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Strickland vs Van Boening: Call The Winner
The details have all been ironed out for another high-profile shoot-out, this time featuring two of America's greatest players. Veteran Earl Strickland, the five-time
winner of the U.S. Open, meets Shane Van Boening, considered by many as today's top player. The contest: a race-to-100 10-ball match. Strickland and the young hotshot meet March 18-20 in Youngstown, Ohio. To make the game even more interesting, the contest will be held on a 5 by 10 table. The $20,000 winner-take-all match is sponsored by The Action Report, which recently webcast Van Boening's 100-game shoot-out with Mika Immomen.

Free Book and Pool History Poll
I'll send out a free book to whomever most closely predicts the final score. Just sign up on the Pool & Billiard History Facebook Page and post your prediction there. Here's the link. I've also posted up a poll at the upper right. You can predict the winner and then check back later to see the ongoing tally. I'll keep the poll open until midnight March 17, the night before the shoot-out begins.

A bit more background? Earl "The Pearl" Strickland won the U.S. Open in 1984, 1987, 1993, 1997 and 2000. He's also been a decisive part of the U.S. Team for The Mosconi Cup. With Earl, the Americans amassed a record of nine wins, three losses and one tie. Without Earl, the Americans' record was a piddling 2-2. Strickland has been off his game for much of the last decade, but then began making a serious comeback last year. Strickland placed second to Van Boening in the One-Pocket division at this year's Derby City Classic, won the Jacoby Custom Cue tour stop in January and won both the U.S. Bar Table 8-ball Championship and the Steve Mizerak Championship in 2010.

Van Boening, by contrast, has won just about everything there is to win. He took Derby City's Master of the Table award this year and won both the U.S. Bar Table 10-ball and 9-ball championships last year. He also is a past U.S. Open winner and currently is the highest ranked American on the Billiards Digest Power Index.

-- R.A. Dyer