BILLIARD
Cue
sports (sometimes written cuesports), also
known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of
skill generally played with acue stick which is used to
strike billiard balls, moving them around
a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber cushions.
Historically,
the umbrella term was billiards. While that familiar name is still
employed by some as a generic label for all such games, the word's usage has
splintered into more exclusive competing meanings in various parts of the
world. For example, in British and Australian English,
"billiards" usually refers exclusively to the game of English
billiards, while in American and Canadian English it is
sometimes used to refer to a particular game or class of games, or to all cue
games in general, depending upon dialect and context.
Reyes was born in Pampanga in 1954. He moved
to Manila with his family at the age of 5. In Manila, he worked as a
billiards attendant at his uncle's billiards hall, where he started learning
the various cue sports. Because he was not tall enough to reach the pool table,
he played while standing on Coca-cola cases that he moved around. At night,
while he was dreaming of playing pool, the pool table was his bed
He is called Bata, which is Filipino for
"Kid", because there was another older pool player named Efren when
he was young. To distinguish between the two, he was referred to as Efren Bata.
Gambling from a young age, Reyes played three cushion
billiards in the 1960s and 1970s. After establishing himself as a winner,
he was discovered by promoters. This gave him the opportunity to compete in big
time tournaments.
During the 1980s, when Reyes was considered a top-class player
in his homeland but not yet internationally recognized, he went to the U.S.
to hustle. Popular legend claims that Reyes earned US$80,000 in a
week; this feat made him a folk hero back home.
Reyes began winning a number of tournaments in the U.S., Europe
and parts of Asia. Thus, he started to gain attention and recognition
worldwide. At the start of his career, he used aliases to hide his identity so
he would be allowed to compete. By the mid-1990s, he had become one of the
elite players of the Philippines, alongside Jose Paricaand Francisco
Bustamante.
Reyes' fame began when he won the US Open Nine Ball Championship
in 1994 by defeating Nick Varner in the finals. He was the first
non-American to win the event.
Two years later, Efren Reyes and Earl Strickland were
chosen to face each other in an event called the Color of Money, named after
the movie. The event was a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of
9-ball. It was held in Hong Kong, with a winner-take-all prize of US$100,000.
Reyes won the match 120-117. This was the largest single-winning purse in a
pool event.
Although Strickland was the first to win the WPA World
9-ball Championship, Reyes, in 1999, became the first to win while it was
broadcast on television. This tournament was not recognized at the time by the
WPA, but Reyes was later retrospectively acknowledged as the winner of one of
two world championships held in 1999. Nick Varner won the "official"
world title. The two tournaments were merged for the following year, with both
men listed as the champion for 1999. At the time, the Matchroom Sport-organised
event in Cardiff, Wales, was called the WorldProfessional Pool
Championship (despite the entry of many non-professional players).
In 2001, Reyes won the International Billiard Tournament. The
event was held in Tokyo, with over 700 players and a total purse of ¥100M
($850K). Reyes dominated the event and beat Niels Feijen in the
finals 15-7 and earned the ¥20M ($170K) first prize. At the time, this was
the biggest first prize in a pool tournament.
In 2002 he won the $50K winner-take-all International
Challenge of Champions, defeating Mika Immonen in a deciding rack after both
players split sets.
Near the end of 2004, Reyes beat Marlon Manalo to
become the first-ever WPA World Eight Ball Champion. With the win, he
became the first player in WPA history to win world championships in two
different disciplines.
In December 2005, Reyes won the IPT King of the Hill
8-Ball Shootout. Reyes won a record-breaking $200K for first place by beating
fellow Hall of Fame member Mike "the Mouth" Sigel two sets
to none (8-0 and 8-5).
In 2006, Reyes and Francisco Bustamante represented
their country as Team Philippines in the inaugural World Cup of Pool. They
defeated Team USA, Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris, to capture
the title.
That same year, Reyes won the IPT World Open Eight-ball
Championship over Rodney Morris 8-6. He earned $500K which was the largest
prize money tournament in the history of pocket billiards. Unfortunately, due
to IPT's financial problems, he has not been able to claim much of this money
as of 2007.
In 2009, the Filipino tandem of Efren Reyes and Francisco
Bustamante beat the German pair of Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann by a
grueling 11-9 score to take their second championship title. This, together
with the semifinal finish of the other Filipino team of Ronato
Alcano and Dennis Orcollo, was the best performance by a host nation
in the tournament's history.
In 2010, Reyes clinched his fifth title in the 12th annual Derby
City Classic as the overall champion, making him the most successful player in
the tournament's history.
He has topped the AZ Billiards Money List five times: in
2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2006, he set a
record by earning $646K in a single year.
 | |
| Born | August 26, 1954 Angeles City, Pampanga,Philippines |
|---|---|
| Sport country |  Philippines |
| Nickname | Bata (Kid) The Magician |
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 2002 Busan | |
Family
He is married to Susan
Reyes. They have three children. His son, Frennie Reyes, once competed in the
Asian Nine-ball Tour.
Accolades
Numerous fellow professional players have credited Reyes with being the
greatest living player in the world. During ESPN television commentary on
a semi-finals match between Reyes andMika Immonen at the 2000 Billiard
Congress of America Open 9-Ball Championship, veteran professional Billy
Incardona stated that Reyes was "indisputably the best player in the
world—especially when you consider all games—he can play any game as well as
anyone, maybe better than anyone.... In my opinion we're watching probably the
greatest player in my lifetime and I've been watching pool for the better part
of forty years."
Numerous fellow professional players have credited Reyes with being the
greatest living player in the world. During ESPN television commentary on
a semi-finals match between Reyes andMika Immonen at the 2000 Billiard
Congress of America Open 9-Ball Championship, veteran professional Billy
Incardona stated that Reyes was "indisputably the best player in the
world—especially when you consider all games—he can play any game as well as
anyone, maybe better than anyone.... In my opinion we're watching probably the
greatest player in my lifetime and I've been watching pool for the better part
of forty years."
In 1995 Billiards Digest Magazine named Reyes the
Player of the Year. The following year, when Reyes was ranked number one
on the U.S.'s Pro Billiards Tour, the June 1996 issue of the magazine featured
a poll of "billiard cognoscenti"—pro players, billiards writers,
industry insiders and the like—to pick the best in billiards in various
categories. Billiards' own elite named Reyes the
best one-pocket player of all time.The magazine wrote, "While a
bevy of one-pocket geniuses abound, Efren Reyes, whose prowess in one-pocket is
sometimes obscured by his 9-ball stardom, was the popular pick. Is there
anything Bata can't do?"
In 2003, he became the first Asian to be inducted into
the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
Reyes was appointed Philippine Sports Ambassador of the 2005 South
East Asian Games alongside some of the Philippines' greatest athletes
(Allan Caidic, Rafael Nepomuceno) to promote the event throughout the
country.
For 2007, he was ranked #2 in Pool & Billiard Magazine's
"Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players" poll.
Other awards and honors include:
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