讀後心得

The second stop of the 2025 CTPBA Professional Billiards Tour has concluded, with the final match seeing "Billiards Prince" Ko Pin-yi triumph over his brother Ko Pin-chung with a score of 11:7, claiming the championship and a prize of 100,000 TWD. Zhang Yu-long narrowly advanced from the quarter-finals but was eliminated in the semi-finals by Ko Pin-chung, while Ko Pin-yi defeated "Dark Knight" Hsieh Chia-chen in the semi-finals. Hsieh Chia-chen expressed that he struggled to control his break shot during the match and thanked this event for allowing him to experience the intensity of international competition. Ko Pin-yi mentioned that the current 4-inch pocket rule has raised the technical difficulty of the competition and looks forward to aligning with international matches. Organizer Jackie noted that this specification has become mainstream and helps enhance the players' skills.

The second stop of the 2025 CTPBA Professional Billiards Tour successfully concluded today, featuring a "battle of the Ko brothers" in the finals. At the beginning of the match, both brothers showed their strengths, and after a tie at 2:2, the elder brother "Billiard Prince" Ko Pin-yi won three consecutive games, gradually extending his lead. However, "King Slayer" Ko Pin-chung quickly seized the opportunity to tie the score. Subsequently, Ko Pin-yi stabilized his rhythm, winning five consecutive games to ultimately defeat his brother 11:7, successfully claiming the prize of 100,000 NT dollars.

In the quarter-finals, "Fire Cloud Evil God" Chang Yu-long narrowly defeated Luo Liwen 10:9 to advance, but faced with "King Slayer" Ko Pin-chung in the semi-finals, he fell behind. Although he managed to narrow the score, he was ultimately eliminated 6:10. Meanwhile, Ko Pin-yi faced "Dark Knight" Hsieh Chia-jen, who had just become a father, in the semi-finals. Initially, Ko Pin-yi fell significantly behind due to difficulty in mastering the break shot on the main table, but he ultimately won 10:4. After the match, Hsieh Chia-jen expressed that he had felt good about the break shot before the match, but couldn't adjust during the game. "My daughter is only six months old. I'm grateful for the CTPBA Professional Billiards Tour that allows me to experience the intensity of international competitions domestically. I look forward to achieving more results to earn money for my daughter's milk powder."

Recently, popularity has surged in Vietnam, and Ko Pin-yi stated that local fans have a high enthusiasm for billiards, even perceiving it as a source of audiovisual content, which has increased the visibility of the "Ko brothers" like a snowball effect. Regarding the current uniform pocket size of 4 inches (approximately 10.16 cm) according to WNT tournament rules, he hopes to align more closely with international competitions and believes that smaller pockets are an advancement. "If the pockets were wider as they used to be, luck might have influenced the results of the matches." Ko Pin-yi emphasized that with the unified use of 4-inch billiard table pockets, the technical difficulty has increased by 10%, and the element of luck has relatively diminished. Now he is confident when facing players in the world’s top 100, stating, "There is at least a 90% chance of winning."

Chang Yu-long, who just participated in the European Open in mid-March, believes that the reduction of pocket size indeed increases competitive pressure, and players need to practice more before matches to adapt. However, with the unification of international competition specifications, he is also impressed by the improvement in the strength of Polish players over the past two years. The organizers of the CTPBA Professional Billiards Tour stated that the 4-inch pocket standard has now become mainstream, and such adjustments make players aware of the gap between themselves and international players, as even participating Japanese players have felt the increase in their opponents' strength.