Chat on pool

	Francisco Bustamante (left) and Efren "Bata" Reyes

IT'S EASY to be smitten by the game of pool. It's simply entrancing on television especially when Filipinos display their craft on the world stage. Americans may have invented the sport but it is the Pinoys who have made pool beautiful. Filipinos play pool the way Brazilians play football. In the recent World Pool Championships in Cardiff, Wales, Filipinos were revered for their genius and shot-making prowess. Definitely we have to give credit where credit is due to our purveyors of brilliance - Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante. But Reyes and Bustamante weren't the only cue artists who impressed everyone in Cardiff. The whole Philippine contingent did and fully deserved all the praises and commendations bestowed on them by the pool world.

Unlike in the previous Cardiff championships, the country had more entries to carry our flag - Reyes, Bustamante, Leonardo "Dodong" Andam, Rodolfo "Boy Samson" Luat, Antonio Lining, Warren Kiamco, Lee Van Corteza, Ramil Gallego and Dennis Orcollo. Except for Luat who had to go through the qualifying stage, the other eight were automatically part of the 128-player main draw. One innovation in the preliminary rounds was the alternate breaks format, a change from the winner breaks format of preceding years. Just like last year, the preliminary rounds were still race to five racks and the 128 players were divided into 16 brackets so each player had to play seven matches to determine the composition of the 64 players who would advance to the knock-out stages.

Past quarterfinalists Luat and Andam, unfortunately, were grouped together in the round robin portion. They had to play each other to either bolster or ruin one or the other's chances to qualify for the round of 64 or the match could also be a dead rubber if both were already qualified. But since Andam managed only three wins to Luat's four, the latter's win against Andam (5-2) secured the 2000 quarterfinalist a slot in the knock-out rounds.

Hence only Andam missed the boat whilst the others cruised freely in their brackets and were highly-seeded in the last 64 (race to nine racks, winner breaks) - (8)Lining, (9) Bustamante, (11) Corteza, (15) Gallego, (16) Orcollo, (17) Reyes, (29) Luat and (30) Kiamco. In the final 64, the youhtful 23-year old Corteza lost a close one (8-9) to Huang Kun-Chang of Chinese Taipei, Kiamco played catch-up but eventually succumbed to Korean Park Sin-young (6-9) while Luat squandered his lead against crowd favorite and commentator Steve Davis of England by a few miscues and yielded (8-9) in the TV table. The rest moved on to the next round - Reyes , Bustamante, Lining, Gallego and young Dennis Orcollo who stunned last year's finalist Germany's Ralf Souquet (9-8).

In the round of 32, Orcollo showed promise and resilience but was still no match against his idol and countryman, Efren Reyes (6-9). Lining totally annihilated Germany's Thomas Engert (9-0). Bustamante stamped his class against another German Christian Reimering (9-2). However Gallego was one rack away from advancing when slow-moving Japanese Takeshi Okumura amassed seven straight racks to steal victory 9-8.

A dark cloud settled over the pool ranks when news of Bustamante's seven-month old daughter's death reverberated around Cardiff but the talented former World Masters Champion decided against dropping out and took on his match against compatriot Nikoy Lining. Bustamante came from the brink of elimination and pulled out a win (11-10). For his part, Reyes, wearing a black band in sympathy for his friend and teammate, dismantled '95 World Pool Champion Oliver Ortmann (11-5). The German never got his groove in the match and was annoyed with some Pinoy fans who were obviously pulling for Reyes.

In the quarterfinals, Reyes met Bustamante, soft-spoken American Johnny Archer against the astounding Taiwanese Yang Ching-shun, Earl Strickland (US) versus Kunihiko Takahashi(Japan) and Marcus Chamat (Sweden) against Takeshi Okumura (Japan). With the race to 11 frame, Reyes and Bustamante exchanged and guile and craftmanship to tie up the contest 8-all before Bustamante utilized his powerful break to run away 11-8. Yang shocked Archer (11-2) in the other quarterfinals whereupon Strickland and Okumura triumphed over their competitions.

Again, in the semis, Bustamante relied on his dominant breaking to subdue the highly-fancied upstart Yang who fouled a ball while attempting a "jump" in the 13th rack. Bustamante strung together seven racks to blow past Yang (11-7). Twice World Champion Strickland, on the other hand, fought off the challenge of Okumura (11-5 ).

In the long-drawn race to 17 final, the story was clear-cut - Bustmante was always ahead until he scratched on the 29th, if my memory serves me right, then Strickland never looked back to seize the championship, $65,000 and the beautifully-designed trophy. The sight of Strickland climbing on the table was too much to bear that I grappled for the remote. The game of pool may depend on skill but lack plays a huge part. There's nothing amiss with Strickland's game but his "big-mouth" always ruffle some feathers in the pool circle.

Next year is another matter. We'll surely have a better Team Philippines with the likes of Corteza and Orcollo cashing in on the experience of the event. Besides, when it comes to pool, we're highly-rich in talent. To paraphrase Fil-Canadian pool player Alex Pagulayan “in the Philippines, there are so many talents and thousands of others you never heard of who can truly play.” *

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