KNOWING that your evening could be over in just three shots adds a certain nervous tension to a game of nine-ball pool.

And this becomes more acute when you are playing in the one organised nine-ball event of the year and somebody is going to walk away with $1,000 ? grandiosely presented on a huge hardboard cheque.

But 51 players went through this anguish at the BAA gym last weekend as they took part in the Camel nine-ball pool tournament.

The venue was transformed into a pool hall with all the drinking, smoking, chalking and clattering that entails, setting the stage for a wonderful evening of sport and entertainment.

Six tables, all unintentionally providing differing speeds of roll of the balls, had been set up for the tournament with food and drink and all the usual trappings also on hand.

Practice aplenty went on, with players of vastly differing abilities grateful of the opportunity to master the quirks of the fast-paced version of the popular pub sport.

For the uninitiated, nine-ball pool is a faster, more exciting and more unpredictable version of its more sensible cousin, eight-ball.

The object is to hit the lowest numbered ball on the table, and yes, there are only nine of them, although you can pot what you like on each visit.

The aim is to sink the nine ball, and if you do so with your break ? as can happen ? you instantly win.

You could also dominate the game, potting balls one to eight with consummate ease, only to miss the last and hand your opponent a chance to sneak the game.

This element ensures that, in principle, a player of any standard could scrape a win ? and in the race to three format played on Saturday night, a few players scraped through the early rounds who we all know should have been sent packing back to the bar after their first games.

But, as you would hope, over the course of the evening the best players floated to the surface with the Island's number one ranked player Matt Garrod taking victory.

He had dominated the league season and with his immaculate potting and cue ball control he looked a danger as soon as he left his early-evening job of makeshift barman to take to the tables.

Many of the faces at the tournament were familiar ones from the league season but, pleasingly for the organisers, there were a few new faces at the club ? easy to spot as they were the only one who needed to borrow cues and chalk.

Pool, at its roots, is a bar sport and many players took that principle to heart playing 'hot'. But although those players made it through perhaps one round, the serious guys ? normally adorned in Bermuda International Pool League official clothing and carrying two cues, one for breaking, one for normal play ? dominated as the knock-out rounds became more fierce.

The evening, in part, is a fund-raiser for the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for a 600-player tournament in May, with the top dozen players from league play all participating.

And judging by the standards on show in the latter stages of Saturday's tournament, our boys will do the Island proud on the grand stage in Nevada.