Red, White & Green

Just two inches taller than his 57-inch billiard cue, Kinrey Matsuyama casts a giant shadow upon the green-baize background of billiards. Two years ago in

Washington he finished seventh and last in the world's championship 18.2 balkline billiard tournament, winning not a game. Last week he began the 1929 tournament in New York by vanquishing Edouard Horemans, of Belgium, the sleek, wavy-haired, temperamental titleholder, 400 to 292. Then he outcued Felix Grange of France, then Eric Hagenlacher of Germany. His chances of winning seemed so good that he calmly announced: "I really believe that I'll go right through the field."

Handicapped by lack of reach and dapperling hands, Matsuyama came by his skill psychologically. He learned the game in Japan, where its finicky precision is enormously popular among a precise people. In Tokyo, before the last earthquake, there were 321 billiard halls full of grave little yellow men studying the motions of two white balls and a red.

Matsuyama's beady eyes watch every move his rivals make in tournament play. From a mental pigeonhole he was able, last week, to draw the information that Horemans was weak only in open-table play. The discovery of this secret defeated the champion.

Matsuyama had the frailties of the other players on file, as well. He decided that Welker Cochran was "too daring and care-less," that portly Felix Grange was "weak on nurse." Jake Schaefer, a smooth fingered youth from Chicago, son and namesake of a five-time champion, was the only one who worried the little Japanese. In

Schaefer he could find no technical flaw. In the mental notebook there was one entry, however: "Lacks fighting spirit." Said Matsuyama, "Put Schaefer on a table a foot higher than the regulation table and I'll play him for $1,000 a side."

The billiard championship means a $6,000 salary for a year, during which the title need not be defended; $2,500 in cash; a percentage of the championship tournament receipts; a diamond emblem; several thousands of dollars in fees for exhibition matches.