Jacob Schaefer Sr. (February 2, 1855 – March 8, 1910), nicknamed "the Wizard", was a professional carom billiards player, especially of the

straight rail Straight rail, also called straight billiards, three-ball billiards, or the free game, is a discipline of carom billiards that is the most basic form of the game. The game is played on a unmarked billiard table, usually in size, and three billia ...

and balkline games, and was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1968."Hall of Fame Inductees, 1966-68"
Billiards Congress of America, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA; accessed February 3, 2007 Schaefer was born in 1855 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the first US-born son of German emigrants. He was the father of fellow billiards pro

Jacob Schaefer Jr. Jacob Schaefer Jr. (born October 18, 1894 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., died November 10, 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.) was a professional carom billiards player with German grandparentage, a specialist in balkline games, and was inducted into the ...

(1894-1975). He became one of the world's top balkline players, to such an extent that some of the more challenging versions of balkline were invented to attempt to level the playing field against him. He won matches and titles around the world, including the March 11, 1908 World 18.1 Balkline Championship versus Willie Hoppe, 500 points to 423, even though extremely ill at the time. He died of tuberculosis in 1910 in Denver, Colorado.

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Jacob Schaefer Sr
American carom billiards players 1855 births 1910 deaths American people of German descent World champions in carom billiards {{billiards-bio-stub