IPT Open Continues: Filipinos Dominate; Fisher’s Perfect While Most Women Falter
The IPT’s North American 8-Ball Open is shaping up to be the Philippines 8-Ball Smackdown.
The Filipino contingent flew their flag high and often on Monday — the second day of the history-making, $2 million event — as six Pinoy shooters scored perfect 4-0 records in round-robin play: Efren Reyes, Alex Pagulayan, Francisco Bustamante, Marlon Manalo, Dennis Orcollo and Ronato Alcano.
Joining the ranks of the undefeated was Brit snooker and 9-ball superstar Allison Fisher, who steamed through a fairly soft bracket to qualify for the next round of play. However, she was one of only two women of the 15 female tour members to score a winning record, and one of only four to advance. The U.K.’s Sarah Ellerby had the other winning record, 3-1.
Top female pros making early exits Monday included Ireland’s Karen Corr, who went 1-3 in a particularly tough draw; the U.K.’s Kelly Fisher, 1-3; Helena Thornfeldt of Sweden, 0-4; and American Monica Webb, 0-4.
Play on Monday centered on the second set of 100 competitors in the 200-player field, divied up into 20 groups of five. The top three in each group advanced to today’s round, featuring the remaining 120 players, parsed into 20 groups of six.
The 80 eliminated players from the first round will settle for $2,000 each. The winner of the event will pocket a record $350,000.
Here’s a brief wrap-up of Monday’s highlights:
• One of the biggest surprises of the Open so far is the number of players who qualified for the event — those not among the 150 regular IPT tour members — who are posting undefeated records. These surprise contenders from Monday’s play include Dutchman Rico Diks; England’s Karl Boyes; and Anthony Ginn of Australia.
• Keith Bennett, a 27-year-old house pro at Breaktime Billiards in Wilmington, N.C., who made it into the Open as alternate after Hall-of-Famer Jim Rempe bowed out, posted a 4-0 record in the first-round on Monday.
• The four women to advance to Tuesday’s matches in the round-of-120 were Allison Fisher, 4-0; the U.K.’s Sarah Ellerby, 3-1; Hall-of-Famer Loree Jon Jones (U.S.), 2-2; and Austria’s Gerda Hofstatter, who managed to limp into the next round with a 1-3 record when her games-won percentage topped two other players in her group with the same record (Ed Kelly and Jim Weast, both of the U.S.; Hofstatter’s games-won percentage was in fact just 1 percent higher than Weast’s).
• Beyond the Filipinos, who were expected to do well, several favorites sent messages to the field that they were not to be underestimated. Also posting 4-0 records were well-regarded Americans Johnny Archer and Shannon Daulton, and Germany’s Oliver Ortmann.
San Miguel Asian 9-Ball Event Underway
The 2006 San Miguel Beer Asian 9-Ball tour begins today, May 5, at the Nguyen Du Sports Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The field is divided into eight groups. Using a round-robin format, race-to-9, with alternating breaks, the winner of each group will advance to the quarterfinals. Filipino top seeds include Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan in group one, rising star “Marvelous” Marlon Manalo heading group three, Francisco “Django” Bustamante heading group four, and Efren “Bata” Reyes in group five.
Last year’s overall champion, the sensational Taiwanese Yang Ching-Shun, is the first seed in group eight, veteran Fong Pang Chao heads group seven and last year’s World Pool Champion, teenage sensation Wu Chia Ching has been listed No. 1 in group two. The fourth player Taiwanese player is Wang Huang Hsiang.
The only outsider who earned a top-seed ranking was Malaysia’s Patrick Ooi, who is heading group six. Four players will represent the host nation, Vietnam, led by Nguyen Thanh Nam and including Luong Chi Dong, Vu Trong Khai and Nguyen Phuong Thao.
Japan’s lone entry is Masaaki Tanaka. Hong Kong will be represented by Au Chi Wai. Korea’s entry is Jeong Young-Hwa who was runner-up to Reyes in Taipei in 2004. Other entries are Xu Meng and Li He-Wen of China, Nurdin Abuba and Imran Ibrahim of Indonesia, Sundeep Gulati of India, Chan Keng-Kwang of Singapore, Tepwin Arunnath and Amnuayporn Chotipong of Thailand.
It’s Sigel vs. Reyes for King of the Hill!
In a dream match-up for pool fans, Hall-of-Famers Efren Reyes and Mike Sigel will meet in the finals of the International Pool Tour’s King of the Hill event on Sunday afternoon, playing for the biggest payday in the history of billiards.
Forty-two of the world’s best cue artists started play on Nov. 30 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. After four rounds of round-robin 8-ball play, Reyes emerged as the victor and earned a shot at Sigel and the $200,000 first-prize in the finals.
