Can I join your group?” Soon she was running tournaments.ĭeJesus has since upgraded to a maple and ivory number handcrafted by Abe Rich, a cue maker and former Dachau prisoner who churned out top-notch sticks from a tiny Palm Beach workshop until his death in 2008.Įach of these players knows billiards is a game on life support. She finally asked, “You look like a bunch of fun people. Before 2011, Mullendore had no real interest in pool but she kept walking past a bar with the same group on the billiards tables week after week. Fialho mastered the game while working at her grandfather’s pool hall in Beverly. Pamela Fialho and Lida Mullendore anchor a small but mighty female contingent.
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Billiards professional Tom McGonagle is also the author of a 2008 romance novel dubbed “Right on Cue.” Until his death last winter, Bassel Dorsett lugged his oxygen tank up the building’s steep front stairs and around Shooni’s billiards tables. The Six-Finger Assassin, birth name Cleiton Rocha, boasts lethal skill in addition to an extra appendage on his hand. Death” for his killer precision, as well as the fact “that you’re dead by the time he finally takes a shot,” his teammate joked. The back stories and nicknames of this eccentric cast of sharpshooters are as colorful as the balls they rack.Įd Der Kazarian earned the moniker “Dr. Booze can be financially fruitful, but its absence keeps Amazin Billiards from spiraling into a run-of-the-mill barroom, where two-for-one deals can spill onto the tables and dilute the competition. Kantarevic called this is a blessing and a curse. Most players bring their own handcrafted two-piece sticks inside cases akin to arrow quiver bags.īecause of zoning restrictions, Shooni can’t acquire a liquor license. The house cues in this hall go largely untouched. The shooters at Amazin Billiards religiously apply chalk to the tips of their cues so residue piles up fast. Any moisture that does happen upon the imported Greek nylon, which is replaced twice a year, is quickly evaporated by the table’s internal heaters. No beers spill onto these tables, for there are no beers sold at Amazin Billiards. He now spends his Thursdays shooting at the hall, pausing play every three rounds or so to grab a towel and clean the cloth. Because if he closes, then what are we gonna do?” said Suad Kantarevic, a Cambridge real estate agent who started playing pool in Croatia and fled to Boston as a refugee in 1998. “We’re all aware that Mazin makes no money through this, so we all try to help out. Suad Kantarevic, a Cambridge real estate agent, started playing pool in Croatia and fled to Boston as a refugee in 1998. Amazin Billiards boasts 10 Brunswicks for pocket billiards, four Gabriels for carom, and a new Chevillotte for snooker aficionados. Shooni and his patrons look after the tables with the same neurotic passion they use to ace a shot. On the off chance he misses, Shooni mumbles, “Slight miscalculation,” and recalibrates for success. “I’m going to try to come up with a solution that is extremely simple,” he explained while scanning the table. With a custom-made $1,000 cue shimmying in his hand, he’ll envision a grid on the table, assess the angles, and measure the velocity and spin necessary for the collisions to culminate in a point. To watch Shooni prepare for a shot is to watch a mathematician at work. One shot required the ball to boomerang off the same cushion twice. A regular named Louie Figueroa, or preferably Screwy Louie, set the balls up at seemingly impossible angles and demanded Shooni give the arrangements a go. On a recent Thursday, a lanky fellow known exclusively as Sweet Money sipped a soda and watched in awe. The players speak of the hall with near-reverential appreciation, knowing that if it shuttered, they’d be hard-pressed to find another joint of such caliber, community, and class.Ī regular named Louie Figueroa, or preferably Screwy Louie, looked at a shot. Many ended up at the Malden hideaway after their go-to spots, such as World Class Billiards in Peabody and Big City in Allston, closed down.
The business is a refuge for a colorful cast of dedicated shooters looking for a place to unwind and strike. His earnings on the competitive circuit helped pave the way for Shooni to open Amazin Billiards, his crown jewel on Faulkner Street, one of the last genuine halls in the Boston area. The game is his lifeblood, but it is also his livelihood. He hones his skills at his Massachusetts billiards hall, then travels the country, and sometimes the world, banking on making those resin spheres collide. M ALDEN - Since his teens, Mazin Shooni has had a love affair with three-cushion billiards, a game of surgical precision played on a pocketless table and with just three balls.
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