Episodes

After making history at the Crucible, Michaela Tabb still had another World Snooker Championship final ahead of her—and one of the sport’s most unpredictable geniuses standing at the table. In the concluding episode of our four-part Legends of the Cue conversation, Michaela reflects on refereeing the 2012 World Championship final between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ali Carter and explains why her earlier experiences managing Earl Strickland helped prepare her for the unique challenges of working with...

Getting into professional snooker was one thing. Proving she belonged there was another. In Part 3 of our Legends of the Cue conversation, Michaela Tabb reveals how difficult her early years on the professional snooker tour really were. Hired without the traditional referee apprenticeship, she learned almost everything on the job while navigating resentment from some established officials and the pressure of being the only woman in the room. Michaela remembers the referees who supported her, ...

Michaela Tabb never planned to become a professional referee. In fact, her extraordinary career began when husband Ross McInnes told a tournament organizer that Scotland already had a referee—and Michaela suddenly needed to become one. In Part 2 of Legends of the Cue, Michaela tells the remarkable story of creating a referee CV despite never having officiated American pool, studying two pages of nine-ball rules and arriving at Matchroom’s St Andrews Cup hoping she knew enough to survive. S...

Before Michaela Tabb became one of the most recognizable referees in snooker and pool, she was a fiercely competitive player representing Scotland on the international stage. In Part 1 of our Legends of the Cue conversation with Michaela, she takes us back to the beginning—from being born in England and growing up in Dunfermline, Scotland, to childhood gymnastics, playing bassoon and cornet, an unlikely ambition to become an air traffic controller, and her brief experience at Glasgow Universi...

Tony Chohan’s second career may be even more remarkable than his first. In the final installment of Legends of the Cue’s four-part conversation with “T-Rex,” Tony reflects on the championship run that cemented his place among the great One Pocket players in history. He revisits his second U.S. Open One Pocket Championship in 2022, his victories at Buffalo’s and the International Open, and the title that had eluded him for years: the 2023 Derby City Classic One Pocket Championship. Tony descri...

Tony Chohan’s story took a dramatic turn in 2009. In Part 3 of this four-part Legends of the Cue interview, Tony speaks with remarkable candor about the choices that led to his incarceration, the fear of losing years of freedom and prime playing time, and the lessons he carried home when he was released in 2015. Tony refuses to frame what happened as bad luck. His words are simple: it was a “wrong choice, wrong time.” He talks about surviving prison, taking college courses, staying out of tro...

How does a talented young pool player become one of the most fearless gamblers and creative One Pocket players of his generation? In Part 2 of Legends of the Cue’s four-part interview with Tony “T-Rex” Chohan, Tony explains what drew him to the action side of pool—and why he believes playing with something at stake helped sharpen his game. He remembers gambling for small amounts as a teenager, putting cues up when he went broke, watching serious action in Reno and learning through trial and e...

Before Tony Chohan became “T-Rex,” a One Pocket Hall of Famer and one of the most feared action players in professional pool, he was a sports-loving kid growing up in Sacramento, California. In Part 1 of this special four-part Legends of the Cue conversation, Tony takes us back to the beginning: his Sikh and Indian family roots, childhood in the 1980s and ’90s, and the unlikely path that led him from basketball courts and video games to the poolroom. He recalls discovering pool with his cousi...

Allison Fisher shares a personal announcement: her Parkinson’s disease diagnosis and her decision to retire from competitive pool. In this special episode of Legends of the Cue, Allison joins fellow host Mike Gonzalez for an honest, emotional conversation about change, family, and her enduring love for the game. Diagnosed in July 2025, Allison opens up about the symptoms that led her to seek answers, the shock of receiving the news, and the private challenges behind her absence from tournamen...

Winning a world championship changes how others see you. Winning two can change how you see your responsibility to the sport. In the concluding chapter of Hydred Goldberg’s Legends of the Cue story, the two-time WPA Parasport Heyball World Champion looks beyond trophies toward the future of wheelchair pool, women’s billiards and international Parasport competition. Hydred discusses returning to competition as defending champion, her growing friendship and rivalry with Catherine Schneeberge...

How does a lifelong 9-ball player enter a world championship in a game she has barely played—and leave as the first women’s champion in its history? That unlikely journey is at the heart of Part 3 with Hydred Goldberg on Legends of the Cue. Hydred joins Allison Fisher, Mark Wilson and Mike Gonzalez for a detailed exploration of what elite pool really looks like from a wheelchair. She explains how table height, flooring, wheel position, abdominal strength and stroke mechanics affect every s...

After a life-changing automobile accident at 18, Hydred Goldberg faced a fundamental question: what would the rest of her life look like? In Part 2 of her Legends of the Cue story, the future two-time WPA Parasport Heyball World Champion describes the decisions that gave her independence—and ultimately led her to the pool table. Learning to drive became a major turning point. Soon afterward, Hydred moved by herself to San Diego, enrolled in college and eventually earned a degree in psychol...

