The 87.4% figure and Vietnam billiards power map: When data strips away the truth

In March 2026, at the Ankara arena in Turkey, Tran Thanh Luc stood before a chance to make history. He had just scored 18 points in the 25th frame, equalizing the score at 40-40 against Belgian player Frederic Caudron - a three-time World Championship Three-Cushion winner. The arena fell silent. In that moment, I was sitting in front of a screen in Hai Phong, holding a notebook worn at the edges from four years ago. I had finished calculating: if Thanh Luc won the next frame, he would become the first Vietnamese player to reach the final of the highest UMB tournament in 11 years. And he did it. The 2026-born player from Binh Duong defeated Caudron 50-42, opening a new chapter for Vietnamese billiards that data had warned about for a long time. The 87.4% figure appeared in my spreadsheet from October 2026. That was the win rate of Vietnamese players in international matches of the UMB World Tour system in the 2026/24 season. Out of 47 matches involving Vietnamese players from the Grand Prix to the World Championship, they won 41, drew 2, and lost 4. A number that any data analyst would have to pause at. To understand why 87.4% is so special, we need to go back to 2026 - when I first started seriously with professional billiards. Back then, Vietnamese billiards on the world map was almost empty territory. In the UMB rankings, the highest Vietnamese player was Tran Thanh Luc at position 32. Only 3 representatives in the Top 50. Exactly 8 in the Top 100. The Vietnamese tournament system at that time operated in a very different model. The Billiards V-League only began having a ranking system after the 2026 season. Major clubs like Binh Duong, Bac Ninh, and Hai Phong operated on a semi-professional model - players still had to work part-time jobs to make ends meet. Youth training centers barely existed by international standards. I used to think this was the problem of every minor sport in Vietnam - lack of facilities, weak sponsorship, unprofessional training. But after six years of tracking data, I realized Vietnamese billiards has a different story. That story began with a seemingly small decision: the Vietnam Billiards & Snooker Federation (VBSF) in 2026 changed how they allocated spots for international tournaments. Instead of letting clubs self-register, they organized internal qualifying rounds with rankings, taking results from the VBSF Tour system to select representatives. This was not a revolutionary decision, but it created something that did not exist before: a clear pathway for talent. The result? From 2026 to 2026, the number of Vietnamese players in the UMB Top 100 increased from 8 to 19. In the Top 50, from 3 to 9. In the Top 20, from 1 to 4. When I started recording data from the UMB World Tour system, there was one metric I paid special attention to: the average point-per-inning (PPI) ratio of Vietnamese players in international tournaments. PPI is a metric measuring attacking efficiency - the average number of points a player scores per turn. Data from the 2026/24 season shows: Tran Thanh Luc has a PPI of 1.42, higher than the average 1.18 of the UMB Top 16. Nguyen Tran Thanh Tam - a 24-year-old player from Binh Duong - has a PPI of 1.31, ranking 8th among all players under 25 participating in the World Tour. Nguyen Hoang Tung - who just set a record for consecutive frame wins at a UMB qualifier - has a PPI of 1.28. Compared to the 2026/19 season - when Vietnamese billiards was considered promising - the average PPI of the Top 10 Vietnamese players only reached 0.94. Meaning after six years, attacking efficiency increased by 47.8%. But PPI is only one piece of the puzzle. The real question is: why? Based on my experience following matches from domestic VBSF Tour to international World Tour rounds, I identified four key factors: First: training cycle changes. Before 2026, Vietnamese professional players focused on playing many frames to hone their feel. From 2026, after VBSF sent a delegation to train in South Korea - a long-time partner of Vietnamese billiards - the training method changed: focusing on each tactical situation, especially situations requiring defense after an ineffective attack. This was the weakest skill of Vietnamese billiards during 2026 to 2026. Data from international matches shows: the success rate of defensive shots - safe shots that force opponents into difficult positions - of Vietnamese players increased from 41% to 67% over 4 years. Second: a more diverse domestic tournament system. The VBSF Tour 