Monday, July 24, 2006
Davao's Valle in tough group
By Charles Raymond A. Maxey
GANDY Valle of Davao City begins his quest for another shot at pool glory when he takes part in the rich International Pool Tour 2006 North American 8-Ball Championships at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
It is going to be an uphill climb for Valle, though, as he is entered in a Group 20 that include Mika Immonen of Finland and Oliver Ortmann of Germany.
Valle, an Asian Games gold medalist and 2004 Singapore leg winner of the San Miguel Asian 9-Ball Tour, will also have to contend with Americans Charles Bryant and J. Raney.
Valle is only one of the Filipino armada in the field of 200. Heading the Pinoy campaign are Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante.
Reyes, Bustamante, Jose Parica and Marlon Manalo are the only seeded Pinoys in the event. Other Filipino qualifiers aside from Valle are Ronnie Alcano, Warren Kiamco, Dennis Orcollo, Alex Pagulayan, Antonio Lining, Rodolfo Luat, Edwin Montal and Santos Sambajon.
Tournament formar calls for the 200 players to be divided into 40 groups of five players each, with the top three cue masters advancing to the next round after a round robin elimination.
The winner here will receive $350,000 or around P18.5 million, the biggest prize in Open pool tournament.
Joining Reyes in Group 9 are Gabe Owen, M. Kenniston, J. Waden and L. Condo, while Baustamante is in Group 10 together with E. Kelly, G. Hofstatter. J. Weast and A. Koukiadakis.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 24, 2006 issue)
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