Born | Waycross, Georgia | 12 November 1968
---|---|
Sport country | United States |
Nickname | "The Scorpion" |
Professional | 1985 |
Tournament wins | |
Other titles | 100 |
World Champion | 9-ball (1992, 1997) |
Johnny Archer (born November 12, 1968, in Waycross, Georgia) is an American professional pool player. He is nicknamed "the Scorpion" (his zodiac sign is Scorpio. He is a two time World Nine-ball Champion & won a record 5 Sands Regency 9-Ball Open titles. In 2009, Johnny Archer was nominated to be inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. [1]
Archer grew up with his two brothers and two sisters in Twin City, Georgia, and began playing pool at the age of 12. [2]
He is one of the most successful nine-ball players of the 1990s and 2000s, having won the majority of the game's major tournaments at least once, culminating in his being named Billiards Digest Player of the Decade at the end of the 1990s. Archer is a two-time WPA World Nine-ball Champion, winning in both 1992 when he defeated Bobby Hunter, and later again in 1997 after beating Lee Kun-fang of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan). He was also a runner-up the following year, losing in the final to Kunihiko Takahashi of Japan. He was the 1999 US Open champion, and has won over 100 professional tournaments throughout his career.
He has also been a regular on the US Mosconi Cup team, having joined them a record seventeen times, winning on nine of those occasions.
In 2003, one of Archer's most successful years, he won tournaments such as Sudden Death Seven-ball [3] and the first World Summit of Pool. [4]
Archer also won the 2006 International Challenge of Champions by defeating Thorsten Hohmann in the finals. [5]
In 2007, he won the Texas Hold 'Em Billiards Championship. While in the 2005 event the entire purse was awarded to the winner, in the 2007 event the purse was split. [6] [7]
The Ripley's Believe It or Not! television show, on September 3, 2003, [8] pitted Archer and Jeremy Jones against each other in a challenge match in speed pool. The show had them timed against each other, to try to beat the record, which at that time stood at 1 minute 30 seconds [9] to break a full rack of balls and then pocket all fifteen balls, and then move to another table and do it again. Archer was the victor. The event was recorded in a warehouse in Los Angeles where other challenge matches were also taking place to beat records.
Archer rejoined the staff of Inside Pool Magazine, where he writes a monthly instruction column. [10]
For 2007, he was ranked #3 in Pool & Billiard Magazine's "Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players" poll. [11]
|
|
Archer lives in Acworth, Georgia, with his wife Melanie and two children. He's an avid golfer, and ascribes his strong pool break to playing a lot of golf, noting similarities in having the timing right and using one's whole body in the stroke. [12]
Efren Manalang Reyes, popularly known by the nicknames "Bata" and "the Magician", is a Filipino professional pool player, who is widely regarded as the greatest pool player of all time, and especially famed for his skill at the challenging one-pocket discipline. In 2003, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
Francisco Bustamante is a Filipino professional pool player from Tarlac, Central Luzon and the 2010 World Nine-ball Champion, nicknamed "Django", after the lead character of the 1966 film of the same name, and sometimes also called "Bustie", especially in the United States. Bustamante has won over 70 international titles and is considered one of the greatest pool players of all time.
Marlon Manalo, also known by the nickname "Marvelous Captain", is a former Filipino professional pool player. He previously served as barangay chairman of Barangay Malamig, Mandaluyong. He also became the press relation officer of the League of Barangays of the Philippines and ABC president.
Niels Feijen is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship.
Thorsten Hohmann is a German professional pool player, nicknamed "the Hitman." He is a three-time world champion, winning the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 2003, and 2013, and winning the WPA World Straight Pool Championship in 2006.
Earl Strickland is an American professional pool player who is considered one of the best nine-ball players of all time. He has won over 100 championship titles and three world titles. In 2006 he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame. In 1996, Strickland won the largest cash prize to date winning the PCA $1,000,000 Challenge by being the first player to run 10 consecutive racks in a tournament. He is also known as one of the sport's most controversial players for his outspoken views and his sometimes volatile behavior at tournaments.
