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D-8 Balls
The game Nigerians mistake for Snooker
By EMMA NJOKU
Saturday,
December 16, 2006
Unknown to Nigerians, the stick-ball game, played on specially
designed table, which has gained so much popularity across
the country, especially among the youths, is called D-8 ball
and not snooker.
This much was disclosed by Engr. Chuxx Ahmed Igwe, managing
director of the famous ‘The Masters’, a recreation
and relaxation centre located along Shasha Road in Akowonjo,
Lagos, who is determined to correct the erroneous impression.
More importantly, the committed Rotarian regrets that the
game meant for mature and responsible adults was hijacked
by teenagers, and he has started the process to retrieve the
money-spinning game from the stronghold of the young Nigerians,
owing to the addiction that goes with it.
Hear him: “When this game first came into this country
in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, the teenagers
hijacked it and bastardised it,” Engr Igwe began.
“When I started this recreation centre (The Masters),
the impression I had was that the game was called ‘snooker.’
But somewhere along the line, I started to ask questions and
from abroad, I discovered that the real name of the game I
had in mind to go into is D-8 ball pool,” he went on.
When he started business at ‘The Masters’, the
club was open to everybody who cared to be part of the recreation
spot, but Igwe was not carried away by the money the ever-busy
rendezvous has been generating, as he’s more concerned
about the future of the teenagers who might risk getting addicted
to the game.
He has, therefore, began moves to shut the teenagers out of
the centre to save them from getting addicted to the game
too early in life when they should spend their prime time
more on rewarding careers.
“If you see the activities that go along with the games,
from D-8 ball to the Billiards, you will find out that it
is not encouraging for any person below the age of 18 to go
into it. There are vices that go with the games, especially
that of addiction.
“If you look at the international scene, it is the same
set of people who play Billiard that also play Snooker and
D-8 ball. These are people well over 45 years. I have never
watched any international competition where people below 25
years are playing Billiard, Snooker or D-8 ball.
“Therefore, the greatest mistake we made when the game
came here was to allow teenagers to hijack and bastardise
it. That is why the Police always try to raid the areas where
the games are being played, because the people you mainly
find there are school dropouts.
“Based on that, we have decided to close our doors to
all manner of people in order to select our clients who must
be responsible adults.”
Engr Igwe revealed his plans to develop D-8 ball in Nigeria
to meet international standards. Already, a competition tagged
‘Rating 2006’ is expected to begin at ‘The
Masters’ today to determine the status of the players.
Most importantly, he has began the process of stream-lining
the membership of ‘The Masters’ with a view to
screening out the teenagers, who he considered as being underage
for the game.
The man Igwe Chuxx Ahmed
My name is Igwe Chuxx Ahmed. I’m a Mechanical Engineer
by profession. I’m into Security business. And I also
run an engineering firm that supports industries, factories
and manufacturing firms. Right now, I’m trying to delve
into sports or recreation business.
Interest in snooker games
My interest in snooker is not a sudden development. I’ve
been into sports from childhood and I like sports, especially
as a form of recreation. When I developed the vision about
establishing ‘The Masters’, I thought about every
other indoor game and the one that came fast to my mind was
snooker.
Reason
I looked at my age and how many years I still have to live,
and felt that the best thing to do was to look for a game
that would be most suitable for my age, even though I did
not know how to play it then. I felt I could learn how to
play the game and play it for the rest of my life. That was
how I came into snooker.
Suitability
Snooker is a game that is not so stressful. It’s not
energy-sapping, but it exercises both the body and brain.
When I developed the idea, I pulled my resources together
and was able to start ‘The Masters’ with the notion
that the game is called snooker.
Learning the D-8 ball pool
Incidentally, when I wanted to start learning the game, I
was ashamed because I discovered that some of my clients were
already familiar with it. Many of them were already playing
it very well, so, I was ashamed to start learning it at my
age. I didn’t want to let my clients know that I was
only a learner despite the fact that I run the place. So,
I had to go to Lagos Country Club, where I am a member to
learn it. There, I was exposed to the biggest size of the
table, which was 6x12, the standard board. There are other
standard tables, but the 6x12 is the largest. It is the largest
in the sense that on the table, you can play the three games
of the ball - the Billiard, Snooker and D-8 ball.
Difference between Billiard, Snooker and D-8 ball
Billiard is played with three balls, the Snooker is played
with 22 balls while D-8 ball is played with 16 balls.
It is called D-8 ball because there are two colours of the
ball or two designs of the ball, seven on each side making
14 balls, the D-8 ball makes it 15 balls altogether. It is
only when you have potted all your colours or designs and
pot D-8 ball that you become a winner.
I was able to learn the game under one month because of the
interest I had, not what I actually had in mind.
