Như Lê wins first HBSF Tour 2 carom title, Minh Tài takes pool final in overtime set

When Nguyễn Nhất Hòa levelled the carom 3-cushion final at 34–34, the table had little room left for error. From that tie to the end, Nguyễn Như Lê scored 16 points, Nhất Hòa scored 3, and a ten-point run from Như Lê closed it out at 50–37 after 27 innings. His first gold medal on the HBSF Tour came from a match in which the winner did not lead until the second half.

I sat through all six days of Tour 2 HBSF Cup MIN Table 2026 to log every inning. No official statistics sheet was handed to the press. Every number below was counted by me from the scoreboard at the venue. I do not hunt news. I hunt the silence between two interview answers.

The stage and the prize structure

Tour 2 HBSF Cup MIN Table 2026 is organised by the Ho Chi Minh City Billiards & Snooker Federation, runs for six days, and folds two disciplines into one event: carom 3-cushion played to 50 points by innings, and pool played by sets. Both finals took place on the afternoon of September 12.

The prize structure reveals the tier of the event faster than any press release. Carom: champion 70 million VND, runner-up 30 million, joint bronze 10 million, Top-8 and Best Game & Outstanding Series 5 million each, Top-16 receiving 2 million. Pool: champion 60 million, runner-up 30 million, joint bronze 10 million, Top-8 receiving 3 million. Converted at roughly 25,400 VND to the US dollar, the carom title is worth about 2,750 USD and the pool title about 2,360 USD.

Those are semi-professional domestic tour figures, and they determine how I read the event: a system-building stage at grassroots level, where the symbolic value of a title outweighs its cash value.

Gaps in the rulebook

Invisible contracts only surface when you count each number instead of listening to each promise. Here, that contract is the tournament rulebook, and it has a few blanks.

The overtime rule for the pool discipline is not clearly described in the data I gathered. The pool final result: Lim Leng won Set 1 at 4–2, Nguyễn Hoàng Minh Tài won Set 2 at 4–1, then won the overtime set 2–0, for an overall 4–3. How a 4–3 total is calculated when three sets are played under a race-to-4 format is an ambiguous point. With no written rulebook, viewers are left to guess, and guessing is something I keep out of the piece.

Another gap concerns duration. Carom matches are not governed by a clock but by innings. The semifinal between Như Lê and Nguyễn Văn Tùng Em stretched to 47 innings for 50 points, an average of 1.06 points per inning for the winner. The other semifinal, between Nhất Hòa and Chiêm Hồng Thái, took only 33 innings, an average of 1.52. Two matches in the same round, the same target score, fourteen innings apart.

What actually happened on the carom table

In the semifinals, Như Lê was the slowest scorer among the last four: 1.06 points per inning. In the final, he reached 1.85, the highest of any match recorded. Nhất Hòa travelled the opposite arc: 1.52 in the semifinal, 1.37 in the final.

Three numbers — 1.06 in the semifinal, 1.85 in the final, and 16 against 3 down the closing stretch — are enough to break a newly forming story that Nhất Hòa is the more consistent player. With a sample of two matches, I will not conclude that Như Lê simply caught fire on the big night. But I will not skip the detail either, because it reflects what a scoreboard cannot say: the ability to choose the moment.

The final had a clear structure. Nhất Hòa started better, leading 13–5 and then 27–21 at halfway, before Như Lê moved ahead 31–28. Nhất Hòa levelled at 34–34. What followed was 16 points for Như Lê and 3 for Nhất Hòa. Nhất Hòa hunts points well in the first half, but the second half belonged to the man who held his rhythm.

Nhất Hòa's nickname, the bonus hunter, fits the data: he reached the final and cashed a prize. But it also sets a ceiling. A bonus hunter is not necessarily the man who shuts the match down.

The pool table and its swings of momentum

In pool, Lim Leng started better, taking Set 1 at 4–2. Minh Tài answered with Set 2 at 4–1, then took the overtime set 2–0. The final result, 4–3, went Minh Tài's way.

The point of interest lies in the two players' records. Minh Tài is a former national champion and has just claimed his third HBSF Tour title. Lim Leng has now reached the final three times in a row. One has won repeatedly; the other keeps arriving at finals without a title appearing in the data I collected.

That pattern — consistent finalist, low conversion — is the kind of record the media rarely writes about, yet it is what determines the career value of a cueist. Reaching three consecutive finals is not luck. It is a skill, and it deserves to be counted.

The contrarian angle: the name does not match the data

The tournament's popular label has sometimes been inflated into a Vietnam billiards World Cup. The data does not support that framing.

Reported match averages range from 0.94 to 1.85 points per inning. Leading cueists in the World Cup system of the World Billiards Federation typically sustain 2.0 points per inning or more at major events. The gap between 1.85 and 2.0 is small as a figure, but it marks the boundary between a cueist who wins a domestic tour and one who holds a place on the international stage.

The prize structure says the same thing: the event pays more for reaching the tour than for winning it. Top-16 receives 2 million VND, roughly 79 USD. A flat structure like that makes sense for sustaining a wide player base, but it leaves the champion's title with more symbolic than material weight.

Here lies the biggest blind spot in the story as told: Lim Leng, with three consecutive finals, was pushed to the last paragraph, while Như Lê's first title was chosen as the headline. The editorial logic is clear — a first-time champion sells more. But anyone following the long arc will see that Lim Leng's story deserves a piece of its own.

Looking ahead

HBSF Final Tour 2026 runs from December 16 to 20 at Rạch Miễu Sports Hall, Ho Chi Minh City, the closing stop of the season.

Three things I will be counting there. Whether Như Lê can hold 1.85 points per inning, or whether the final was simply one fine afternoon. Whether Nhất Hòa can fix his second half, since he has already proved his first half is sound. And whether Lim Leng can turn a fourth final into what the previous three left on the table.

The scoreboard is billiards' only proof of infidelity, and it speaks only when someone sits down to count.