Emily Duddy grew up at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43, where her dad ran events for 35 years and she learned to play on a gorgeous antique nine-foot Brunswick surrounded by veterans. She sat through 15 minutes of college classes at UC Santa Cruz before disappearing to play pool for eight hours a day, took fourth in her first tournament at 18, and sold everything she owned at 23 to move to New York City and go pro. Now a WPBA veteran with 15+ world championship appearances for Team USA, 2010 Rookie of the Year, and a newly certified PBIA instructor, she's playing the best pool of her career. We discuss why your pre-shot routine matters more than your mental game, her "100%" commitment mantra before every shot, the three-second photo finish freeze, why she tells her students to embrace the suck, what she learned managing Jeanette Lee's social media, and how nutrition and energy management separate pros from everyone else.

Find Emily at EmilyDuddy.com or follow @BilliardBombshell on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube

Eric Naretto found pool at seven years old on a bumper pool table at the Lake of the Ozarks and spent the next decade chasing the feeling until a Jeanette Lee trick shot on ESPN sent him to Kmart for a $25 titanium cue with a screw-on tip. A mentor named George Sweitzer, who couldn't execute the shots he taught, changed Eric's life and inspired him to dedicate his career to billiards education. Now a PBIA Master Instructor, ACS Level 4 Instructor, and 2025 ACS Outstanding Instructor of the Year, Eric runs the G1 Billiards Academy in Illinois where he's building a program to train the next generation of instructors. We discuss why the best teachers aren't always the best players, his "three middles of the table" strategy for position play, the metronome concept for stroke speed control, why he starts with upper body instead of footwork, and the emotional story of winning a state championship for the man who taught him everything.Find Eric on Facebook or visit academy.g1billiards.com.

Tanner Pruess grew up a third-generation pool player in South Dakota, watching his dad get paid in crispy new $100 bills at a smoky 1996 state tournament while Eric Clapton played on the jukebox. By 16, he was glued to a livestream of Wu Jia-qing's legendary comeback at the World Nine Ball Championships, and that moment shaped everything that followed. Now a two-time VNEA world singles champion, five-time state champion, and PBIA Advanced Instructor, Tanner has built a reputation for transforming recreational players into legitimate competitors. We discuss the "league player shuffle" mistake killing your consistency, why you should always listen to that voice telling you something's off, his system for consistent warm-up strokes and the pause that separates amateurs from pros, and the student who went from C-level to double-A and became "Uncle Mike" to his family.Find Tanner at poolconfidence.com or connect with him on Facebook.