Vietnamese Billiards: The Sedimentary Layer of Young Cueists

On an April afternoon in 2026, at a billiard club tucked down a small alley on To Hieu Street in Le Chan District, Hai Phong, I sat in a corner with a dog-eared notebook. In front of me was a fifteen-year-old boy bent over a three-cushion table. He had no personal coach, no sponsor, only an old phone propped on the rail to film every shot. Each time he missed, he did not scratch his head or sigh. He quietly reopened the clip, slowed it down, and tried again. That moment reminded me of the summer of Russia 2026, when I was a high-school junior and spent the whole holiday puzzling over a nineteen-year-old. My friends praised his four goals; I downloaded nine of his Ligue 1 matches to count misplaced passes myself. I do not believe in glamorous stories. Years later, the boy playing billiards in that Le Chan alley gave me the same feeling - a signal no one had yet read correctly. Vietnamese people call this sport by two tidy words: bida. Behind those two words lies a world of several disciplines, each with different rules, techniques and competition systems. Three-cushion carom is the discipline where Vietnam has earned a place on the world map in recent years. Pool - 9-ball and 10-ball - is the playground young cueists are gradually entering. Snooker and libre carom remain largely unfamiliar to most fans. In the world of billiards, a young cueist rising is not rare. What is rare is that he stays. I tracked forty-seven young footballers from the PVF and HAGL academies during the pandemic, and I learned one thing: a young talent's explosion is measured in moments, but his growth must be measured across many seasons. The same applies to billiards. A perfect three-cushion shot on social media can make audiences gasp, but becoming a ranked cueist requires an entire system behind it. The careers of Bao Phuong Vinh and Tran Quyet Chien have created an undertow in Vietnamese billiards. Bao Phuong Vinh's victory at the three-cushion world championship put the discipline on the front pages, triggering a wave of new clubs opening across the provinces. But like any wave, most of the spotlight falls on the crest, leaving the dark bottom unseen. Tran Quyet Chien, Nguyen Duc Anh Chien, Duong Quoc Hoang - names already established - are the visible part. The submerged part is hundreds of young cueists training every day in clubs with no signs, no audience, no sponsorship. I began taking notes on Vietnamese billiards in 2026, after rewatching all seven of Morocco's World Cup matches and realising one thing: a collective's success is never a miracle, but the result of a structure built long before. Morocco did not create miracles. They simply pieced together fragments of history, geography and people into a solid structure. Vietnamese billiards is at a similar stage: there are scattered pieces, but no one has assembled them into a system. To understand why, one must look at the current structure of Vietnamese billiards. There are three distinct layers. The first consists of named cueists who compete internationally and earn from prize money and sponsorship. The second consists of semi-professional cueists who live by coaching and domestic tournaments. The third - the largest and least mentioned - consists of young cueists, mostly under twenty, training in local clubs with no clear development pathway. Notably, each layer operates by a different mechanism, and they rarely intersect. A young cueist in the third layer who wants to move up must fend for himself, find his own coach, find his own tournaments. There is no scouting system, no tracking reports, no structured training pathway. This is the biggest difference from countries with developed billiards, such as South Korea, Turkey, Belgium or Colombia - places with youth tournament systems and national-level training pathways. I spent many months cross-checking data from domestic three-cushion tournaments against international data. One thing stood out: the number of Vietnamese young cueists entering international events has grown significantly in recent years, but the rate of those who stay at the top level remains low. Most young cueists play a few events and then disappear from the rankings. The cause is not talent, but the lack of a sufficiently long-term support system. Analysing the technique of young Vietnamese cueists, I noticed a recurring pattern. Young cueists often have good fundamentals and decent cue-ball control. The weaknesses lie in two areas: controlling the cue ball in complex positions, and handling situations under the pressure of long matches. These are qualities that can only be honed through regular high-level competition, which most young Vietnamese cueists cannot access. One deep cause lies in the domestic tournament structure. Vietnam's current billiards system focuses mainly on events for established cueists, while the number of youth-specific tournaments is limited. This creates a gap in the transition from amateur to professional. A young cueist who achieves certain local results has no suitable playground to continue developing. Looking at pool, the picture differs somewhat. Duong Quoc Hoang and several other young cueists have made notable progress on the international stage. However, pool in Vietnam still lacks the structured training system of three-cushion carom. Most young pool cueists emerge from spontaneous movements, competing in local clubs before being discovered. This is a development model that relies more on luck than design. The story of forgotten young cueists is not rare. I once tracked a cueist born in 2026 in Hai Phong, whose average scoring per inning in youth tournaments was unusually high. He could read the angles well and control pace steadily. But after a wrist injury, he gradually vanished from tournaments. No one tracked his recovery. No one assessed whether he could return. He became a number in the spreadsheet I kept, nothing more. The sedimentary layer of Vietnamese billiards lies in stories like that. Cueists with no titles, no contracts, no audience. They train every day, compete in small events, and most will never reach international level. But they are the talent supply for the layers above. Without them, the visible part of the iceberg would not exist. Looking at the world billiards power map, Vietnam occupies a peculiar position. We have a few world-class cueists in three-cushion, but the depth of our reserve force remains modest compared with the powers. South Korea has a structured youth training system producing hundreds