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Show CUE EXPERTS TO PERFORM HERE "lizard" Schaefer and Willie Hoppe. Champion Billiard Player of the World Will Play in This City. Will Give Exhibitions With Willie Hoppo, the "Boy Wonder" Will Arrive This Week. Jacob Schaefer, champion billiard player of the world, and Willie Hoppe, the boy wonder, will play several exhibition exhi-bition games In Salt Lake some time this week. The pair are now In Denver Den-ver and will arrive In this city about Wednesday. Schaefer Is known wherever wher-ever the "gentleman's game" Is played, for he has held a position of prominence promi-nence In the billiard world for many years. Hoppe Is only seventeen years old, but has met and defeated many of the foreign cracks. It will be a grand opportunity for lovers of the game In this city to see the game as It should be played. When Schaefer, In 1878, flrst began to attain prominence through his matches at Mussey's old hall In St. Louis and other places of note, the game of the time was "straight rail." Runs of 300 were the exception then, even with the leaders of the sport, and it was not until Schaefer began to set his master mind to the undoing of the straight rail game by his perfect mastery of It that the fabulous runs of later daya became common. It was Schaefer who worked' out the rail nurse, corner nurso and all the niceties of the play so far that. In the end, there was no gamo of anything like ordinary length that he was not reasonably sure of running out. His record Includes runs as high as 3000 a fact which In Itself testifies to the pertinacity of the man and his perseverance. Schaefer, in fact, so developed this game that he forced the promoters of the sport to place a handicap on straight rail, which at the outset resulted re-sulted In an eight-Inch balkline game. Again Schaefer put his mind to the task and again found a means of nursing nurs-ing the balls which put the handl-cappers handl-cappers to their mettle again. Finally the fourteen-lnch balkline game camo into being, Schaefer making the other too easy. It was only a short time before he was again astounding the world by his performances at this style, until eventually, In order to make a "same that would In some measure stop his genius for scoring points, another change was made. This was the cightcen-inch balkline, with two shots In; but hero again the little wonder won-der confused the makers of tho games by finding the "anchor nurse." and It was not long ere It was found necessary neces-sary to Inaugurate the now famous "champion's" game. This bars the "anchor nurse" on Schaefer and allows but one shot In balk. This game is the acme of all that has been asked of billiard players, and such Is the accuracy required that the strain on the men In a long match sometimes causes collnpse. Beyond any doubt the most spectacu lar, If not the greatest match at the champion's game was that played last year between Schaefer and the best player of France, Cure, at Paris. This memorable contest was at 3000 points, COO points an evening for six successive days. At that time Schaefer was In miserable miser-able health. His work In the academies in Paris had been almost mediocre and his friends tried to talk him out of meeting the rising young French player. play-er. Schaefer would not listen, accepted the match and started out very poorly, poor-ly, too. He fell back steadily In the flrst three nights' play and at the end of the fourth night wns 455 points, almost al-most an entire block, behind tho Frenchman. Although sick physically, Schaefer summoned his customary courage to the front at this point and went after Cure, with such remarkable success and after such brilliant shooting that, although Cure made a -wonderful record run of 225 in one Inning at this stylo of play, the Wizard caught and passed him. Early in the last nlght'B play he was as good as 250 points In front of Cure a truly remarkable feat, considering consid-ering how. far behind the little champion cham-pion had been. But not only that, moro marvels followed. It was given out that Cure would "quit" when passed In the home run, and all expected ex-pected the cue wonder from Chicago to win easily. To the astonishment of all Cure made runs of 190, 85 and so on, and presently had Schaefer passed and seemed" about to win, when, with 12 to go, he fell down and missed an easy the end of his string. By magnificent work he lured the balls from difficult "lies," and, getting them together, ran the game out, with a difficult' shot at the end. Mrs. Schaefer and Jake's children viewed the game from a box. After Schaefer had scored his last point tho crowd rushed to him and picked him up, although lie begged to be permitted to sit down. When he was finally put on his feet he sank back to the floor In a fainting fit. Mrs. Schaefer rushed from the box to his side and picked him up in her arms. "They can't beat my Jake," she sobbed, and the crowd cheered. Cure was threo weeks on a sick bed as an Immediate result of the strain of the match, while Schaefer himself Is just regaining his health. All of the experts In- France and America pick "Little Willie" to be the master and successor of Schaefer. Hoppe has been playing billiards since he was 7 years of age. He only recently re-cently celebrated his 17th birthday. In France a few months ago he met and defeated the best shortstop players in the French Republic and since pis return re-turn to this country he has been making mak-ing things exceedingly lively for his mentor, Schaefer. Last week they played a match-at 1200 points and Willie Wil-lie was returned the winner by a margin mar-gin of 200 points. He wound up tho match with a grand avorage of 21. Early in 1901 Willie and his father went to Perls. The boy created a sensation sen-sation there by his work In the high-class high-class academies. At three-cushion and balkline he held his own with Cure, VIgnaux, Sanchez, Fournell and other famous players. In what was called tho famous International Inter-national tournament, held In Paris last year," Hoppe finished ahead of all tho national champions. He did not lose a match during the play and was not. hard-pressed except In the final match, when he met Sanchez. The Spanish champion was 100 points In the lead nt one time, but the younger player came In an easy winner. Willie Hoppe Is the only American who has ever won a tournament In Paris. Shortly after the conclusion of the tournament last year, Frank Hoppe Issued Is-sued a challenge to any player In tho world, bar none, accompanied -with a deposit of 51000. The challenge was not accepted, though the money remained up for two months. At that tlmo Schaefer and Slosson were In America. |