Smoky Kneipen, 80s classics, skunky beer, that guy who’s been there all night, maybe all year, somehow never missing a shot – that’s probably what you think about when you imagine pool – or Billard, as the Germans would say – in Berlin. While that would probably be a realistic representation in many corners of the city, the scene has also been home to some of the most diverse pool-playing in Germany for over a century, hosting everything from professional teams and organisations to public pool halls with top players.
🎱 Cue tips: Berlin’s best billiard spots
Berlin’s Break
The pool scene in Berlin traces its roots back to the 19th century. Back in 1895, players Johann Trebar and Hugo Kerkau were competing in the old Reichstag building in Berlin for the national title in straight-rail carom billiards, a similar cue sport. This six-day competition ended in disappointment for Kerkau, but for his career – and the Berlin pool scene – it was just the beginning. Inspired to create his own space so he could practise whenever he wanted, Kerkau opened his eponymous café, Café Kerkau, later that year on Friedrichstraße in Mitte. It was home to over 40 tables and its own academy, and became one of the biggest pool halls in Europe.
After opening his café, Kerkau travelled to the US to challenge world-renowned players. When he returned to Berlin in 1897, he put up a message outside his pool hall, seeking challengers in order to determine the best player in Germany. He ended up taking on a man called Johann Woerz, and after a gruelling marathon that lasted more than 50 days, Kerkau finally won. After the all-consuming match, Woerz did as Kerkau had done and opened up a Billard hall of his own, Café Woerz, inside the famous Metropol theatre.
From there, the scene just kept growing. In 1913, Stuttgart native Erich Hagenlocher – who would later be a two-time world champion – moved to Berlin to be in the middle of all of the exciting developments taking place. Star players, exciting matches and now multiple famous salons had become a part of the city.
Hagenlocher trained with Robert Zielka, who went on to open the famous Café Zielka (later Moka Efti, best known nowadays for its appearance in the Babylon Berlin series) in 1926. Hagenlocher also played in the US for a stint, but by the time he returned to Germany, the Nazis had already torn much of Berlin apart and pushed pool hall owners, many of whom were Jewish, out. It wasn’t until several decades later that it started to recover.
In 1992, one of the first pool halls in the former East opened. Billardsalon Köh was a labour of renovation and spatial conception by founder Steffen Fuchs and his team. “At that time, I opened the salon directly above the Sophienclub, which I also ran. Together with my employees, I carried out most of the expansion myself”, Fuchs recalls. “Right from the start, we had the idea of using the style of English pubs as the main design feature and, in addition to being a Billard venue, to be above all a bar, salon and lounge.” This new style of pool hall in Berlin has proved a success, as Blliardsalon Köh remains a favourite spot for locals and a paragon of the long line of places that continue to drive the scene.
The Chalk Hasn’t Settled Yet
The way the pool scene is set up in Berlin, and in Germany, is different from many other countries. Germany loves its Vereine, or non-profit associations, almost as much as it loves its paperwork. Many of the professional pool players are associated with a Verein so that they can play more often and in a more competitive atmosphere. This is different from places like the US and UK, where sports are usually played in a strictly for-profit zone.
Patrick Baumann, founder of the popular BATA Bar and a competitive pool player himself, started playing pool in Berlin over 30 years ago. “When I started as teenager, it was mostly small clubs with one or two tables in the back room of a shady, smoky Kneipe in Neukölln, and then a couple of nice pool halls evolved and now the Vereine have much nicer pool halls than they used to have.” The scene changed in 2008 when there was a smoking ban put on bars not designated as such. “Before that, in pool halls there was always smoking, and with that law most pool halls became non-smoking places, and that changed the customer structure a little bit.”
Heiko Wagner, chairman of one of the best-known Billardvereine in Berlin, BFC Fortuna Berlin, agrees that the smoking ban changed the scene significantly. Rather than revolving around bar culture, pool is also played strictly as a sport by many, and the spectrum of spaces available in Berlin reflect that. “The sport of Billard emerged from the bar scene, and competition was between individual Kneipen who resisted the smoking ban in the early 2000s,” says Wagner.
The smoky Berlin bars were no longer the focus or the only option for players, and pool as a sport has been starkly separated from pool as a leisure time activity, even in the spaces the players frequent. “We now have a ban on alcohol in sports for players taking part in a game, as well as a ban on cell phones during ongoing games,” he adds. “That would be completely unthinkable and otherworldly in a pub atmosphere.”
Billardvereine not only attract much of the best talent, but most of them also have their own space dedicated to their members, who pay a monthly fee for access to the space and become eligible to be a member of the team. “Of the 21 member clubs registered in the Berlin Billard Association, 12 can now boast their own premises. I think this is very remarkable given the real estate situation in Berlin, and is often thanks to socially-minded landlords,” Wagner says.
BFC Fortuna Berlin, founded in 1977 and one of the city’s first pro pool clubs, was in its inception associated with a football club. Although somewhat bizarre that pool was so closely linked to football, this is an excellent example of what the Vereine stand for. “The development of the club was and is of course very much dependent on the enthusiasm and perseverance of its members and board members, as well as the fact that Billard could be established as a sport and no longer just existed as a pub game,” says Wagner.
