Round 1 Results
China 8-4 Singapore
Spain 8-3 Hungary
CHINA, fielding a changed line-up for the first time in the seven year history of the PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool, made their way into the second round as Li Hewen and Liu Haitao got the better of a Singaporean team who had their chances in the early stages.
Li was a winner of this event with Fu Jianbo in 2007 and 2010 but for the first time Fu failed to be selected. His replacement Liu however looks very capable of filling his shoes.
Singapore fielded a debutant in the wonderfully named Aloysius Yapp and his partner, the veteran Chan Keng Kwang and they got to 4-3 lead which was about to go 5-3 but Kwang blew an easy 7 ball and from there the match turned.
China cleared that one to square it and never lost another rack before running out 8-4 winners.
The 2012 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool runs from Tuesday September 4 to Sunday, September 9 at Robinson’s Place, Ermita, Manila. Once again the total prize fund is US$250,000 with $60,000 going to the eventual champions. Tickets for the extravaganza will be available at the venue on the day of play but with plentiful balconies offering superb views of the playing arena, organisers are anticipating crowds in the thousands rather than hundreds.
In the second match of the session, the Spanish pair of David Alcaide and Francisco Diaz made light work of Hungarian qualifiers Gabor Solymisi and Miko Balazs as they ran out 8-3 winners to book a second round match against China.
The Hungarians never settled and at times looked a bit over-awed while the Spanish pair were solid enough and while they will need to play better against China, they were too much for their opponents.
Alcaide is one of the top players on the Euro Tour and Diaz is the reigning European 9 Ball Champion and their class showed as they took advantage of the many errors gifted to them by the Hungarians.
The 2012 PARTYPOKER.NET World Cup of Pool is sponsored by PartyPoker.net, the world's leading online poker school. Cloth is supplied by Iwan Simonis, Super Aramith balls by Saluc, tables by Diamond Billiards and the Official Cue is Predator.
Get all the latest updates on the 2012 World Cup of Pool on our Facebook Page.
For complete up to date brackets go this link.
