The Crystal Kelly Cup or Crystal Kelly Tournament (sometimes: ''Chrystal Kelly'') was a prestigious, generously funded

carom billiards Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by ' one's o ...

invitational tournament in the discipline of

three-cushion Three-cushion billiards, also called three-cushion carom, is a form of carom billiards. The object of the game is to the off both while contacting the at least three times before contacting the second object ball. A point is scored for each su ...

, which has been held at different venues from 1994 to 2011, a total of 18 times, mostly in

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

and

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

History

The tournament was launched in 1994 by the businessman and software-founder of

Volmac Capgemini SE is a multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and data processing company. The comp ...

(since 1992 it belongs to the Cap Gemini Group),

Joop van Oosterom Joop van Oosterom (12 December 1937 – 22 October 2016) was a Dutch billionaire, chess and billiards sponsor, and twice correspondence chess world champion. His fortune, made with the Volmac Software Group, was estimated by Dutch financial mag ...

, who is also a billiards and chess enthusiast. The tournament was named after his daughter Crystal Kelly van Oosterom, as well as for the Dutch ''Eredivisie'' club of "Crystal Kelly," which was also very successful. In 1992 Joop already dedicated

Melody Amber The Amber chess tournament (officially the ''Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament'', previously ''Melody Amber'') was an annual invitation-only event for some of the world's best players, from 1992 to 2011. Since the second edition, the event ...

, a blindfold and

correspondence chess Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, traditionally through the postal system. Today it is usually played through a correspondence chess server, a public internet chess forum, or email. Less common ...

tournament, to his other daughter. In 2010, Joop announced that he will give up the sponsorship the following year. Thus, the 2011-tournament was the last.

Raymond Ceulemans Raymond, Knight Ceulemans (born 12 July 1937) is a Belgian billiards player who won 21 UMB three-cushion World Championship titles, more than any other player. Along with 48 Europea ...

, the three-cushion-legend form Belgium, was part of the tournament from the beginning on, from 1994 to 2006 as a player, in the early years he finished he still finished as a front runner, though he never could win the tournament. After his retirement from active billiards sports (2006) he was the tournament director.

Torbjörn Blomdahl Torbjörn Blomdahl (born 26 October 1962 in Gothenburg) is a Swedish professional carom billiards (and to a lesser extent pool) player from Helsingborg, Sweden who plays for FC Porto. He is a seven time World Champion in three-cushion billiards, ...

and

Dick Jaspers Dingeman Jacobus Johannes "Dick" Jaspers (pronounced yas-pers) (born 23 July 1965) is a Dutch professional carom billiards player who specializes in the three-cushion event. Early life Jaspers started playing billiards when he was three years ...

participated in all 18 tournaments, in which the latter is eight times record winner of the tournament and Blomdahl was second with 5 wins. It was carrying out 13 times in Monte Carlo, 3 times in Nice and one time in

Scheveningen Scheveningen is one of the eight districts of The Hague, Netherlands, as well as a subdistrict (''wijk'') of that city. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a long, sandy beach, an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The beach is po ...

and

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

as of the end of the season in early June. The only exception was in 2005 when the tournament was held in late August. The tournament was one of the best-paid - the prizes were ever tournament always around U.S. $70,000, there were extra bonuses for services paid and the winner took home about $20,000 - its kind, similar to the

AGIPI Billiard Masters The AGIPI Billiard Masters was a three-cushion billiards tournament which was held annually in Schiltigheim, France between 2008 and 2013. In 2008 the invitational tournament for the best three-cushion players in the world has started. The games ...

Schiltigheim Schiltigheim (, , and sometimes by non-local speakers of French; Alsatian: ''Schelige'' ; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. The inhabitants are called ''Schilikois'' in French and ''Scheligemer'' ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and it was considered as "The little World Championship". Among the players who called the tournament also "The Monaco", it had a high reputation and everyone gladly followed the invitation of van Oosterom. They were all, including their wives/partners, flown in and have been guests of the family van Oosterom for a week. There was just one game each day for everyone on the time table, and so there was a lot of time for trips and excursions. Only participant from America was Sang Chun Lee from the USA .

Tournament structure

The number of participants ranged between eight and ten players. A total of 17 different players in the tournament. Many players have been invited over the years, such as:

Semih Saygıner Semih Saygıner (born on November 12, 1964), nicknamed Mr. Magic or The Turkish Prince, is a Turkish people, Turkish world champion professional carom billiards player specialized in three-cushion billiards, three-cushion event. Family life Se ...

(16 ×), Frédéric Caudron (15 ×), Frans van Kuijk (13 ×),

Marco Zanetti Marco Zanetti (born 10 April 1962) is an Italian professional three-cushion billiards player and a two-time world champion from Bolzano, Italy. Privat Zanetti started playing billiards at 7. He needed a chair to play. His father, Erwin Zanetti ...

(11 ×) and Daniel Sánchez (8 ×). In the last tournament in 2011 the ten participants were divided into two groups of five players each. These were: * Groupe A: **

** Frédéric Caudron **

Eddy Merckx Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (, ; born 17 June 1945), better known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track bicycle racer who is among the most successful riders in the history of competitive cycling. His victorie ...

** Frans van Kuijk **

Filippos Kasidokostas
on Kozoom.com Retrieved 2014-02-25 Filippos Kasidokostas (born 14 ...

* Groupe B: **

** Daniel Sánchez **

** Peter Ceulemans The first stage was played in the round-robin mode with equal innings. The final round was played in a

knock-out A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking ...

mode as first to 50 points without equal innings. The places 3-10 were played out.

Winners table

;Notes * Blomdahl plays the unofficial world record of a GA of 2,324 and a SpA of 3,571 (dito 1996). * Jaspers plays a SpA of 4,166. * R. Ceulemans plays a SpA of 3,846. * Jaspers plays a SpA of 5,000, 50 points in 10 innings. * Blomdahl plays a SpA of 3,846 * In 2009 the best tournament average of 1,865 has been played. * Jaspers plays a SpA of 4,545. * Jaspers plays a record GA of 2,623, which is an unofficial record.

Gallery of the 1999 Cup

Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-1-small.tif Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-2-small.tif Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-3-small.tif Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-4-small.tif Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-Frédéric_Caudron-small.tif, Frédéric Caudron Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-Marco_Zanetti-bw-small.jpg,

Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-Raymond_Ceulemans-1-small.tif,

Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-Raymond_Ceulemans-2-small.tif,

Crystal_Kelly_Cup_in_Monaco_1999-Semih_Saygıner-small.tif,

References

{{Reflist, 2 Three-cushion billiards competitions Recurring sporting events established in 1994 Recurring events disestablished in 2011