I'm here in korea,
The first leg of the San Miguel Asian 9 Ball Tour just finished this Sunday.
Efren looked scary! He was completely dominant in all of his tv matches. He was so dominant in the final against some guy named Li (lie not lee) from China, that he started riding the 9 ball atempting this one crazy two rail backward cut kick on the 1 ball that alomost sank the hanging nine in the corner pocket down table. He was laughing at all his misses, he never really looked concerned in any of his matches. He played Bustamante and ran his good friend over with seemingly little effort. His first match was 9-0 against some Thai guy.
This leg was in Ho Chi Minh and the usually strong Taiwanese players got rolled. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Wu Chia Ching play on Friday. If you haven't seen him yet you are going to be shocked. The dude lost a ton of weight. And he played horribly. He got toasted 9 -2. I have never seen him play that bad. I guess everybody has bad days. Yang Ching Shun still has serious issues with his break scratching and flying off the table pretty regularly. I never saw Chao on tv. They showed a lot of Vietnamese players. I like that. It's good for the game to grow in that country. One of their guys even made it to the quarters.
No matter how much I watch him play, Efren always seems to show me something new. The crowd kept oooh-ing and aaah-ing constantly. He made everything look so effortless. And when he did get out of shape he calmly recoverd and still ran out. Again and again and again! He made everything from everywhere. Peculiar close cuts, long banks, kicks, short rack combos and he made it all look easy. His break was strong and he consistantly killed the cue in the patch. I have a feeling the rest of the players on the tour are probably shaking their heads 'cause if Efren is going to play like this on the next three stops he can will all of them. And more importatnly if he keeps playing like this all the way into Worlds which is in Manila this year, then surely he's going to take all the marbles! Especially in his back yard. When the man finaly does slow down and retire I foresee them renaming the tour after him. It's not out of the question. I got all three days on tape and will be hitting the rewind button a lot.
Another interesting side note: Efren, Fransisco, and Alex all trotted out brand new Predator BK 2 Break Cues every time they were on tv. My guess is that Marlon had one too! Some Predator guy must have been handing them out to the Filipinos like Christmas Cards. Efren used his Black and Ivory Judd the whole time. I never saw the Japanese one he has been sporting recently and at DCC. Check out that link you can see Efren hit balls in the Philippines with that cue. I believe it's the first time he ever used it. Can anyone tell me who makes it? It's sold on that Japanese website.
I wish the tour would stop in Korea for once. But don't see that happening any time soon. 3 Cushion is king here. Pool or "Pocket Ball" as they call it here is seen as a girls game but more importantly it's seen as a threat to 3 cushion popularity. Charlie Williams hopes to single handedly change that. I give him credit! At least he's trying. One thing that's funny to me is that I have never seen the tour stop in Japan. Pool is large there!
Finaly: someone posted that they have a lot of WPC pool on HD but I forgot which AZB'r that was. Send me a message!
Aloha!
The first leg of the San Miguel Asian 9 Ball Tour just finished this Sunday.
Efren looked scary! He was completely dominant in all of his tv matches. He was so dominant in the final against some guy named Li (lie not lee) from China, that he started riding the 9 ball atempting this one crazy two rail backward cut kick on the 1 ball that alomost sank the hanging nine in the corner pocket down table. He was laughing at all his misses, he never really looked concerned in any of his matches. He played Bustamante and ran his good friend over with seemingly little effort. His first match was 9-0 against some Thai guy.
This leg was in Ho Chi Minh and the usually strong Taiwanese players got rolled. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Wu Chia Ching play on Friday. If you haven't seen him yet you are going to be shocked. The dude lost a ton of weight. And he played horribly. He got toasted 9 -2. I have never seen him play that bad. I guess everybody has bad days. Yang Ching Shun still has serious issues with his break scratching and flying off the table pretty regularly. I never saw Chao on tv. They showed a lot of Vietnamese players. I like that. It's good for the game to grow in that country. One of their guys even made it to the quarters.
No matter how much I watch him play, Efren always seems to show me something new. The crowd kept oooh-ing and aaah-ing constantly. He made everything look so effortless. And when he did get out of shape he calmly recoverd and still ran out. Again and again and again! He made everything from everywhere. Peculiar close cuts, long banks, kicks, short rack combos and he made it all look easy. His break was strong and he consistantly killed the cue in the patch. I have a feeling the rest of the players on the tour are probably shaking their heads 'cause if Efren is going to play like this on the next three stops he can will all of them. And more importatnly if he keeps playing like this all the way into Worlds which is in Manila this year, then surely he's going to take all the marbles! Especially in his back yard. When the man finaly does slow down and retire I foresee them renaming the tour after him. It's not out of the question. I got all three days on tape and will be hitting the rewind button a lot.
Another interesting side note: Efren, Fransisco, and Alex all trotted out brand new Predator BK 2 Break Cues every time they were on tv. My guess is that Marlon had one too! Some Predator guy must have been handing them out to the Filipinos like Christmas Cards. Efren used his Black and Ivory Judd the whole time. I never saw the Japanese one he has been sporting recently and at DCC. Check out that link you can see Efren hit balls in the Philippines with that cue. I believe it's the first time he ever used it. Can anyone tell me who makes it? It's sold on that Japanese website.
I wish the tour would stop in Korea for once. But don't see that happening any time soon. 3 Cushion is king here. Pool or "Pocket Ball" as they call it here is seen as a girls game but more importantly it's seen as a threat to 3 cushion popularity. Charlie Williams hopes to single handedly change that. I give him credit! At least he's trying. One thing that's funny to me is that I have never seen the tour stop in Japan. Pool is large there!
Finaly: someone posted that they have a lot of WPC pool on HD but I forgot which AZB'r that was. Send me a message!
Aloha!
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