Two-time WPA Heyball Parasport World Champion Hydred Goldberg joins Legends of the Cue to begin an extraordinary life story that stretches from London and the Philippines to California—and eventually to the top of international wheelchair pool. Hydred sits down with hosts Allison Fisher, Mark Wilson and Mike Gonzalez just months after surrendering the world title she had held since the inaugural WPA Parasport Heyball Championship in 2024. She reflects on the pressure of defending a world cham...

Why do they call Chris Melling “The Magician”? Part Four of our Legends of the Cue conversation provides the answer. We begin with perhaps the most famous rack of Melling’s career: his extraordinary World Pool Series clearance against Mika Immonen. Chris takes us inside the combination-carom, the severe swerve shot and the unforgettable four-rail bank that helped turn the clearance into one of pool’s most widely viewed highlights. He explains what he saw, what he intended and why the shots th...

Some of Chris Melling’s greatest victories came during the most painful period of his life. Part Three of our Legends of the Cue conversation explores the remarkable intersection of loss, resilience and championship performance that helped define Chris Melling’s career. Chris begins by discussing the difficult choice between professional snooker and pool. He believed he possessed the ability to reach snooker’s upper ranks, but pool provided the exhibitions, tournament income and financial sta...

Chris Melling had the talent. Now he had to prove he could beat the best. In Part Two of our Legends of the Cue conversation, Chris takes us inside his rise from promising young professional to one of the greatest English eight-ball players of his generation—and shares plenty of unforgettable stories from life on the road along the way. We begin with Chris’s longtime friendship with Darren Appleton. The two future champions traveled, practiced and competed together as young players, and Chris...

Long before Chris Melling became known around the pool world as “The Magician,” he was a working-class kid from Keighley, West Yorkshire, who found both a refuge and a calling in a local snooker club. In Part One of our Legends of the Cue conversation with one of the most naturally gifted and versatile cueists of his generation, Chris takes us back to the very beginning. He recalls playing on a tiny pool table as a three-year-old, spending Saturday afternoons in the pub with his father, and t...

In the concluding episode of our four-part Legends of the Cue conversation with Henrik Larsson, we meet a champion who is still winning—but increasingly focused on what he can leave behind. Fresh from another major victory in Rome, Henrik discusses why integrating wheelchair and Parasport competition alongside major professional pool events matters so deeply to him. His goal is not special treatment. It is normalization: athletes with disabilities working just as seriously at their craft and ...

What happens after you become the best—and everyone expects you to keep winning? Part 3 of our Legends of the Cue interview with Swedish wheelchair pool great Henrik Larsson begins with that question and develops into a revealing conversation about championship pressure, rivalries, mental toughness and the changing meaning of success. Henrik takes us inside his remarkable 2007 WPA World Championship victory, when outside expectations, conflict with an opponent and pressure from his own federa...

In Part 2 of our Legends of the Cue interview with Henrik Larsson, the aspiring Swedish pool player arrives in Stockholm at age 19 with no elaborate career plan. As Henrik puts it, he was simply addicted to shooting pool—playing until the last poolroom closed at five in the morning, sleeping late and starting all over again the next day. But Henrik quickly realized that becoming a great player also required finding a way to finance the journey. What follows is a fascinating story of entrep...

In Part 1 of our Legends of the Cue conversation with Swedish Parasport pool legend Henrik “Henke” Larsson, we go back long before the world championships and European titles to explore the experiences that shaped one of wheelchair pool’s greatest competitors. Henrik was just months old when a hemangioma inside his spinal cord resulted in the loss of movement in his legs. Growing up in Sweden in the 1970s, he entered a world with few accommodations for children with disabilities—but also a fa...

The final chapter of Darren Appleton’s Legends of the Cue interview is a powerful story of versatility, loss, survival and renewed purpose. Part 5 begins with Darren’s late-career fascination with one-pocket, a game he learned after moving to the United States and studying experienced players whose knowledge of movement and strategy could overcome declining shot-making ability. The conversation moves to Appleton’s 2017 induction into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame and the perso...

What does it take to become a world champion across multiple cue sports disciplines? In Part 4 of Darren Appleton’s Legends of the Cue interview, the BCA Hall of Famer revisits the extraordinary championship run that established him as one of the greatest all-around pool players of the modern era. The story begins with Appleton’s breakthrough at the inaugural 2008 WPA World 10-Ball Championship in the Philippines. He explains how winning his first world title—and a $100,000 first prize—lifted...

Few players have embodied the emotion of the Mosconi Cup like Darren Appleton. In Part 3 of his Legends of the Cue interview, the European pool icon goes inside the team room, the arena and the pressure cooker that transformed the annual USA-versus-Europe contest into one of cue sports’ greatest spectacles. Appleton reflects on joining Team Europe in 2009 and bringing a more vocal, fiery presence to a group traditionally known for quiet professionalism. He explains why assembling the highest-...