sunday. We used to play carambole billiards with just the two white balls and one red ball and no pockets in the table but a few years ago a pool table was placed and since then we have primarily been playing 8-ball pool because it is a bit more dynamic. The English rules can be found at: http://www.wpa-pool.com/rules.htm. We always play 10 games and fortunately neither of us is much better than the other one so it is not always the same person who wins. The results, as of the beginning of 2004, are on the Peterse-Bonte 8-Ball Pool Cup page. If one of us wins all of the 10 games than the other one has to treat on pizza. So far that has never occurred after all these years. The pizza is not the only thing at stake because if one of us actually pulls it off than the other one will have to hear that for the rest of his life. So we do everything we can to win one game at least. Also, one fun point is that I regularly make miraculous shots that stump Jari...even after all of these years.

And here is a picture of my billiard cues, of which I am quite a bit proud. There are three different ones and each is for a different style of billiards. The top one is for the regular kind of carambole billiards and it is the lightest cue with the thinnest tip. The middle one is for three rail carambole billiards and it is a bit heavier with a wider tip. The bottom one is for playing pool billiards and it is the heaviest with the widest tip.