One Pocket Hall of Fame

Ronnie 'Fast Eddie' Allen
Artie Bodendorfer
Jack 'Jersey Red' Breit
Melvin 'Strawberry' Brooks
Billy 'Cornbread Red' Burge
Marshall 'Squirrel' Carpenter
Steve Cook
Danny Di Liberto
John 'Rags' Fitzpatrick
Jimmy Fusco
Billy Incardona
The Jansco Brothers
Larry 'Boston Shorty' Johnson
Ed 'Champagne Eddie' Kelly
Hayden Lingo
Grady 'Professor' Mathews
Efren 'Bata' Reyes
Leonard 'Bugs' Rucker
Bill 'Weenie Beenie' Staton
Eddie 'Knoxville Bear' Taylor
Nick Varner

Groups Announced For IPT World Open Championships

The International Pool Tour announces the official player groupings for the IPT World Open 8-Ball Championship. The tournament starts Sunday, September 3, 2006 at 10am in Reno, Nevada at the Grand Sierra Resort.

This historic event boasts the biggest prize fund in the history of the sport. $3,000,000 is the total prize purse, and the winner of the tournament will win an historic $500,000!

Here are the official groupings:

Group 4:

Efren, Reyes
Heuwagen, Lee
Hofstatter, Gerda
Bulunmaz, Oezer
LeBron, Mike

Filipinos excel in Billiards

Philippines have become the first ever winners of the PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool. The Filipino pairing of Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante claimed the trophy and top prize of $60,000 (about £32,000) with a 13-5 victory against USA in front of a crowd of more than 800 people.

A delighted Bustamante said: “This is a very important tournament and we are happy and very proud to win the first World Cup. In the beginning of the match there was a lot of pressure on us but when we went three games ahead it all lifted.

“Efren played lots of unbelievable shots - some of them I’ve never seen in my life - and that’s why we won. When he plays perfect and I play well we knew we had a great chance and it’s a great feeling to be World Cup of Pool champions.”

Reyes added: “It’s funny that every time there is a new big tournament I win it but all week I thought if we could get to the final then we could win.

“The USA are a good team but they were unlucky and that made it easy for us. The support of the fans was brilliant, they’ve come from all over Britain and have looked after us all week.”

The tournament ended in poor fashion for the Americans and Morris summed up how he and Strickland were feeling.

“That was pretty disappointing,” said Morris. “After 4-4 it didn’t go our way although the match was closer than the score suggested. But when it went to 7-4 we were both pretty deflated and felt it slipping away.

“We never really got a clear shot off the break and it was a tough hill to climb but they played great – the way they were supposed to so congratulations to them.”

The majority of the spectators at the Newport Centre were cheering on number one seeds Philippines and they had an early chance to go in front as they won the lag.

Reyes was soon forced to play safe on the 1-ball but Morris scratched on the next shot to give Philippines ball in hand as they soon moved into a 1-0 lead.

It quickly became 3-0 when Strickland scratched on his break in the second before Philippines broke and ran in the third. The tournament had seen a large number of fightbacks and the final was no exception as USA, who were seeded three, then took the next three to square the match.

They broke and ran in the fourth and sixth racks while USA took advantage of a rare Reyes miss, when he failed to sink the orange five, to claim the fifth. But Philippines won two of the next three to edge 5-4 in front in what was a top-class encounter, being played in a passionate atmosphere.

The turning point of the match came in the tenth rack when a mistake by Morris saw him leave the 1-ball hanging over the pocket as the score moved to 6-4.

With the alternate break format, it was always going to be a tough task for America to fight their way back into the match again but with the crowd against them and the Filipino duo in top form it became a near-impossible mission.

The Philippines' lead was restored to three again after a fine safety from Bustamante forced an error from their opponents before a stunning kick-shot on the brown seven by Reyes helped make it 8-4.

Bata then infuriated Strickland by playing a shot one-handed but the plan worked as Morris’ next shot missed with the 1-ball in open play and it was 9-4.

The Americans were rattled and when Morris scratched in the next Philippines were closing in on the title with a comfortable 10-4 lead. They won the next and even though USA finally ended the Filipino duo’s run of seven successive racks, it had no effect on the outcome.

With Strickland becoming more and more agitated by the partisan crowd, mistakes were drifting into the Americans’ play and, to the majority of the spectators’ delight, Philippines took the next two racks to become World Champions.

Who's Hot and who's not? Knockout draw

As Cardiff recorded the highest temperatures in the United Kingdom, several stars of the blue baize were wilting in the heat on Judgement Day.

Former world champion Nick Varner was one of several American casualties. The Hall of Fame inductee threw away a 4-1 lead over Antonio Lining and with it went his chances of qualifying for the Last 64. He'll be joined on the plane home to America by Charlie Williams, who never showed in Group 5.

Johnny Archer and Earl Strickland left it to the last minute to scrape through their groups. Archer started his campaign with three losses but came with a late run on the rails and Strickland, the defending champion, needed just one win out of three matches on the final day, but lost the first two, putting himself under pressure to win the last, which he did.

The Filipino players will be well represented in the knock out draw. Efren Reyes leads the way with a perfect record of seven wins, with 35 racks won and only 18 lost. Reyes' record is only better by Canada's Alex Pagulayan who lost only 14 racks. Marlon Manalo, better known as a snooker star also notched seven straight wins, for the loss of 21 racks and the fourth player with a perfect record was Ralf Souquet, who also lost 21 racks.

Qualifiers: Draw

Group 1: Ying-Chief Chen, Jorge Llanos, Earl Strickland, Mark Williams
Group 2: Francisco Bustamente, Thomas Engert, Evgeny Stalev, Raymond Cruz
Group 3: Ralf Souquet, Max Eberle, Fabio Petroni, Alex Lely
Group 4: Efren Reyes, Sin-Young Park, Roxton Chapman, John Horsfall
Group 5: Marlon Manalo, Mika Immonen, Haruyoshi Hinokiyama, Pascal Budo
Group 6: Akikumo Toshikawa, Ching-Shun Yang, Teddy Garrahan, Mukesh Rehani
Group 7: Hui-Kai Hsia, Rico Diks, Sten Jarledal, Johnny Archer
Group 8: Satoshi Kawabata, Niels Feijen, Steve Knight, Ernesto Dominguez
Group 9: Steve Davis, Ramil Gallego, Warren Kiamco, Tony Drago
Group 10: Lee Vann Corteza, Cory Deuel, Young-Hwa Jeong, Kevin Smith
Group 11: Alex Pagulayan, Tommy Donlon, Danny Harriman, Shintao Sugaya
Group 12: Hiroshi Takenaka, Che-Wei Fu, Oliver Ortmann, Niclas Bergendorff