April Erfman started ditching high school in Los Angeles, spending her days in coffee shops and restaurant bars with pool tables, drinking coffee and grinding through games because she was too young for the real bars. That teenage obsession grew into 30-plus years of competition, APA national championships, dominant Scotch doubles runs across the country, and a reputation for the best floating air jump in the game, according to Tony Piazza himself. We discuss her system for building chemistry with Scotch doubles partners, why breathing and staying off tilt are the real keys to tournament survival, the floating air jump technique, player management strategies like energy conservation and eating light between matches, and why being fearless enough to enter tournaments you have no business playing in is the fastest way to level up.

Follow April and catch her incredible shot videos on Instagram and Facebook at Jane Chalks.

Florian "Venom" Kohler received a six-foot pool table for his 18th birthday in Eastern France and, with nothing but a 56K internet connection and Mike Massey's book, taught himself every trick shot from the last 100 years in two years. Then he got bored and started inventing his own. At 22, he moved to the US with no money and told his parents to give him six months. Fifteen years, 13 Guinness World Records, and nearly 3 billion views later, he's the reigning world trick shot champion, an APA division operator in Las Vegas, and one of the most recognizable names in billiards. We discuss why having no instructor meant having no limitations, the speed-over-power secret behind his stroke, why he changes cue balls constantly, what trick shots actually teach you about real pool, and his controversial take on why the sport needs to leave hustling culture behind.

Find Florian at VenomTrickshots.com or search Venom Trickshots on any social media platform.

Roy Pastor started playing pool at nine years old because his parents in Queens, New York figured a table in the basement would keep him off the streets. Nobody in the family played, so his father bought a used Willie Moscone book and Willie became Roy's hero. When he was 12, Roy and his dad took the bus to see Mosconi at an exhibition at Golden Cue Billiards on Queens Boulevard. Mosconi agreed to a photo but refused to look at the kid standing next to him because Roy's dad couldn't afford the $1.25 book. That moment stuck. Now, 23 years into teaching juniors and never having charged a single one of them a penny, Roy runs the Red Dragons Billiard Club in Harvard, Massachusetts, operates two New England pool leagues, leads the BCA WPA Break and Run junior program with students competing from four countries at Worlds, and somehow still practices law full time. We discuss why there are no shortcuts or secrets in pool, how 30 minutes of focused practice beats three hours of grinding, using music and rhythm to build stroke mechanics, why adults are harder to teach than kids, and how a snub from his childhood hero shaped everything he does today.

Find Roy at RedDragonBilliards@gmail.com, roypastor@americanpoolschool.com, or on his YouTube channel All Things Pool New England.