of formally trained cueists a year. Turkey has billiards academies tied to sports clubs. Belgium and the Netherlands have long traditions with regular youth events. Vietnam has talent, but not yet a system. This system deficit creates a paradox. Vietnam can produce world-class cueists, but cannot produce them consistently. Bao Phuong Vinh and Tran Quyet Chien are outstanding individuals, but their emergence is more mutation than the output of a process. This means that in future, without structural change, Vietnam may continue to depend on exceptional individuals rather than a sufficiently deep generation of cueists. I do not draw the future; I only measure the dust of time settling on each statistic. And that dust points to one thing: the number of young Vietnamese cueists entering international events is rising, but the quality of the support system behind them is not rising in step. This is a signal to track over many seasons, not a conclusion to draw immediately. From a counterintuitive angle, there is something most writing on Vietnamese billiards overlooks. Focusing too much on the achievements of top cueists can obscure the real problem. When the media praises a world title, the public feels Vietnamese billiards is thriving. But one individual's achievement does not equal the strength of a whole system. One tall tree does not make a forest. This leads to an important consequence: investment in Vietnamese billiards currently flows mainly toward already-famous cueists, rather than toward the youth training system. Sponsors want to attach their brands to publicly known faces. Tournaments want cueists who can draw audiences. This creates a loop: the famous get more investment, the unknown get fewer chances. This loop is not unique to billiards, but common to any sport with a similar market structure. Another blind spot lies in how we judge young talent. Most current assessments rely on short-term results rather than long-term development indicators. A young cueist winning a small event may be praised as a phenomenon, while another with better technical indicators but no results is overlooked. This is a shallow way of judging, and it reflects the lack of a professional scouting report system in Vietnamese billiards. I once witnessed a trial for a young striker at a Hai Phong football club, when I compared current data with the benchmark of thirty V-League strikers and concluded more evaluation time was needed. The board grew impatient, but eventually agreed. Six months later, the player failed physically and was returned. That lesson applies to billiards: evaluating a young cueist needs time, data and patience. Concluding early when data is shallow is a common mistake. Scepticism is not for denial, but for digging deeper before announcing a discovery. When I hear a young cueist praised as a prodigy, I neither rush to believe nor rush to deny. I look for data. I rewatch matches. I cross-check indicators. Only after verifying enough do I form a view. This attitude is not pessimism, but respect for data and for the cueists themselves. I found forty-seven gems not because I have sharp eyes, but because I am too lazy to believe existing reports. In Vietnamese billiards today, many reports circulate without a data basis. One cueist is said to have potential because he won an event. Another is said to be finished because he lost a few matches. These judgments are often shallow and unsystematic. We need more spreadsheets, more long-term tracking reports, and fewer hasty conclusions. Morocco did not create miracles. They simply pieced fragments of history, geography and people into a solid structure. Vietnamese billiards has its own pieces: talented cueists, clubs springing up, tournaments being staged, and a generation of young fans more interested than ever. What is missing is someone patient enough to piece them together. Every transfer is a reverse archaeological dig: we excavate the past to find a piece for the future. In Vietnamese billiards, player transfers are not yet as common as in football. Most cueists still compete independently, finding their own events and sponsors. But as the professional billiards market matures, we may see similar transfer models. And then, understanding each cueist's past - injuries, form, training pathway - will become key. In football, the transfer race among giants is often a brand arms race, and the truly valuable contracts are often at small clubs. In billiards, this may hold to some extent. A young cueist trained well at a small club, at low cost, can deliver more value than a famous cueist on high pay. This is the logic the Vietnamese billiards transfer market may have to learn. But the billiards transfer market carries its own risks. Scouting networks in developing countries both find geniuses and create football lottery tickets and broken families. This may repeat in billiards. When academies and clubs start hunting young cueists, they may create unrealistic expectations, overly binding contracts, and families betting their children's futures on a discipline whose development path remains uncertain. This is an aspect rarely mentioned when discussing the growth of Vietnamese billiards. A player's twenties are like a young geological layer: beautiful on the surface, but prone to collapse if the foundation is not checked. This is true of young cueists too. A cueist of eighteen or twenty may achieve impressive results, but if the foundations of fitness, psychology and technique are not checked, his career can collapse quickly. I have seen too many young cueists vanish after a few seasons, not for lack of talent, but for lack of foundation. So what does that foundation include? First, fitness. Billiards demands high concentration over long periods, and mental stamina depends heavily on physical condition. Second, psychology. Handling pressure, recovering from defeat, maintaining stability in long matches - these must be deliberately trained. Third, technical fundamentals. Basic shots must be executed so precisely that they become reflexes, freeing the cueist to focus entirely on tactics. For three-cushion carom, another key factor is systemic calculation. Three-cushion is not only a sport of technique but of spatial thinking. A good cueist must visualise the path of three balls, calculate angles, pace and spin. This is a trainable skill, but it requires time and the right method. In that context, the role of coaches and development advisers becomes important. In countries with developed billiards, each young cueist often has a personal coach, a