Mark Trafford, Sales Ledger Officer in Jesus College’s Accounts Department, has recently won the Bar Billiards World Championship for the third time.

Bar billiards, which is believed to have originated in Russia and came to the UK in the 1930s, is played on a unique table with no side or corner pockets but with nine holes in the playing surface which are assigned points values from 10-200. Three pegs are also positioned on the table, and the aim of the game is to score points by hitting balls (using a cue as in snooker or pool) into the holes without knocking over the pegs, which incurs penalties. The match is played between two competitors over two games within a time restriction of 15-20 twenty minutes on each game, depending on the venue and tournament. Mark says, “The strategy is to score as many points, or as a high a break, as possible without knocking down a peg. If you knock a peg down, the break ends, you lose your score and your opponent gets the chance win.”

 

Mark started play bar billiards back in 2004, encouraged by a friend at his local pub in Kennington, who taught him the game. The pub didn’t have a billiard table but the two men pulled a team together and found a home at another local – the Tandem. Since then they’ve played at a number of pubs and clubs around Oxford and are now based at the Oracle Snooker Club in Abingdon, where they spend hours practicing and competing in local and county leagues, plus national tournaments. The World Championship, which was created in 1981, is hosted on Jersey each November.

Mark says, “I first played at the World Championship in 2007 and got to the semi-final in the pairs competition and the plate competition (for those who get knocked out in the first-round of the main tournament). One of the England players spotted my potential and encouraged me to keep competing.”

Six years later, and he was celebrating the first of three World Championship wins. In 2017 he beat Kevin Tunstall, who holds the record for the most Championship wins (6), to win his second title and achieved the highest ever break in a final, scoring 20,760 points by playing the table out. “That was quite a match” he says, “and to beat one of the game’s greatest players meant a lot. I also won the pairs tournament at the 2016 World Championship with the England Captain.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020 and the UK went in to lockdown, Mark was unable to play. “The billiard table we use at the Oracle Club is mine, and if I’d realised how long we would lockdown for I probably would have taken it home for practice, to give me something to do!” Inevitably, last year’s World Championship was cancelled but this November he joined 108 other competitors on Jersey for the 2021 tournament, and won again.

“It was great to return to Jersey. and amazing to win for a third time” he says. “In the final I beat a Guernsey-based player called Trevor Gallienne, who had won the Championship three times before.”

Mark received an engraved decanter for his success this year – another trophy to add to the cabinet of glassware he has at home – and a very special miniature billiard table trophy that is presented to the winner, and on which his name now features three times. Becoming world champion is not all celebration though, as he explains, “The worst part of being champion is the tradition that, after giving a winner’s acceptance speech, you have to get up and sing karaoke. A bit of Dutch courage is certainly needed for that! “

Coincidentally, his wins have come in four-year intervals (2013, 2017, 2021) “and the President of Jersey Bar Billiards told everyone it probably wasn’t worth turning up in 2025 as they knew who would win.”

We wish Mark all the best for his future as the World No. 1 in bar billiards, and many more trophies in the years ahead – 2025, 2029, 2033……..