The "Volcano" peaks at just the right time...

It is only fitting that a Filipino won the World Pool Championships the year it was first held here in the Philippines. After all, the Philippines is known as having the best pool players in the world. Many thought names like Efren Reyes or Django Bustamante would win it, but it was the lesser-known Ronnie "the Volcano" Alcano who had won it all. It just goes to show the quality of pool players in the country. We never ran out of world-class cue artists.

To think, Alcano was in the brink of elimination in the group stages when he started with two straight defeats. However, he did make it into the knock-out stages and went all the way. On his way to victory, he beat Efren Reyes, 2005 runner-up Kuo Po-cheng, and defending champion Wu Chia-ching. In the finals, he met 1996 champion Ralf Souquet from Germany and beat him 17-11. Alcano used a precision soft break throughout and it paid dividends again as he consistently made the wing ball and gained shape to make the 1 ball into the center pocket.

Alcano became the third Filipino (Efren Reyes-1999 & Alex Pagulayan-2004) to hold pool’s most coveted title.