World Pool League
The World Pool League (WPL) was a nine ball pool tournament promoted by Matchroom Sport and PartyGaming,[1] and sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). All of the events were held in Warsaw, Poland, annually from 1999 to 2006.[1] Six notable players were selected to participate in each event, which lasted for three days.[1] Despite its name, the WPA was simply an invitational tournament, not a league in the usual sporting senses. The victor in the final event was Dennis Orcollo of the Philippines, 8–5 over Niels Feijen of the Netherlands, for a US$20,000 first-place prize.[1]
Format
Round robin stage
The players were arranged such that each on the others once, in round-robin fashion. Unlike most matches in the sport where a player has to score a required number of racks to win, players in this round play in an assigned number of racks (for example: 10 racks or 12 racks). If a player won more racks than those remaining in the match, 2 points were earned. If the match ended with two players in the same score, then both settled for a point each. The leading 4 players in the field proceeded to the semi-finals.
Semi-finals and final
The semi-finals were single-elimination (knock-out). The final was played as a race (such as race-to-nine or race-to-eight).
Winners
Year | 1st place | 2nd place |
---|---|---|
1998 | Jim Rempe[1] | Fabio Petroni |
1999 | Jim Rempe | Efren Reyes |
2000 | Steve Knight | Francisco Bustamante |
2001 | Efren Reyes[1] | Steve Davis |
2002 | Efren Reyes | Earl Strickland |
2003 | Rodney Morris[1] | Thorsten Hohmann |
2004 | Francisco Bustamante[1] | Alex Pagulayan |
2005 | Thorsten Hohmann[1] | Francisco Bustamante |
2006 | Dennis Orcollo[1] | Niels Feijen[1] |