Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions.
Nine-ball is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls, hitting them in ascending numerical order. An individual game is won by the player pocketing the 9-ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.
Efren Manalang Reyes, popularly known by the nicknames "Bata" and "The Magician", is a Filipino professional pool player. Reyes is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. A winner of over 100 international titles, Reyes was the first player to win the WPA World Championships in two different pool disciplines. Among his numerous titles, Reyes is a WPA World Nine-ball Champion and WPA World Eight-ball Champion, a U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship winner, a four-time Sands Regency 9-Ball Open winner, and a thirteen-time Derby City Classic winner. Reyes also represented the Philippines at the World Cup of Pool, winning the event with his partner Francisco Bustamante in 2006 and 2009. Reyes defeating American legend Earl Strickland in the The Color of Money challenge match in 1996, in a winner-take-all prize of $100,000.
Pool is a classification of cue sports played on a table with six pockets along the rails, into which balls are deposited. Each specific pool game has its own name; some of the better-known include eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".
Jeanette Lee is a Korean-American professional pool player. She was nicknamed the Black Widow by her friends 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.
Ewa Laurance is a Swedish professional pool player, most notably on the Women's Professional Billiard Association nine-ball tour, a sports writer, and more recently a sports commentator for ESPN. In 2004, she was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame. She has been nicknamed "the Leading Lady of Billiards" and "the Striking Viking".
Grady Mathews, also known as "The Professor" or "Mr. One Pocket", was an American pool player and was the first inductee into the One-Pocket Hall of Fame, in 2004.
Jean Balukas is an American pool player from Brooklyn, New York, and considered one of the greatest players of all time. At least through the 1990s, when Allison Fisher began her ascendancy, Balukas was widely acknowledged as the sole candidate for greatest female player ever. Described as a "trailblazer, a child prodigy, a loner who rebelled against dress codes for women—the pool equivalent of Billie Jean King", she is a five-time Billiards Digest Player of the Year, was the youngest inductee into the BCA Hall of Fame and the second woman given the honor, and was ranked fifteenth on Billiard Digest Greatest Players of the [20th] Century.
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.
Michael Sigel is an American professional pool player nicknamed "Captain Hook." He earned the nickname from his ability to hook his opponents with safety plays. Sigel was dominant during the 1980s in 9-Ball and Straight Pool and has a high run of 339 balls in Straight Pool. Mike Sigel is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. In the year 2000, Sigel was voted "Greatest Living Player of the Century" by Billiards Digest Magazine.
LoreeJon Brown is a professional pocket billiard player.
Johnny Archer is an American professional pool player. He is nicknamed "the Scorpion". On June 8, 2009, Johnny Archer was nominated to be inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.
Joseph (Joe) Balsis, nicknamed "the Meatman", was an American professional pool player, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1982.
Dallas West is an American pool player and was inducted into the Billiards Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1996.
Nick Varner is an American pool player who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1992. Varner is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Varner is a multiple world champion and has won back to back U.S. Open 9-Ball Championships, in addition to being the oldest player to ever win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship, at 51 years old.
Larry Lisciotti, nicknamed "The Prince of Pool" was an American pool player and road hustler from Keene, New Hampshire
James Rempe is an American professional pocket billiards (pool) player, and was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 2002.
Morton Goldberg or Larry Johnston, nicknamed "Boston Shorty", was an American professional pool player. Born in Rochester, New York, Goldberg beat such famous pool players as Minnesota Fats, Irving Crane, and Willie Mosconi.
Cecil P. "Buddy" Hall has been an American professional pool player for three decades and is considered one of the best nine-ball players of all time. The International Pool Tour heralds Hall as a "living pool legend." He is nicknamed "The Rifleman" for his accuracy and had been a consistent top player for over two decades and virtually unbeaten when playing "money matches".
Kim Davenport is an American professional pocket billiards (pool) player, nicknamed "Kimmer".
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