“Until 2012, the club roamed around various venues in the southern part of the city before having to make a groundbreaking decision about its future in 2013, which it finally implemented with its own clubhouse. With eight nine-foot pool tables and two snooker tables, it is still the largest clubhouse in Berlin today,” Wagner adds. BFC Fortuna now boasts over 100 members, over 50 of which are registered players and who range in age from 11 and 84 years old.
BATA Bing!
Both in and outside of the Verein community, Berlin is host to many renowned players. Former German Champion André Lackner, a previous member of PBC Wedding, was the German straight pool champion in 2016 and 2017. Female Champion Veronika Halliday started playing professionally in 2003, and later became part of the German national team. She used to play for BFC Fortuna but has since transferred to PBC 77 Viktoria Berlin. But Berlin’s most well-known player by far is the world-renowned Ralph Eckert. As the 2004 world champion in trick shots, a previous long-time German national team player and a captain for the annual global tournament Mosconi Cup, Eckert currently lives in Berlin, and now gives professional lessons.
Eckert began his career in Mannheim. “In ‘82, my story was that I was walking into a newly opened Billard hall in [nearby] Ludwigshafen… it was one of the first Billard halls like this in Germany, more pool-related and more public. The owner was talking to me and I felt welcome. My uncle was a good player back then and I adored him.” Eckert became close with the owner, Mr Kim, who took him under his wing while other players thought he didn’t have what it takes.
The scene is growing, which not only means more competition, but ultimately higher levels of play.
“They said, ‘Look at this guy over there. Some people you can see that they will never make it in this game’, and he was pointing at me. And Mr Kim replied, ‘What is talent?’ He thought that I needed education and work ethic. [He said,] ‘I bet I can make a top player out of this kid.’” Eckert even wrote a book about it in 2010, The Final Freedom: Reflections of a Master Student. “He taught me many things that you learn from the game and can use it outside the Billard world.”
After moving to Berlin in 2015, Eckert did some scouting and found the location he would come to call his pool home. “I checked out the scene a little bit and I stumbled upon this BATA bar, which was just recently opened. I was talking to the owners and tried to come to an agreement: I become the official house pro here, which means they do a little advertising for me and I do a little for them by holding all of my official lessons there, and that worked very well for me and for them.”
Part of what makes BATA special is Baumann’s lifelong involvement in the scene. “The idea behind BATA was that I had spent so much time in pool halls and clubs all my life, and most of the time the pool halls weren’t very nice. So there was this love for the game, but the places where you could play were pretty shady – or just not very comfortable, too bright, the music was shitty. So my business partner and I, we thought about how we could improve on that experience,” Baumann explains. “The idea was to combine a classic pool hall with a nice Berlin bar vibe, and that’s what we did.” BATA opened in 2014 and has since added a second location at Alexanderplatz.
Hit Me With Your Next Shot
Today, chalking up a pool cue in Berlin is more popular than ever. “Berlin became way more international than it was 10 years ago, and with all of the people coming from the United States, the UK, India or the Middle East, pool and all cue games are so popular in these countries, and you can see that in Berlin. There are way more people in the city who really enjoy a nice game of pool,” says Baumann. The scene is growing, which not only means more competition, but ultimately higher levels of play.
Still, the community faces challenges: there’s very little media coverage of their tournaments, and they struggle amid the total bar-game-dominance of Kicker to be recognised as a sport. Baumann has also observed some changes in that area as of late: “There’s a promoter going around now called Matchroom Sport from the UK. They made snooker big, they made darts big, and a couple years ago, they started going into pool… this has created some kind of buzz.”
Not only does this additional coverage mean that pool is getting more exposure, it means people are coming to learn – and they’re staying. “We can see that there are more people coming who really want to learn how to play, and they’re not in this usual Verein structure. They’re just regulars coming, and they just saw it online or something, and they want to become better players.”
Heiko Wagner agrees. He thinks that part of what makes the Berlin pool scene stand out is “the relatively high number of opportunities to play Billard as a leisure activity” here in Berlin. “There’s something unique about the mass of offerings, spread across the entire city,” he says.
From the Kneipe to Verein, the Hauptstadt has it all. “Berlin was for me a winning spot, because it turned out that people really like the sport,” says Eckert. “I have clients not only from Berlin, but I found out that there are so many not [only] organised players, but [also] leisure time players, and they are also art directors, bank directors, theatre directors, conductors and so many interesting cultural people who would never play in an organised league, but they enjoy playing Billard.” People from all walks of life can come together to enjoy the game, exactly as they want to play it.
The pool scene, just like any other subculture here in Berlin, will inevitably be faced with the challenge of shrinking spaces as rents rise and the cost of living goes up. But it’s also clear that the community on all levels, from professional to casual and everything in between, is brought together by the love of the game. Hopefully the availability of affordable space can keep up!