2026/24 has 14 official tournaments, of which 6 are ranked for UMB points. The 2026/19 season only had 8 tournaments, with 2 earning international points. Vietnamese players can now play 40 to 50 international-quality matches per year domestically, rather than having to fly to South Korea, Japan, or Europe to find matches. Third: foreign experts. Not coaches, but opponents. During 2026 to 2026, Vietnam invited many Top 20 world players for friendly matches and training. Notably Torbjorn Blomdahl, a Swedish player who won the world championship 4 times - who spent 3 months at Binh Duong Club in 2026 as a technical advisor. Among those who trained with Blomdahl, 7 are now in the UMB Top 100. Fourth: video analysis technology. This factor is often overlooked. From 2026, VBSF partnered with a sports technology company to provide players with slow-motion video and ball trajectory analysis after each match. Compared to South Korea - the leading country in billiards data analysis - Vietnam has narrowed the gap from 8 years to 3 years in this field. I once doubted the fourth factor. But when I reviewed 23 of Thanh Luc's matches from 2026 to now, I counted 14 matches where he won thanks to situations that had been pre-match analyzed - situations where the coach (or he himself) had identified opponent weaknesses through video. Data never lies, but I once misheard. In the 2026 season, I predicted Vietnamese billiards would decline due to lack of investment. The 87.4% figure today is the apology that data sent to me. Cross-comparing with South Korea and Japan - the two largest billiards markets in Asia - also reveals an interesting picture. The international match win rate of South Korean players in 2026/24 was 71.2%, Japan was 68.5%. Vietnam, with a billiards-playing population not even a third of these two countries, has overtaken them in the UMB tournament system. But looking at depth, South Korea has 14 players in the Top 100, Japan has 11, Vietnam has 19. This shows that Vietnamese billiards depth is not inferior - and this is a fundamental difference from the story of Thailand (only 5 players in the Top 100 despite a higher billiards-playing population). Vietnamese players are now also appearing in tournaments where previously they had no chance. In 8 World Tour tournaments in 2026/24, Vietnam had representatives in 7 - the highest ever. The average cost for an international tournament trip for a Vietnamese player decreased from 38 million VND (2026 season) to 19 million VND (2026 season) thanks to the new sponsorship system from VBSF and clubs. This is an important factor helping mid-level players access international tournaments without having to withdraw mid-tournament due to running out of money. However, there is a perspective I rarely see anyone mention: this explosion may only be the peak of a quadratic curve, not a straight upward line. When I filtered data by age, a different picture emerged. Among players aged 18 to 24 participating in the VBSF Tour 2026/24, there were only 31 people. In 2026/19, that number was 64. The number of young players has halved. Meanwhile, the number of players aged 30 to 40 increased from 28 to 73 - meaning most of the growth came from already familiar players. This means: if the generation of Tran Thanh Luc, Nguyen Tran Thanh Tam, Nguyen Hoang Tung - all born between 2026 and 2026 - retire within the next 5 to 10 years, Vietnamese billiards could fall into a generational gap. The youth training system has not yet produced enough international-level players. Another concerning signal: the number of officially registered billiards clubs in Vietnam decreased from 312 (2026) to 187 (2026). Most were small clubs in rural areas that closed. These are the basic training strongholds the system needs, but they are collapsing. When home is no longer a fortress, I learned to listen to empty stands. Clubs in remote provinces were places where billiards talent was discovered from street cafes. When they close, the talent supply is narrowed without a replacement mechanism. The question I ask is not whether Vietnamese billiards can maintain its current position, but whether the system can recreate its talent supply within the next 5 years. The 87.4% figure today could become an old story within one generation of players. I will continue tracking data each season. If by 2027, the number of young players aged 18 to 24 in the system does not exceed 45, I will have to rewrite this article - this time not with a tone of pride, but of warning. The model knows from October. I am only brave enough to believe in May.