Alfredo de Oro was a Cuban professional carom billiards and pool player who several times held the world title in both three-cushion billiards and straight pool simultaneously. He was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1967, the first non-American to receive the honor. He was ranked number 4 on the Billiards Digest 50 Greatest Players of the Century.
Alejandro Salvador "Alex" Pagulayan is a Filipino-born Canadian professional pool player. His nickname is "the Lion", given to him by the great Cliff Thorburn, former World Snooker champion. Pagulayan was born in Cabagan, Isabela, Philippines and was raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2012, Pagulayan became a citizen of Canada and now resides in Toronto.
Jose Parica is a Filipino professional pool player from Manila, nicknamed "Amang" and "the Giant Killer." As a Filipino Hall of Famer, he pioneered the "Filipino invasion" in the United States in the late 70s, especially in the game of Nine-ball. Also known as "the King" in the Philippines, Parica is considered one of the greatest money players and one-pocket player of all time. He became the Billiards Digest Player of the Year in 1997.
Dennis Orcollo, sometimes called Dennis Orcullo, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "Surigao" and "RoboCop". He has been called "The Money-Game King".
Jeffrey de Luna is a Filipino professional pool player from Manila. De Luna reached the semifinals of the 2019 U.S. Open Pool Championship, but would lose to eventual champion Joshua Filler of Germany.
Ronato (Ronnie) Alcano, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "Ronnie Calamba" and "the Volcano". He won both the 2006 WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the 2007 WPA World Eight-ball Championship.
Lee Vann Corteza, also spelled Lee Van Corteza, is a Filipino professional pool player. He is nicknamed "The Slayer", and started playing pool in 1993.
Oliver Ortmann is a German professional pool player from Gelsenkirchen. Ortmann is a three-time world champion, winning the 1995 WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the 2007 and 2010 World Straight Pool Championship. Ortmann became the second player to win three WPA world championships. With fourteen wins, he the second most successful player at the European Pool Championships. Ortmann is also the second most successful player on the Euro Tour, winning fourteen events. Ortmann was the first non-American player to win the BCA U.S. Open Straight Pool Championship, in 1989.
Shane Van Boening is an American professional pool player from Rapid City, South Dakota. Van Boening is considered one of the best players of all time. Van Boening has won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and has won the US Open Nine-ball Championship on 5 occasions, along with over 100 other professional titles.
The World Straight Pool Championship is a pool competition, that was held up until the game of Nine-ball became popularized in America. It was the most prestigious straight pool tournament up until the early 21st century, tournaments like the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship and the European Pool Championship 14.1 that are still held annually, have gained prominence in recent years. During the tournament's early years, it was the only global professional title for straight pool. The event was revived in 2006, in part to restore the game's popularity in the United States. The World Straight Pool Championship was sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010. The tournament continued unsanctioned from 2011 to 2019. Ralph Greenleaf & Willie Mosconi are the most successful players having both won the tournament on 19 occasions. The oldest player to win the tournament is Irving Crane at 59 years old at the time of his victory. The youngest player to win the tournament is Ralph Greenleaf at 20 years old at the time of his first victory.
The Derby City Classic is an annual pool convention and tournament held every January at the Caesars Southern Indiana casino in Elizabeth, Indiana, near Louisville, Kentucky. It is eight days long and offers various disciplines of competition for pool players of all caliber. It is often referred to as the DCC.
Ko Pin-yi is a Taiwanese professional pool player. He became multiple World Champion in the disciplines of Nine-ball and Ten-ball in 2015.
Joshua Filler is a German professional pool player from Bönen, Germany. In 2018 Filler defeated Carlo Biado 13–10 to win the 2018 WPA World Nine-ball Championship. In 2017 he was the youngest player to win the China Open, and in 2018 he also won the 10-ball European Pool Championships. Filler became WPA and Euro Tour world number 1 in 2019, and later he reached the final of the 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship before losing 10–7 to Ko Ping-chung.
Han Yu is a Chinese professional pool player. She is a three time WPA World Nine-ball Championship women's champion, winning the event in 2013, 2016 and 2018. Han is also a semi-finalist in three further world championships, in 2017 in the nine-ball event, and 2011 and 2014 in ten-ball.