Johann Scherz

Johann Scherz
Personal details
birthday	July 3, 1932
place of birth	Vienna
date of death	September 23, 2004
Place of death	Vienna
nationality	Austria
Nickname (s)	Scherz-Hans'l
Active time	approx. 1950–1985
Achievements Unless otherwise stated, the information relates to the “three cushion” discipline.
World Championships:
1 × Cadre 71/2 • 1965, Huelva ,
Continental Championships:
2 × three-cushion • 1961, Trieste , • 1968, Cannes ,
Other tournaments:
92 × Austrian national champion
Societies)
BSK Union

Johann Scherz (born July 3, 1932 in Vienna ; † September 23, 2004 there ) was an Austrian carambola player and world champion.

Private

Hans'l, as he was also called, was a real Viennese child from Ottakring. His father, who had a legendary reputation as "Kraftlackl" (muscle man) and straightened his bent iron bars in the vaudeville as an assistant to the "strongest man in the world", gave him the portion of artist's blood that made him one of the most popular Show people in the amateurs billiards circus . Scherz loved his sport and put it on display. Nobody accused him of arrogance or arrogance; on the contrary, his modesty was both disarming and superior. For him, billiards was self-realization, his language was not that of a coach, but that of a fascinated person.

On January 30, 1952, he became a member of the BSK Union and remained so until his death. He was married to Gerti, who supported her husband's career through her tolerance and commitment.

Johann Scherz was one of the best carambola players in the world for almost three decades. He won a total of 92 national titles, two European titles and one world title.

From November 4 to 24, 1966, Scherz, Ceulemans and Schulte were invited to Japan for exhibition fights. The later world champion Nobuaki Kobayashi had a three-hour teaching or learning film cut together.

Career

In 1952, when he was just 20 years old, he won the 2nd class cover on the small board for the first time . In 1953 he accompanied the then most successful Austrian player, Ernst Reicher , to the Cadre 71/2 European Championship in Viersen , in order to get a taste of the first international tournament air and at the same time observe top European players. In the same year he took part for the first time in the Austrian State Championship in Three Cushion (ÖSD) and was third, in 1954 and 1955 Zwieter and in 1956 for the first time winner. He would win this title a total of 28 times by 1987. His last participation in the ÖSD was in 1996, 64 years and a silver medal. In 1954 he won his first title of state champion in a binding. His first top places at European level was the third place in the three-band European Championship in 1957. Only a year later he was in Cannes European title in the three-band before the world champions August Tiedtke and René Vingerhoedt win and managed 13 points a new series world record. The game was even broadcast on the then young medium of television. The camera work and technology are reminiscent of the old days of cinema: Balls close up looked like medicine balls , from a distance they were recorded as marbles . In 1959 he made it to the final at the single-binding European Championship , but lost there against the Belgian René Vingerhoedt. In 1960 he improved the world record in the three-band individual average to 1.363. In the same year he was last at the Austrian State Championship three cushion - despite the best general average (GD). His opponents Franz Engl, Ernst Reicher and Heinrich Weingartner nevertheless agreed to send him to the EM in Trieste next year . There he was able to win his second three-cushion European title, ahead of the Dutchman Henry de Ruyter and the later 23-time record winner Raymond Ceulemans from Belgium. In 1963 he expanded his collection of medals. He won silver at the three- cushion European and World Championships and set a new BED European record of 11.11 when he won the single -cover European championship in Lisbon .

After 1961 he was eleven times in the final of the three-cushion European Championship (1962 to 1966, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1978, 1980 and 1982), but always lost to series winner Ceulemans. In 1963 he was runner-up in the three-cushion world championship . What he did not succeed in either the cover or the three volume, Scherz was finally to achieve in 1965 in Huelva, Spain in Cadre 71/2 : the longed-for world championship title, it should remain his only one. In the final against local hero José Gálvez he tore the penultimate point, the bitter orange from what he did not notice. Siegfried Spielmann, a German player, saw this and called to him: “Johann, your bitter orange is over.” Joke did not hear the message and he won the match without the bitter orange. In the same year he was also runner-up in the three-cushion world championship.

Until the beginning of the 1980s he still achieved many top placements at World and European Championships, but without winning another title.

Swell:

successes

• Cadre 71/2 World Championship : 1965 1966, 1968
• Three-cushion world championship : 1963, 1965 1968, 1970, 1981
• Binding World Championship : 1968, 1978
• Three-cushion European Championship : 1961, 1968, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 (2 ×), 1968, 1970, 1971, 1979, 1980, 1982 1957, 1967, 1969, 1976, 1977
• Single-cover European Championship : 1959, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1976, 1967, 1975
• Cadre 71/2 European Championship : 1965, 1968

• European pentathlon championships for national teams : 1977, 1985
• Austrian state championship three cushion : 28 × 1954, 1955, 1963/2, 1988, 1996/2 1953, 1989/1
• Austrian state championships in total: 92 × in different disciplines

World (WR) and European (ER) records

• WR: Maximum series (HS) 13 (1958, three-cushion); BED 1,363 (1960, three- cushion World Cup)
• ER: HS 10 (1958, three-volume), BED 11.11 (1963, single-volume EM)

Swell:

Web links

Commons : Johann Scherz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Johann Scherz - moest zijn wereldtitel "in het hol van de leeuw" veroveren (Dutch) ( Memento from June 16, 2019 in the Internet Archive )
• Johann Scherz, to Austrian wonderboy in three cushion ( Memento from November 5, 2019 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Johann Scherz biography. BSK Union Vienna, 1982, archived from the original on November 10, 2012 ; Retrieved November 4, 2012 . 
2. ^ Heinrich Weingartner: 80 Years of Billiards Sports Association Austria: 1931–2011 . Ed .: BSVÖ. Weingartner Verlag, Vienna 2011, OCLC 760133467 , p. 92 .
3. ^ ^{A b} Dieter Haase, Heinrich Weingartner: Encyclopedia of Billiards . 1st edition. tape 2 . Verlag Heinrich Weingartner, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-200-01489-3 , p. 812-823 .
4. ^ Heinrich Weingartner : 80 Years of Billiards Sports Association Austria: 1931–2011 . Ed .: BSVÖ. Weingartner Verlag, Vienna 2011, OCLC 760133467 , p. 18-55 .
5. ↑ Achievements on Kozoom.com. Retrieved November 10, 2012.
6. ^ Dieter Haase, Heinrich Weingartner : Encyclopedia of Billiards . 1st edition. tape 2 . Verlag Heinrich Weingartner, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-200-01489-3 , p. 1011-1045 .