“This is the match that everyone of the planet wants to see,” said Sigel. “It’s classic. Half the people in the world think that he’s the greatest player, the other half think I’m the greatest player.”
In a typical gut-check performance for the legendary cue wizard, Reyes came back from a 4-0 deficit in a must-win match against fellow Filipino Marlon Manalo to win eight straight games and earn his berth against Sigel, 8-4.
“I’m coming after you – you wait for me!” Reyes said, after repeated promptings from the video production staff at the King of the Hill to say something for the cameras that sounded like he was taunting Sigel.
“I think it will be a very good match,” Reyes continued. “I haven’t played Mike Sigel in 10 years. He has a better record [against me]. Whoever gets the first break and breaks good may win it.”
Just six players were left standing for the final round-robin stage on Saturday, and, perhaps to no one’s surprise, three were ball-control mavens from the Philippines: Reyes, Manalo, and Francisco Bustamante. Perhaps the biggest surprise survivor was Hall-of-Famer Nick Varner, who underwent major heart-related surgery less than two years ago. The six were rounded out by Finland’s Mika Immonen and America’s Johnny Archer.
The Filipinos quickly took over the bracket, and going into the fifth and final match of the last round-robin, each Pinoy player had a record of 3-1. When Bustamante lost badly to Immonen to fall to 3-2, it was announced to the crowd and the players that the winner of the Reyes-Manalo match, which was still in progress, would meet Sigel in Sunday’s final.
It was a wild match to begin with, as Manalo took a quick 4-0 lead. Reyes began to mount a comeback, and the score was 4-2 when play was forced to stop for 20 minutes after an incredible and embarrassing gaffe by the match’s referee. Reyes had run out all the solids and had a clear shot on the 8, and decided to return to his chair for a moment before taking the shot. Evidently not paying attention, the referee absent-mindedly cleared the balls from the table before Reyes returned. Fortunately, each match at the King of the Hill was being videotaped, so the production crew soon was able to cue up a portion of the tape with the correct layout. After officials reset the balls, Reyes promptly sank the 8.
Soon, he was celebrating his big comeback and the potential to take home $200,000 from Sunday’s match. The runner-up will receive $100,000.
Sigel told BD that he was concerned with Reyes’ stellar record in high-pressure situations. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Reyes holds the current record for most money won in a pool match: $160,000 for a Japanese event several years ago.
Irrepressible Pagulayan Wins Second Major in All-Filipino U.S. Open Final
Alex Pagulayan ran undefeated through a 256-man field to win the 30th Annual U.S. Open 9-Ball Championships, which this year could well have been called “The Philippine Open” after placing three Filipinos in the top three spots.
“A win is a win is a win,” an ebullient Pagulayan said after beating Jose Parica in an error-filled final, 11-6. Parica had knocked Francisco Bustamante out of the running in the losers’-bracket final, 11-10.
Pagulayan first beat Parica in the winners’-bracket final, 11-6, and then earned the $40,000 top prize by taking advantage of a Parica miss on the 4 in the 17th rack of the finals. It was a dream come true for the tiny Canadian-by-way-of-the-Philippines, and his second major title after winning the 2004 World Pool Championship.
“The only dream I have left is to grow another two inches – either taller or the other way, I don’t care,” the irrepressible Clown Prince of Pool joked.
It was a bittersweet win for a couple reasons. Parica failed again to take the title after reaching the semis of the U.S. Open several times, and the finals at least twice. And Pagulayan, perhaps the most talented player of his generation, said after the event that he has all but forsaken mainstream U.S. pool events for poker – both tournament play and online gaming.
“The money is terrible,” he said, echoing a longtime lament of many top pool pros. “I can make a lot more playing poker.” For the time being, Pagulayan expected only to compete in the States at the Derby City Classic and U.S. Open.
Upsets Galore at U.S. Open as Former Champs Drop to One-Loss Bracket
The giants all fell from the winners’ bracket on Friday night at the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship in Chesapeake, Va., as Johnny Archer, Francisco Bustamante, Efren Reyes, Ralf Souquet, Niels Feijen and Jeremy Jones dropped to the one-loss side in the same round of matches.
The carnage started at 9 p.m. Friday with Filipinos Alex Pagulayan and Francisco Bustamante lagging on the TV table. The wily Pagulayan jumped to a quick 5-0 lead, allowing his foe near the table only once – and that was for a push. Regaining his world-beating form after two years of ho-hum play, the resurgent Bustamante rocketed back to take the lead at 9-8, but a hung 4 ball in the 18th rack brought Pagulayan back to the table, where he ran out and then ran the next two racks for an 11-9 victory.
