DanielReyes

Story

A life on three cushions

From Maracaibo to the World Championships: thirty-three years chasing the perfect carom.

Born in Maracaibo, he picked up a cue in 1993, at 13. He joined Venezuela’s national three-cushion team in 2002, set the national best-game record in 2004 and won the National Championship in 2005.

Two more World Championships followed — St. Wendel 2008, where he posted the best-ever Venezuelan finish at a World Championship (29th of 48), and the World Team Championship in Viersen 2010, with Miguel Cantón — plus six World Cups, more than a dozen Pan-American events — including the Pan-American Team Championship in Soacha, Colombia, which qualified Venezuela for the Viersen World Team Championship — and seven national three-cushion Grand Prix titles between 2006 and 2015. He was the national ranking’s No. 1 in six seasons (2007, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2023). In 2013 he added a second Three-Cushion National Championship title (18th National Championship, Caracas) and in 2023 the Straight Rail National Championship, credited by the FVB’s official ranking, along with a call-up to the national team for the ALBA Games and back-to-back titles at Club Tucutucu’s Gran Fiesta Nacional del Billar (2023 and 2024).

“Billiards is a sport like any other: winning takes a great deal of discipline, physical preparation and concentration.”

Daniel Reyes, in Diario Panorama (Maracaibo), July 2004