technical support team and a customised competition pathway. In Vietnam, most young cueists lack this. They often learn from seniors, watch online clips, and draw lessons themselves. This is an inefficient way to learn, but it can also be a resilient one. I do not write to praise players. I write to preserve the cultural sediments they leave on the table. And in Vietnamese billiards, those sediments can be found in small clubs, unwatched training sessions, local tournaments. This is where young cueists begin their journey, and where most of them will end. The question is whether we should care about these young cueists. My answer is yes, because it is the only way to build sustainable billiards. High mountains do not rise from nothing. They rise from geological layers built over millions of years. Vietnamese billiards is the same. To have more Bao Phuong Vinhs and Tran Quyet Chiens in future, we need a generation of young cueists trained properly from today. But I am also aware that predicting the future of Vietnamese billiards is risky. Data can show trends but cannot predict outcomes precisely. Perhaps in a few years we will see a new wave of young cueists. Perhaps we will continue to depend on exceptional individuals. What decides is not prediction, but action. One thing I learned from tracking Vietnamese youth football is the importance of note-taking. When I started tracking young footballers, I had no sense of what my data would be used for. But over time, those notes became the basis for my analyses and recommendations. For Vietnamese billiards, I believe what is most lacking now is not talent, not money, not audience, but data. We need more notes, more tracking, more analysis. The transfer market is an antique auction - everyone fears buying wrong. In billiards, this auction will arrive later than in football, but it will arrive. When clubs and academies start competing for young cueists, the value of data will rise. Entities with the best scouting data will have an advantage. And young cueists tracked most carefully will have more chances. Looking back at the boy in the Le Chan alley, I wonder whether we are missing something. He trains every day, records every shot, tries to improve. No one tracks him. No one evaluates him. No one records his progress. He is a potential piece of Vietnamese billiards, but that piece may be lost before it is found. Covid-19 is also a scout. The pandemic created a gap in many young players' development pathways, and exposed weaknesses in the training system. Young cueists without training conditions during lockdowns were the most affected. Some may have abandoned their careers for lack of tournaments and venues. This is a loss we may never fully measure. The World Cup is a place to dream, but I only look at feet. In billiards, perhaps we should also look at less noticed shots, matches without audiences, unrecorded training sessions. That is where the truth of this discipline is formed. That is where the cultural sediment of Vietnamese billiards is laid down. Structure is never accidental. Behind every cueist's achievement lies a structure: a supporting family, a devoted coach, an enabling club, a suitable tournament. Without structure, achievement is only chance. And chance cannot build a sustainable sport. Do not rush to buy on highlights. This is a reminder I often give myself when judging young cueists. A beautiful highlight says little about a cueist. What says more is consistency across many matches, handling difficult situations, and maintaining form over time. These are qualities that cannot be shown in a short clip. Spreadsheets do not lie. This is my belief after years of tracking sports. Statistics can be misinterpreted, distorted, but statistics themselves do not lie. If a cueist has a low scoring rate, it means he scores little. No interpretation changes that truth. And that truth, tracked over many seasons, will reveal a cueist's future better than any highlight. Talent has no archaeological site; it is born and disappears if not excavated. This is what I believe most in my work. Talent is not an archaeological site buried in the ground waiting to be dug up. Talent exists in the present, and if it is not discovered, trained, supported, it will disappear. Vietnamese billiards has many such talents. And my question, for all of us, is whether we are doing enough to excavate them. Looking ahead, I see three possible scenarios for Vietnamese billiards. The first is sustainable growth, where a structured youth training system is built and Vietnam becomes a true billiards power. The second is uneven growth, where a few individuals keep shining but the foundation stays weak. The third is stagnation, where recent achievements are not continued and Vietnamese billiards falls behind other countries. Of the three, which is most likely? Based on current data, I think the second is most likely. Because we have outstanding individuals, but not yet a system. And the transition from outstanding individuals to a sustainable system is a step requiring much time, resources and resolve. But what conditions would make me change this view? If I saw the emergence of a professionally organised national youth tournament system, if I saw structured club investment in youth training, and if I saw a significant rise in the number of young cueists competing consistently at international level, I would change my view. Until then, I maintain that Vietnamese billiards is at a stage requiring methodical excavation. Spreadsheets come before dreams. I do not draw the future; I only measure the dust of time settling on each statistic. And that dust, for Vietnamese billiards, is still thick. But beneath it, I believe there are gems waiting to be found. Our job is to dig patiently, carefully and systematically. I do not know whether the fifteen-year-old boy in the Le Chan alley will become a top cueist. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But what I know for certain is that if we do not track him, do not record him, do not evaluate him, our chance of learning the truth shrinks. Every great journey begins with a small shot, in a small club, in a small city. And the task of young archaeologists like me is to ensure those small shots are not forgotten. The sedimentary layer of Vietnamese billiards is waiting. The question is not whether there is talent, but whether we have the patience to dig. Scepticism is not for denial, but for digging deeper before announcing a discovery. And in Vietnamese billiards, I believe many discoveries still lie ahead.