By almost every measure, this was a banner year for the sport of billiards in the Philippines.
Everything clicked for Philippine pool this past year. As in, literally everything. It’s almost mind-boggling how the planets aligned. Let’s go over everything piece by piece.
We won two world championships
Carlo Biado emerged victorious in the 2024 World 10 Ball Championship last May, fending off Naoyuki Oi via a three sets to one score in Las Vegas. Biado has now won the US Open 9 Ball, World 10 Ball, and World 9 Ball titles, firmly entrenching him into the Mount Rushmore of Philippine billiards. This year Biado was also a winner of the Chinese Taipei Open, outclassing another Filipino, Benok Regalario, in the final.
Biado was also a champion in the Ho Chi Minh City Open, taking care of Austrian Mario He in the final, and in the Raxx MVP 9 Ball Open in New York as well. So 2024 was a great year for him.
And then Rubilen Amit delivered a second world title, her third, when she mowed down Siming Chen of China, also in four sets, in the World 9 Ball Women’s final last September in New Zealand.
Those two achievements alone would make 2024 a totally awesome year for Pinoy pool. But we are just getting started.
Other Filipino pool stars also shone in international competition
Just the other day Jefrey Roda defeated Taiwanese stud Ko Pin-Yi in the final to take down the Chinese Taipei Open crown. It was the latest success by a Pinoy abroad but not the only one.
A few days before that Johann Chua trounced Aloysius Yapp 13-2 to claim the Marboys Open, an official World Nineball Tour ranking event. This is Chua’s second WNT title of the year, as he also defeated Ko Pin-yi in the Hanoi Open final last October. Chua also snapped off the Zen and Yuan8 9 Ball event in Shanghai last September.
Jeffrey Ignacio won two tournaments on the bounce as well in Indonesia and the Japan Open 10 Ball too. Jeff De Luna also won in Indonesia, capturing The Cue International 10 Ball event and the US$12,000 prize that went with it.
Dennis Orcollo would not be left out of the action. Last September he won the Jingxi Harbin Chinese 8 Ball event. The veteran has started wearing high-arched cueing glasses and the change has done him good. Chinese 8 Ball, also known as Heyball, is played on a different kind of table with punishingly tight curved-jaw pockets, and Chinese players tend to dominate. Orcollo was obviously attracted by the big cash prizes in this variation of the sport.
Speaking of different versions of pool, Roberto Gomez also claimed a One Pocket title, the Buffalo’s Pro Classic One Pocket event, last May in Louisiana.
Another veteran, Antonio Lining, won the KKKKings Imperial and Han Billiards Open in Danang, Vietnam, and the Tokai Gran Prix event in Japan. Lee Vann Corteza also found the winner’s circle, grabbing the Predator Las Vegas Open, downing Biado in the final.
Even unheralded players like Jesson Marabi are winning abroad. Marabi won the RBC 9 Ball Open in Indonesia.
There was a team event in Taiwan last May and the Philippines won it as well, defeating Chinese Taipei in the CPBA 9 Ball Team Invitational. Our side featured Dodong Aranas, Chua, Biado, Ignacio, and Benok Regalario.
AJ Manas won the 99 Billiards Club event in Vietnam, beating compatriot Harry Vergara in the final, 13-12. Michael Baoanan lifted the trophy at the Bali International 10 Ball. The runner-up, Richard Alinsub, won the accompanying 9-Ball competition.
There were plenty of close calls too. Amit finished second in Qatar, Jeff De Luna semifinals there as well, and Janno Mazon was runner-up in the All-Japan Championship. Cheska Centena made final four in the world 10 ball for women. Baoanan was third in the Turning Stone Classic in New York. Chua was second to Mickey Krause at the European Open. The list goes on.
The youth movement continues to surge
AJ Manas is a huge talent who will help lead Philippine pool into the future. He will be joined by Regalario, Kyle Amoroto, and others. Jaybee Sucal is still developing as a player but he has figured out his social media game. The youngster has a mammoth social media following, and he and other influencers are driving the popularity of the sport to a new generation.
On the women’s side Rhaki Constantino, Cheeya Navarro, and Carmille Lumawag signal an upcoming new generation of Filipina players. Denden Santos, an Amit Cup product, will hopefully compete in more international events sooner rather than later.
The Reyes Cup and Sharks Billiards League spiced up the landscape
The Reyes Cup was a big hit, with hundreds flocking to the Ninoy Aquino Stadium to see Team Asia take down Team Europe. Pinoy stars Johann Chua and Carlo Biado powered the Asians to victory last October.
Meanwhile the Sharks League made team pool a regular thing that went on for months. The raucous atmosphere inside their bespoke arena in Quezon City, as well as the quirky format and legalized sharking, added a new flavor to the Philippine game.
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and billiards as entertainment might just take on new and exciting forms.
An avalanche of new poolrooms are sprouting up all over the place
In the past year a plethora of billiard halls has emerged all over the Philippines. My Facebook feed is always alerting me of new venues opening up. I have seen notifications of new halls in Lipa, Taytay, Imus, San Jose Del Monte, Albay, Tarlac, Angeles, and all over Metro Manila.
This speaks of the renewed passion for the sport among Filipinos, especially young ones.
But not only are they new pool halls they are also NICE poolhalls. The standard of the average Philippine poolroom has been elevated. Gone are the days of cramped, seey rooms with poor lighting, slow, worn cloth, uneven tables and dead rails. Most of these rooms feature modern tables from manufacturers like Rasson. The lighting is fantastic in almost all the rooms I have checked out, the cloth is mostly new and fast-playing.
Let’s hope this trend of new billiard venues is sustainable long term.
The Filipino pool resurgence has happened at just the right time
If you were counting, Filipino shooters won a total of 22 international-caliber individual tournaments in 2024. Why are they winning so many events? Well, a big reason is… there are so many events.
The boom in billiards is a worldwide phenomenon. Places like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand are hosting more and more tournaments with significant prize money, attracting Filipino players. China, especially in Heyball, is a growing pool hotbed. Taiwan is always there, a pool mecca just a short hop away from the Philippines, with big money competitions also.
The world governing body for the sport, the World Pool-Billiard Association, seems to now be a recipient of Saudi PIF (Public Investment Fund) cash. Last June they held their World Pool Championship (9 ball) in Jeddah. The purse was a whopping US$1,000,000, with a quarter of that going to the eventual winner, Russian-born American Fedor Gorst.
Matchroom’s World Nineball Tour also offers good money, with a total kitty of US$300,000 for their US Open.
This kind of money was unthinkable in the world of billiards just a few years ago. And the Philippines, already a major billiards nation, is a big beneficiary. As the game has become more lucrative, more and more Pinoys will want to take a stab at professional pool. The wave of new players is not stopping any time soon, and hopefully many will see tournament play as their main source of income instead of money games.
There are still some issues with the sport. The Marboys Open was the only major individual pool event this year held here. We should have more, in fan-friendly environments. Pool is still neither a UAAP nor NCAA sport. And there are no Filipinos in the top five of either the WPA or World Nineball Tour rankings. That hopefully will change as more Filipinos will get support to travel to more events.
Filipino pool is on an upward trajectory. Hopefully the momentum can be sustained going forward.
Banner Image from Matchroom Pool.