Meet Florian Kohler, better known in the pool community as “Venom.” One of the best trick shot artists in the world, Florian has developed over 10,000 new shots and techniques to unleash on unsuspecting billiard balls. Watch as he demonstrates a level of skill and precision that borders on the supernatural as he makes the balls spin, swerve and ricochet on demand.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 This is the machine gun jump shot.
00:02 Meet Florian Kohler, better known in the pool community as Venom,
00:11 one of the best trick shot artists in the world.
00:13 I've probably invented over 10,000 new shots.
00:17 Can you name all of them?
00:18 I don't bother naming them.
00:19 Sting shots, machine gun shots, satellite shots.
00:23 I really don't know, they don't have a name.
00:25 Having spent years honing his craft,
00:27 Florian's ability to spin and control pole balls borders on the supernatural.
00:31 I always thought it was going to be two years, then five years, then ten years.
00:35 Now it's going on to 15 plus years.
00:37 This is a criss-cross twin massey.
00:43 So it's a very technical shot.
00:50 I'm going to have two cues.
00:52 I'm going to have to hit those two cue balls at the same time.
00:54 The left ball is right spin and the right ball is left spin,
00:57 meaning this ball I'm going to hit on the right side and this ball on the far left side.
01:01 The next part I've got to avoid is contact in the middle.
01:03 If both balls touch each other, usually no good.
01:05 If I put too much right spin, I may not have enough back spin.
01:08 And if I put too much back spin, then the balls will come back in the middle.
01:11 This is a long rail massey.
01:22 A massey is when you put a lot of spin on the cue ball
01:25 by doing a vertical motion and impacting a lot of force down.
01:28 So you're going to do bottom and attach a left spin.
01:31 That's going to propel the ball forward, making the corner.
01:34 The cue ball is going to then come back into the other red ball.
01:37 This is also using what we call a massey cue, so it's a little heavier than normal pole cue.
01:41 The shaft is made out of Kevlar and carbon because it has to be resistant
01:44 because there's a lot of impact and it's a very damaging shot.
01:49 Florian's high-intensity trick shots have garnered him thousands of fans,
01:53 as well as a poisonous nickname.
01:55 Every pool player kind of has a nickname, right?
01:57 It's either given or kind of chosen. It sort of depends, right?
02:00 When I first started, because I didn't have any idea how to play normal pool,
02:03 I went right away with the very technical, damaging shots to learn how to massey and jump.
02:07 And that obviously doesn't go very well for your class.
02:09 My dad called me in French a poison for the table
02:11 because he originally bought this table for himself, couldn't really play on it
02:14 because it's too broken up.
02:15 So then somebody's like, "Oh, we should call you a venom," and it kind of stuck.
02:18 This is a salad massey. Super pretty, but very difficult shot.
02:22 A few years back, it was deemed almost impossible to do live.
02:30 You're going to shoot the ball into the rail, this short rail back, then this long rail,
02:34 then it's going to curve back into the three ball.
02:36 If you just shoot the ball to the rail, it will do something like this.
02:39 As you can see, our cue ball moves away, right?
02:41 To make that salad massey, we've got to go maximum, maximum left spin.
02:45 And a little bit of top spin even, and try to fight the current to make the red ball.
02:49 Very, very difficult.
02:50 I'm probably one of the rare in the world that can do this shot consistently.
02:54 I was supposed to be by trade an optometrist, but that was a bit boring for me,
02:59 and I love pool too much, so I decided to scrap it and went pool for a career.
03:03 I can't really advise kids to do the same because it's kind of a gamble,
03:06 but I would say I spent a good part of my college years being in a pool room till 2 in the morning,
03:10 doing a lot more pool than studying.
03:12 Even to this day, even running four businesses now at the same time,
03:15 I still probably put 30 hours a week in the pool table.
03:18 The biggest misconception for trick shot is that it's easy, that you can do it all the time.
03:23 It couldn't be further from the truth.
03:25 You never learn how to make a shot, you learn how to miss them.
03:28 You learn how to miss on the left, you learn how to miss on the right,
03:30 you learn to miss in the middle.
03:31 And that's why even in tournaments we have three tries.
03:33 In the world championship, you'll have three tries.
03:35 Story of my life.
03:38 Stupid game.
03:39 While it can take several tries to get each trick right,
03:42 some of Florian's interactive shots require expert precision.
03:45 For this one I need a volunteer.
03:47 Lucky for us, we already have one.
03:48 This is what I call the nutcracker.
03:50 Let's wish him good luck.
03:51 That was amazing.
03:58 You almost got killed because you moved, so.
04:00 This is the jump out of the rock massey.
04:07 The trick is to jump the ball, but instead of just going forward,
04:10 it has to come back.
04:11 So you've got to find a happy medium between enough air and the side spin and the back spin.
04:16 I try to be very loose on the backhand too, and hit that with a very pure stroke.
