Luc Salvas (born November 21, 1962) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

professional

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

player. His quick-paced

speed pool Speedball, also called speed pool, is a solitary pool game. As its name suggests, one all the pool balls on the table as quickly as possible. It can be played competitively with the aid of a stopwatch. Rules *The must not be in motion when sh ...

play has earned him the nickname "Machine Gun". Born in Yamaska,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, in 1962, he won the first

International Speed Pool Challenge The International Speed Pool Challenge is a pool (pocket billiards) tournament held in the United States from 2006 to 2010. It is the most notable speed pool event, as well as being the richest in prize money for that discipline. Luc Salvas won the ...

and the

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

50,000 winner-take-all purse by defeating Great Britain's Dave Pearson. He returned the next year to defend his title but was defeated in the semi-finals by

Bobby McGrath Bobby McGrath is an American professional pool player from Washington, Illinois, nicknamed "the Kid" for being one of the youngest professional pool players. He won US$50,000 in the 2007 International Speed Pool Challenge, not only beating the U ...

of the United States, the eventual winner of the tournament. In 2009, Salvas returned to play in the same tournament and won it for the second time, defeating Pearson again in the finals. He successfully defended his title in 2010 by defeating McGrath. Despite his fast performance, he has yet to dominate any of the major

nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle of e ...

eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a ...

tournaments.

References

Canadian pool players 1962 births French Quebecers Living people {{pool-bio-stub