Cue sports: Three Jackson's magic number

Hawke's Bay's Bayden Jackson will aim for his third three-peat in five months in March. Photo / File

Bayden Jackson has earnt the Hawke's Bay snooker king tag in recent years.

But it will be no surprise if that label is changed to the Hawke's Bay three-peat king. Less than a month after winning his third consecutive Taradale Club Open Pairs Eight Ball title with Dean Garnett, Jackson, won his third consecutive Waikato Open snooker title at the weekend with a 3-1 victory against Taranaki's Chris Maltby in the final of the Hamilton Cosmopolitan Club-hosted event.

"I was pretty happy considering my national ranking has dropped to 20 because I didn't play in the national or North Island championships this year," Jackson explained.

The Ladz & Dadz Barber Shop barber in Havelock North, Jackson, recovered from a 2-0 deficit in his semifinal to beat the country's fifth ranked player, Aucklander Eamon Hill, 3-2. Jackson, 39, produced a 67 break in the deciding frame.

A former national and North Island snooker champion and last year's Clubs New Zealand national eightball champion, Jackson beat another former national snooker champion Chris McBreen of Auckland 3-0 in his quarter-final. This was his final tournament of the year and he will adopt his limited training policy he introduced earlier this year during the next two months.

"I discovered it was better for me to just turn up and play these days rather than train hard, so I will be kicking back and relaxing during the summer holidays," Jackson said.

A former England eightball representative, Jackson, is hoping that approach pays dividends when he attempts his third three-peat in five months when he tackles the Bay of Plenty Snooker Open in Mount Maunganui. Later in March the father-of-two will play in the Auckland-hosted Oceania snooker championships.

A runner-up in the June Heretaunga Classic in Hastings when beaten 4-2 by promising Aussie Kurt Brown, Jackson will be hoping he doesn't meet former national champion Steve Robertson of Waikato in post-section play in the Bay of Plenty event. Robertson beat Jackson in the semifinals of the Taranaki Open at Labour Weekend and left Hawke's Bay with the province's open snooker title , previously Jackson's in September.

Everything going to plan Jackson expects to improve his national snooker ranking next year, when both the June North Island championships and October nationals are hosted in the Bay. He has been based in Hawke's Bay since 2009, after arriving in New Zealand from England.

In 2011 Jackson became the first player to win the New Zealand Open and national snooker titles in the same year. Unlike some cueists Jackson finds it easy changing from eightball on the small tables to snooker on the full-sized tables.

Taking his recent record into account only brave gamblers would bet against him producing another three-peat in March.