“At the end I got lucky with the 4 ball,” Pagulayan said. “That was the key to the match. I was thinking when it was 8-8, just give me one more chance.”
On the next table over, Filipino expatriate Jose Parica kept one step ahead of countryman and longtime rival Reyes to win, 11-9. Reyes was joined soon on the one-loss side by several other former Open champions: Johnny Archer fell to Troy Frank, 11-6; Jeremy Jones lost to Andreas Roschkowsky, 11-9; and Ralf Souquet dropped a hill-hill slugfest with upstart Sylver Ochoa, 11-10.
This was all in the same round, mind you, and all within an hour of each other. Other significant winners’-bracket results from the 9 p.m. round included Nick Van den Berg smashing Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant, 11-4; Viet Nam native Tang Hoa elbowing Holland’s Feijen, 11-8; and Charlie Williams halting Ernesto Dominguez.
That left eight men still in the winners’ bracket, and dozens left to brave the extraordinarily deep one-loss bracket in this field-of-256 competition with a $200,000 prize fund. At 3 p.m. EST, Tang will play Roschkowsky, Pagulayan will face Frank, Van den Berg will meet Parica, and Williams will lag against Ochoa.
U.S. Open Field Down to Half
Ochoa’s play is turning some heads.
Reno Open winner Marlon Manalo and 2003 BCA 9-ball Open titlist Tony Robles found themselves slugging it out deep in the one-loss bracket on Friday afternoon. Nearby, major event winners Marcus Chamat and Mike Davis faced off as red-hot Robb Saez and 2004 BCA champion Thorsten Hohmann battled for survival in the one-loss bracket.
Playing on diamond tables with 4 1/2 inch pockets and an absolutely unforgiving cut the finesse players and most experienced pros seemed to have an edge.
“You aren’t seeing a lot of guys breaking and running out,” said pro Tony Crosby.
Among the 16 players left in the winners’ bracket was Efren Reyes, who dropped defending U.S. Open champ Gabe Owen to the one-loss side, 11-8 on Thursday night. Reyes will meet Filipino countryman Jose Parica on Friday night. After a weak showing at the World Pool Championships, the Filipino contingent is performing quite well here; Alex Pagulayan and a resurgent Francisco Bustamante will meet in a winners’-bracket match on Friday night as well.
So far, the surprise of the tournament is young Sylver Ochoa, 19, a college sophomore at Texas-Pan American and a mainstay on the Fast Eddie’s regional tour. Ochoa beat Keith McCready Thursday night, 11-8, to stay undefeated. He will face Ralf Souquet on Friday night in a winners’-bracket match.
The sixteen players now left in the winners’ bracket are:
Nick Van den Berg, Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant, Jose Parica, Efren Reyes, Ernesto Dominguez, Charlie Williams, Ralf Souquet, Sylver Ochoa, Tang Hoa, Niels Feijen, Andreas Roschkowsky, Jeremy Jones, Alex Pagulayan, Francisco Bustamante, Johnny Archer and Troy Frank.
U.S. Open Update!
Gabe Owen is the defending champ.
But many favorites are still undefeated after two rounds, including Efren Reyes and John Schmidt (who play each other today), as well as former U.S. Open Champs Johnny Archer and Francisco Bustamante and defending champ Gabe Owen.
Deuel wins UPA Championship
Corey Deuel completed an undefeated run to win the UPA Pro Tour Championship at the Bicycle Club in Bellflower California this weekend.
Deuel, known as the master of the soft break, was working that break to perfection all weekend and had wins over Charlie Williams, Mika Immonen and Efren Reyes before a 7-5 win over Danny Basavich for the hot-seat.
On the one-loss side, Basavich eliminated US Open Champion Gabe Owen 7-3 and forced Owen to settle for third place.
The finals were one race to seven on the ESPN table, and it went all the way to hill-hill before Corey put it away.
Deuel earned $10,000 for first place, while Basavich settled for $5000 in second place prize money. Owen and Efren Reyes filled out the top four places.
Complete Results:
1st Corey Deuel $10,000
2nd Danny Basavich $5,000
3rd Gabe Owen $4,000
4th Efren Reyes $3,000
5th/6th Rodney Morris, Mika Immonen $2,400
7th/8th Ralf Souquet, Santos Sambajon $1,850
9th/12th Frankie Hernandez, Mike Davis, Paul Potier, Troy Frank $1,350
13th/16th Francisco Bustamante, Johnny Archer, Tony Robles, Rodolfo Luat $900
17th/24th Charlie Williams, Neil Fujiwara, Bill Ferguson, Danny Kuykendall, Dave Hemmah, Max Eberle, Robb Saez, Charlie Bryant $400