04:20 Spreading his passion for the game,
04:25 Florian took us to a pool hall to show us that with the right setup,
04:28 anyone can make a trick shot.
04:30 Even me.
04:35 So this was the butterfly shot.
04:37 I'm going to take an extra ball here.
04:40 Let's grab the 14.
04:41 Move it right in front of the cue ball.
04:43 The 9 ball on this side.
04:44 Make a line with my cue.
04:46 One ball there.
04:47 Right on.
04:48 Line up the 2 ball.
04:50 So as you can see, the 2 ball is not lined up towards the pocket at all.
04:54 Same thing here for the 3.
04:55 We're going to just repeat the process.
04:57 The 10 ball is pointed out of it, and the 11 is pointed out this way.
05:00 And the reason is because of friction.
05:02 So friction was going to make my ball turn.
05:04 If it was newer, there would be less friction.
05:06 It would be more aimed towards the pocket.
05:08 Still a bit off, but not quite as far.
05:10 With Florian's assurances it was easy, I decided to give it a try.
05:14 Oh my god, that was so close.
05:18 So close.
05:19 I don't know if I hit it hard enough.
05:22 It's a little soft.
05:24 Oh, robbed. I was robbed.
05:26 The same-- well, it's a little soft.
05:29 Down the wire now.
05:30 Oh, it's looking good.
05:33 What? That's so cool!
05:34 There you go.
05:35 That's awesome!
05:36 It's all physics. Once the setup is right, pretty much anybody can do it.
05:39 There's a little bit of skill if you hit it perfect.
05:41 But you made all 6 balls.
05:43 New personal record, right?
05:44 By far. By at least 4 balls.
05:46 And now you're going to show off with your friends.
05:48 Why do I think people love watching pool?
05:50 I think simply because there's something fascinating about it.
05:53 You could put a 4-year-old on a pool table,
05:55 and they'll love to just throw the balls around and see what happens, right?
05:58 Making the balls bend and curve to his will,
06:01 Florian has to see the pool table in a way that no one else does.
06:04 First, the size.
06:05 You're going to go from a bar that has usually what's called a bar box
06:08 to a professional table which is 9 foot.
06:10 They even make 10 foot now.
06:11 There's an adjustment there.
06:12 Then the size of the pockets.
06:14 Again, bar, you can have wide pockets.
06:16 Newer, professional table, much smaller.
06:18 The felt itself, its thickness.
06:19 And then the ball.
06:20 From low-end plastic ball, they are very heavy,
06:23 to what we have now, phenolic resin, which is the top of the line.
06:26 Now, on top of that, you're going to have to think about the weather.
06:29 I know it sounds crazy, but humidity affects pool in a way that's unimaginable.
06:33 Changes everything from your aiming to the way the ball reacts.
06:37 People think there's a lot of math involved.
06:39 Yes and no.
06:40 It's not quite as far as the formula goes.
06:42 You don't necessarily have to explain it, put it black on white,
06:45 because at the end of the day, there's so much feel to it that it doesn't really work.
06:48 But if you don't visualize the angle, it's very tricky to go far with this.
06:52 This is a railroad shot.
06:55 [thud]
06:56 Railroad is a pretty old shot.
07:02 So in my way, I'm hitting it here.
07:06 It's going up table.
07:07 It's coming back down table.
07:09 Then it's going to have enough backspin to climb on top of the cues.
07:12 And then with the speed and the way the cues are slanted,
07:14 they're going to roll down and make the red ball here.
07:16 The hardest part of this trick is to hit the ball that perfect on the speed
07:19 so it doesn't go off the table or back down.
07:22 So you just got to find the right amount of speed and right amount of spin.
07:25 This is the Russian Doll Curve Shot.
07:31 [thud]
07:33 [thud]
07:34 [thud]
07:35 [thud]
07:36 [thud]
07:37 [thud]
07:38 [thud]
07:39 [thud]
07:40 [thud]
07:41 [thud]
07:42 So normal cue ball, English pub cue ball,
07:44 and then this gets very interesting last trick.
07:46 So this is from a toe table already, like a three-foot table.
07:49 And then now we're going even smaller.
07:51 And those, I think, are like one-foot tables.
07:53 It's so little that I'm going to have to deliver it just right.
07:56 Just like that.
07:57 This is the Egg Shot.
08:00 [thud]
08:03 So I'm going to put a lot of left spin on the egg,
08:06 which is, by the way, the same material as a normal pool ball.
08:09 The egg is going to raise on its side, stand up for a bit, and spin.
08:12 No matter how much time Florian spends on his home tables or in pool halls,
08:17 he still views pool in a one-of-a-kind way.
08:20 A normal player, they'll learn a bunch of preconceived ideas
08:23 about what the game is and how the ball should move and what's possible, right?
08:27 I think this is the main difference, really.
08:29 I just had no preconceived idea.
08:31 Just everything was possible and never put any stop to anything.
08:34 [thud]
08:35 (door closing)
08:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]