I have lots of stories about Efren, have met and played him several times and all of them have been memorable.
I've mentioned a few of them before, but one of my favourites was at the World 9-ball Championships in 2007.
Almost all of the players were at One Side the day before the tournament, and Efren had just beat Jonni Fulcher 11-8 in 9-ball for a couple of thousands of pesos.
Atleast 10 international players went over to the table and wanted to play Efren, 8-ball, 9-ball, one-pocket etc., any game, and for lots of money. Vincent Facquet from France even offered to play him for $ 100 a game in one-pocket, no spot, just to be able to play him.
Efren declined all of them, and then he saw me sitting in the back. He raised his voice a little and said to me "Roy, let's play one-pocket". Everyone turned around and looked at me and and I smiled and said "the usual?" and he said "yes, yes" and racked the balls while I took my cue and walked over and played a few hours of $ 20 sets race to 3 against Efren.
Another great evening was when we were in Cebu at a shopping mall playing the Villard Cup. I got to play Jharome Pena, and if I had won I would play Efren, but Jharome destroyed my chances of playing Efren in a big tournament.
Instead I got a chance to play Efren later that night, in poker, at the Bravio. All players were invited to go to Bravio, a poker, pool, restaurant and disco in Cebu, and when we came there I first played a one-pocket set with Efren, then we went over to the pokertables. We played cheap, real cheap. It costed like $ 10 to get a seat at the table.
I got a seat close to Efren, and we ended up having side-bets on every possible thing going on. We could bet on who would win the next pot, if the river would be a high or low card etc., and we played many hands against eachother on purpose so we could sidebet on those too.
We laughed a lot, but I bluffed him real good once and he was actually mad for like 10-15 seconds when I showed the cards to him.
He really hates to lose, but what made it even funnier for me was that the sidebets were a lot less than $ 1 each.
It was just for fun, but he still had to win all of the sidebets. I guess that's why he still keeps winning tournaments. He can't stand to lose.
I've mentioned a few of them before, but one of my favourites was at the World 9-ball Championships in 2007.
Almost all of the players were at One Side the day before the tournament, and Efren had just beat Jonni Fulcher 11-8 in 9-ball for a couple of thousands of pesos.
Atleast 10 international players went over to the table and wanted to play Efren, 8-ball, 9-ball, one-pocket etc., any game, and for lots of money. Vincent Facquet from France even offered to play him for $ 100 a game in one-pocket, no spot, just to be able to play him.
Efren declined all of them, and then he saw me sitting in the back. He raised his voice a little and said to me "Roy, let's play one-pocket". Everyone turned around and looked at me and and I smiled and said "the usual?" and he said "yes, yes" and racked the balls while I took my cue and walked over and played a few hours of $ 20 sets race to 3 against Efren.
Another great evening was when we were in Cebu at a shopping mall playing the Villard Cup. I got to play Jharome Pena, and if I had won I would play Efren, but Jharome destroyed my chances of playing Efren in a big tournament.
Instead I got a chance to play Efren later that night, in poker, at the Bravio. All players were invited to go to Bravio, a poker, pool, restaurant and disco in Cebu, and when we came there I first played a one-pocket set with Efren, then we went over to the pokertables. We played cheap, real cheap. It costed like $ 10 to get a seat at the table.
I got a seat close to Efren, and we ended up having side-bets on every possible thing going on. We could bet on who would win the next pot, if the river would be a high or low card etc., and we played many hands against eachother on purpose so we could sidebet on those too.
We laughed a lot, but I bluffed him real good once and he was actually mad for like 10-15 seconds when I showed the cards to him.
He really hates to lose, but what made it even funnier for me was that the sidebets were a lot less than $ 1 each.
It was just for fun, but he still had to win all of the sidebets. I guess that's why he still keeps winning tournaments. He can't stand to lose.