Thomas Hein

The author: Thomas Hein was born in 1966 and has been playing active billiards for more than 25 years. He is a 14-time German Champion at different billiards variants. His website www.snookermania.de has been a hub of the snooker world since 1999. Active and future snooker players use it as a platform to obtain all relevant information on snooker in Germany. Together with Rolf Kalb, Eurosport’s voice of snooker in Germany, he published his first book in 2006, a collection of his extensive experience, both as a player and a coach. As the German national snooker coach, Thomas Hein has promoted the structure of this relatively new variant of billiards for many years, showing both commitment and enthusiasm. In 2007, the German national team became the European Team Champion for the first time. Together with Rolf Kalb, he has acted as snooker broadcast commentator, experiencing the fascination of snooker in Germany at close range. This is what motivated him to found the first German Snooker Academy in Oberhausen in 2005. In 2004, he initiated an event called “Snooker Holidays” which has gained undreamt-of popularity ever since. Initially, PAT Snooker was designed as an ability test for top players, but it has been tested successfully in amateur sports. The invariably positive feedback caused Thomas Hein to bring the concept to perfection in 2006 and to render it accessible to the continuously growing snooker world.