As I talk to you now, I can play the three games - the Billiard,
Snooker and D-8 Ball.
Hijack
Initially, I opened the Masters Recreation Club to the public,
but for the fact that since the game first came into the country
in the late 70’s and early 80’s, that teenagers
hijacked and bastardised it, it has, up till today, not become
popular.
Clients
We now select our clients who are now identify with their
Identity Cards. We scrutinize our clients by looking at their
ages and what they do for a living. If one is an undergraduate,
fine, we can encourage him because every serious student requires
some form of recreation to be able to revitalised the body
and continue with his/her studies. By so doing, we want to
bring in the right people, who are qualified to play the game,
we mean responsible people.
Money-spinning
Internationally, I don’t think there is any game or
competition that spins money like the pool. D-8 ball pool
is as popular as football internationally. And in fact, that
is the game that is most related with betting. People bet
millions of dollars while playing it.
Development
Our target now is to find ways of developing the game in Nigeria.
And we want to begin from Lagos State to sensitise the system
by letting people know that this game is not for teenagers.
It is for adults who can be addicted to something without
any damage to their lives or careers. People who can get along
with such addiction and still move ahead with their training
or chosen careers. We want to produce champions in the game.
“This is a game that goes with competitions. There are
rules and regulations guiding the competition internationally.
So, we intend to start competitions from the states and by
the time we know who the champions are in the various states,
we would be able to organise a national championship that
will feature all the champions from the various states for
us to get national champions in the various categories.
By the time we establish the game at the national level, we
can then look at the international body that monitors and
organises competitions for the three games -the Billiard,
Snooker and D-8 Ball. We intend to send players from Nigeria
to international competitions.
‘Rating 2006’
By the special grace of God, by December 16 2006 (today),
we are planning to organise our first competition and we have
tagged it ‘Rating 2006’. The idea is for us to
know the standing of our players on the ladder. We want to
know who is the first and who is the last on the ladder.
We intend to give out prizes ranging from the cue sticks to
cash prizes. But essentially, the idea to know who represents
Lagos if we are going for any competition outside the state
or against any other organisation within or outside Lagos
State.
Only members of ‘The Masters’ are qualified to
compete at ‘Rating 2006’ because we want to use
the tournament to rate our players. We are not going beyond
our players for now because we want to let the public know
that we shall be having regular competitions on monthly basis
to get the best players.
Membership
We started to regularize our membership on September 1 and
as I’m talking to you, we have about 60 members. We
are only asking them for a token of N500 to cover the cost
of registration and Identity Cards. Like I said, qualification
purely begins with the ability to shoot the pool. Anyone who
can shoot the pool automatically qualifies ahead of someone
who cannot shoot.
Secondly, the age of the prospective member matters, also
is their profession.
By the time we finish this competition and get corporate sponsors
for another competition, definitely, the scope would go beyond
our members, because we cannot get corporate sponsors for
competitions and limit them to our members alone. The sponsors
would want the public to come in and see their products.
Corporate sponsorship
So far, we have been able to attract corporate attention within
our short period of existence. We opened ‘The Masters’
sometime in March and by June, British American Tobacco found
this place as the best in the environ to run promotion for
their new product which they call Palmall Cigarette. They
did the competition here in which they sponsored 32 players
out of which two best players emerged and went away with prizes.
After that, Nigeria Breweries Plc did a promotion in the whole
community and found this place the best place for the event.
You could see, if we go back to these corporate bodies and
tell them that we now have a monthly programme and would like
them to come and display their products during our competitions
or to come and partner with us, they will agree.
We want to encourage the youth around here to know that for
one to recreate, he has to be responsible. If you are not
responsible and you come to register and we tell you to go
we would have sent a signal to you. It’s now left to
you to say oh! May be if I had finished my education without
dropping out, or if I have a job without wasting my time on
the internet looking for people to dupe, these people would
have allowed me to mix up with responsible people.
We have already stopped issuing forms to everybody that comes
to request for membership forms. We now give forms to pool
shooters only in order to maximize the usage of the tables
available.
Categories of tables
We have two sets of tables. There are tables you must pay
to play. For you to play on those tables, you must buy a ‘coin’
from the counter for N100.00. That coin would be used to open
the table so that the ball would come out. And as you play
the balls they go back to the pocket and through the pocket
they go back to the ball machine and won’t come out
until you use another token.
We have the other table that is not coin-operated. You just
come and play the game and as you play, the ball goes back
to the table, but you can manually pick them back to the table.
By the time we finish the first process of our membership,
we will go into the second category where we are going to
have two types membership - the paying and the non paying
members.
The paying members are those who will want to pay as they
play while the non-paying members are those who pay for their
membership up-front for a whole year. They just walk in with
their guests and play their games.
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