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Pool Checkers Champion Momodou
Momodou Faal
- Born in Gambia, West Africa; Pool Checkers
Champion Momodou has lived in several American
cities such as New York, Atlanta and New
Orleans.
- Champion Momodou Faal came to the US
as an exchange student sometime in the
early 1970’s
and fell in love with American Pool Checkers,
and the checkers game took precedence over
his studies.
- Momodou and Elton Williams were the
main challengers against Carl Smith’s
dominance at the checkerboard in the 1980’s,
after the surprise retirement of Vladimir
Kaplan in 1979.
- One of Pool Checkers Champion Momodou's
most memorable conquests at the checkerboard
was his defeat of Elton Williams in Flint,
Michigan in the mid 1980’s, which
concluded with a final score of 3-0 for
Faal in a 14-games match.
- Momodou Faal played both International
checkers on the 100-square checker board
and regular American and Pool checkers
on the 64-square game board.
- Not many checkers players become proficient
in both styles, but end up choosing the
style that the player likes the best.
- In 1991 there was an International checkers
tournament in Jackson, Mississippi, which
brought together an assemblage of International
and American checkers players from across
the U.S. and the West Indies such as Iser
Kuperman, Vladimir Kaplan, Carl Smith,
and champion Momodou Faal as well as two
players from Haiti at the time living in
New York.
- This tournament would have been a contest
between Kuperman, Kaplan, Smith, and Momodou,
who had all played in the European International
checkers circuit at the Championship Grandmaster
level.
- Kuperman won the tournament, Momodou
finished in a tie with Vladimir Kaplan
for 2nd, and Carl "Buster" Smith
finished 4th, only two points behind the
leaders; the two Haitians players finished
5th and 6th and Charles ‘Pecan’ Thompson
placed 7th out of a field of thirteen champion
checkers players.
- Pool Checkers Champion Momodou placed 2nd with Kaplan because
Thompson and Kuperman in a final game of
the tournament played to a draw, giving
Kuperman first place.
- Momodou Faal won or tied for the APCA
championship in at least 3 years and placed
2nd and 3rd numerous times in approximate
15 years of tournament play.
- Momodou Faal died a tragic death while
traveling somewhere in Texas, but the details
have never been made clear; however, Pool
Checkers lost one of its strongest Grandmaster
players with Momodou Faal’s sudden
demise.
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