The World Pool Masters is an annual international

nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-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 at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...

tournament. Formerly, it was called the European Pool Masters (until 1995) until players from other parts of the globe were invited.

History

Throughout much of its history, the tournament has been featuring sixteen world-class

pool Pool may refer to: Bodies of water * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a roc ...

players, competing in

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

format. In 2010, the number of players was doubled to 32. The first round of the event was played in double elimination with the second round in single-elimination. In 2011, the tournament reverted to the original 16-player single-elimination format, with each match a race-to-8, winner breaks. The 2011 edition was held in

SM North EDSA SM North EDSA (formerly known as The SM Center North EDSA, The SM City North EDSA and also known as SM City North EDSA) is a large shopping mall located in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is the first SM Supermalls, SM Supermall in ...

Mall in

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read and pronounced in Filipino language, Filipino as Kyusi), is the richest and List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 c ...

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Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Ralf Souquet Ralf Souquet ( ; born 29 November 1968) is a German professional pool player. His nickname is "The Kaiser". Souquet is considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Since 1988, he has won over 100 professional tournaments, including 2 ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

won the said tournament for the record-setting sixth time, beating defending champion

Dennis Orcollo Dennis Orcollo (born January 28, 1979), sometimes called Dennis Orcullo, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "''Surigao''" (after a province in the Philippines) and "RoboCop". He has been called "The Money-Game King". Orcollo is c ...

of the

, 8–5. For the

2019 World Pool Masters The 2019 World Pool Masters was a nine-ball pool tournament which took place in Gibraltar from 29 to 31 March 2019. It was the 26th edition of the World Pool Masters invitational tournament organised by Matchroom Sport. The event contained inc ...

, the field was changed to accompany 24 players, with seeded players being given a bye through the first round. The 2022 World Pool Masters went back to its original format, inviting 16 players, with 8 seeded players meeting the other 8 in the first round of the single-elimination tournament.

Winners

Records

holds the record for winning the World Pool Masters the most times: six. (1994, 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2011). *

Shane Van Boening Shane Van Boening (; born July 14, 1983) 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 ...

holds the record for the most consecutive wins: two. (2014, 2015). * The oldest pool player to ever win the tournament to date is Ralf Souquet of

, at 42 years old at the time of his victory. The youngest is

Daryl Peach Daryl Peach (born 8 March 1972) 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 ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, aged 23 years old at the time of his victory.

Top Performers

* Active participants are shown in bold. * In the event of identical records, players are sorted in alphabetical order by first name.

References

External links

Official site

{{Cue sports nav Pool competitions Recurring sporting events established in 1993