Born | Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. | 24 April 1963
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Sport country | United States |
Best finish | Semi finals 1997 WPA World Nine-ball Championship |
Reed Pierce (born April 24, 1963, Jackson, Mississippi) is an American professional pool player. Notable tournament wins include the 1995 US Open Nine-ball Championship, the 1998 Camel Tour Kasson Open, and the 1994 PBT Dallas Open. He was selected to represent the U.S. twice in the Mosconi Cup, in 1997 and 1998.
Today, Reed Pierce and his brother, Ronnie, own an upscale billiards sports bar and restaurant, bearing Reed Pierce's name in Byram, Mississippi. [1] 2018 the bar and grill has been closed. Inside the restaurant is an actual pool room named 9-Ball Lounge, and it has eight Diamond regulation-size pool tables. [2]
The 20th Annual US Open Nine-ball Championship was captured by Reed Pierce in 1995, defeating Efren Reyes, the 1994 US Open Nine-ball Champion, 11-6 in the finals, denying Reyes back-to-back wins. [3]
Reed Pierce was selected twice to compete in the Mosconi Cup, a pool tournament named after Willie Mosconi, in 1997 and 1998, as one of six members to represent Team America, an annual nine-ball tournament contested between Europe and the United States. Both years, Team America captured the Mosconi Cup title. [4] [5]
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.
One-pocket is a pool game. Only one pocket for each player is used in this game, unlike other games played on a pool table where any pocket can be used to score object balls. The object of the game is to score points. A point is made when a player pockets any object ball into their designated pocket. The winner is the first to score an agreed-upon number of points.
Jeanette Lee is an American professional pool player. She was nicknamed the Black Widow because, in spite of her sweet demeanor, she would "eat people alive" when she got to a pool table and always wear black when playing pool.
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.
Rodolfo Luat is a Filipino professional pool player from Angeles City. He holds many Asian titles and has won a few titles in U.S. Luat turned professional at age 16. He has titles in the Asian Championship and the Philippine Nine-ball Open in 1992. In 1996 Luat won the Camel Open 9-Ball Championship defeating Nick Varner in the finals.
Alex Lely is a Dutch former professional pool player. Lely won the 1999 World Pool Masters after defeating Efren Reyes 7–5, and reached the final in 2000 but lost to Ralf Souquet 7–3. He is a two-time European champion having won the nine-ball and eight-ball at the 2005 European Pool Championships.
Mika Immonen is a Finnish professional Hall of Fame pool player, nicknamed "The Iceman."
Rodney Morris is a professional pool player, nicknamed "the Rocket". In 2016, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. Morris won the 1996 U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship, 2003 World Pool League, 2006 UPA Pro Tour Championship (nine-ball), and 2013 U.S. Open Ten-ball Championship, among many other individual titles. In doubles play, he and Shane Van Boening took the 2008 World Cup of Pool. He has also been a member of the winning Team USA in the Mosconi Cup events of 2003–2005, and was the Mosconi Cup MVP in 2004.
Nick van den Berg is a Dutch professional pool player. He was the runner up at the 2005 WPA World Eight-ball Championship, where he lost to Wu Chia-ching 11–5 in the final. He is a multiple time winner of events on the Euro Tour, winning 10 tournaments between 2002 and 2017, the fourth highest in the history of the tour. A six-time winner of the European Pool Championships, Van den Berg has represented Europe at the Mosconi Cup on eight occasions, winning the event on six occasions as well as tying the event in 2006.
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.
Dallas West is an American pool player and was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1996.
Daryl Peach is an English professional pool player, from Lancashire, who resides in Blackpool, England. He won the 2007 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, where he defeated the Philippines' Roberto Gomez 17–15 in the final to become the first British player to win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship.
Kim Davenport is an American professional pocket billiards (pool) player, nicknamed "Kimmer".
Darren Appleton is an English professional pool player, best known for playing Eight-ball, Nine-ball and Ten-ball pool.
Jeremy Jones is a professional pool player. He was the 1998 US Open One Pocket champion, the 2003 US Open 9 Ball champion, and has represented Team USA in the Mosconi Cup on seven occasions. Jones was the runner-up at the 1999 WPA World Nine-ball Championship losing 13–8 to Nick Varner in the final.
Tony Ellin was a top-ranked American professional pool player nicknamed "Hurricane," who specialized in the game of nine-ball. Born in New Jersey, Ellin resided in Ladson, South Carolina, near Charleston, and was a touring professional player in the 1990s. He was killed on June 14, 2000, at age 34, when his 1999 Cadillac collided with a locomotive less than a block from his home. Ellin was alone in his car when the accident occurred. Lt. Mike Benton, a Charleston County sheriff, said Ellin was "apparently trying to beat the train to the crossing." Ellin had played in the Sand Regency Open just days before his death. He was survived by wife Shelby, and daughter Ashley Annette who was just 3 years old at the time of his death. Later that year a Tony Ellin memorial tournament was held at Brass Tap and Billiards in Raleigh, North Carolina, with receipts to benefit the Ashley Ellin Scholarship Fund, which was formed to benefit Ellin's daughter after his death.
Albin Alois Ouschan is an Austrian professional pool player. Ouschan was the 2016 WPA World Nine-ball Championship winner, as well as the runner-up in 2014. He also won the 14.1 Continuous European championship the same year. Ouschan is a multiple time Austrian champion in 8-ball, ten-ball and straight pool. Ouschan alongside partner Mario He won both the 2017 World Cup of Pool, 2019 World Cup of Pool and reached the final of the 2018 World Cup of Pool. They would lose 10–3 to the Chinese team of Wu Jia-qing & Liu Haitao. He won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for the second time in 2021, beating Omar Al-Shaheen 13–9 in the final. He won the International Open in 2021, defeating Dennis Orcollo 13–6 in the final.
John Schmidt is an American pool player, born in Keokuk, Iowa. Nicknamed "Mr. 600", specialising in straight pool, Schmidt held the record for the highest run made (626), until Jayson Shaw broke that record with a high run of 669 in January 2022. Schmidt won the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championships in 2006 defeating Rodolfo Luat in the final. He was also part of the American team at two Mosconi Cups in 2006 and 2014.
Jayson Shaw is a Scottish professional pool player. In 2010, Shaw was a WPA World Blackball Champion.
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.