A world champion pool trick shot artist has just added to his collection of Guinness World Records titles.
Florian “Venom” Kohler (France) earned his 12th world record by sinking the most pool trick shots completed in 48 hours – an incredible 1,816.
And he said it was the “most difficult” thing he’s ever done.
Florian, who now lives in Las Vegas, USA, with his wife Iana and 12-year-old daughter Chrissy, told us: “After a very successful 24-hour world record during COVID, I always entertained the idea of pushing the limits even further so the idea of the most pool trick shots in 48 hours came naturally.
“Little did I realize how difficult it would be to actually complete this challenge.”
With five minutes of rest permitted for every hour of activity – as with all marathon record attempts – Florian had just four hours of rest time to spread over two full days.
He had 120 approved trick shots he could attempt and three goes at each one before he had to move on. And after he’d tried all 120, he had to go back to the beginning and repeat the process until the 48 hours were up.
The biggest issue he encountered was persistent back ache caused by bending over the table to retrieve the balls after every shot.
He started feeling pain in his lower back around the eighth hour, and by hour-18, someone had to pick up a back brace so he could continue.
And exhaustion really started setting in at the 32-hour mark.
He said: “From there it really was a mental and physical fight. My stroke as well as my legs were getting slower and on top of the lower back pain, I also started to get shoulder, neck pain, blisters and even burns on my fingertips.
Nevertheless, I kept pushing until 4 a.m. the next day where I started to have mild hallucinations and disorientation.
At that point, Florian went off for a one-hour nap, and came back with nine hours still to go on the clock.
During the attempt, he walked 5 miles around the table, used over 5,000 balls, made 2,445 shots and successfully landed 1,816 of them.
He added: “I would like to again thank all my team for their effort in helping to complete the gruelling 48-hour record. It certainly was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.”
Florian also broke his own record for most pool trick shots completed in one hour, going up from 58 to 69, as well as his record for most pool trick shots completed in 24 hours, increasing his total from 753 to 1,185.
He did all three attempts simultaneously between 19 and 21 January.
On extending his 24-hour record, he said: “[It was] definitely unexpected. Because you can't really practise those kinds of long records. I was doing the practise on a small sample size of a couple hours or at most eight hours or so.
“I was always close to the old record and usually over it, but not by much. I believe I just played some of my best pool during the record, the conditions were all met to perfection and what really allowed me to crush it was the fact that I tried to save as many breaks as possible because I knew the 48-hour one would be very difficult. So, I ended up minimizing the breaks as much as possible during [the first] 24-hours on top of playing at a very high level.”
Florian, who has been living in the USA for more than 10 years, took on his record attempts at the League Room in West Virgina, which he described as the “perfect location”.
He also streamed his record attempts live, and anyone who wants to check them out can see them on his YouTube channel, where he has 1 million subscribers.
Florian, 35, has been playing pool since he was 18 and has built a career out of his passion.
He’s a professional pool trick shot artist and is the current World Champion in his discipline. He also runs the largest pool league in Nevada with his wife – APA Las Vegas.
Despite being years behind many pros of the sport – with many top players starting to play when they were as young as three or four – Florian has completely mastered the art of the trick shot.
He received a mini pool table for his 18th birthday and started learning trick shots by watching videos on the internet.
Before long, he began inventing his own, and within two years, he was competing in trick shot competitions against pros who’d been playing longer than he’d been alive.
When it comes to picking his favourite trick shot, he admits that’s a “very tough question”.
“But if I had to pick only one it would be the Satellite Masse where you curve a ball around an obstacle using three rails,” he confessed.
And the one that gets the best reaction from a crowd?
Florian said: “Definitely the one I call the Nutcracker. I put a shoe in between someone's legs and shoot a cue ball directly into it.”
Just a few days after the success of his three record attempts, Florian went on to win at the WPA World Artistic Pool Championship.
Here are the other records that Florian holds:
• Highest one handed jump pot of a billiard ball – 50.8 cm
• Most pool balls potted into the middle pocket over an obstacle in one minute – 75
• Longest usable pool cue – 5.37 m (17 ft 7.4 in)
• Most pool balls potted one handed into the middle pocket over an obstacle in one minute – 48
• Most pool balls potted around a triangle in one minute – 21
• Farthest distance jump pot of a pool ball between two tables – 2.76 m (9.1 ft)
• Fastest time to jump pot 15 pool balls (US table) – 5.69 seconds
• Fastest time to jump pot 15 pool balls (US table), one-handed – 12.16 seconds
• Most clay sporting targets held between the legs broken by pool shot in one minute - 29
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