Earl Strickland overcame a raucous crowd and more importantly, a determined Steve Davis, to make it into the final 8 at the 2003 empirepoker.com World Pool Championship on Friday.
The match between Davis and Strickland was a rematch of the final match from the Mosconi Cup last year, and the crowd made no secret of their pulling for Davis. The match was marred by outbursts from both the crowd and players. Davis and Strickland fought it out the whole way, with both players trading leads and neither player able to get out to a lead of more than 2 games. A table run by Strickland at 9-9 allowed him to get to the hill, followed by a shaky win in the next game for the 11-9 victory.
Strickland's next opponent will be Ching-Shun Yang, who eliminated Mika Immonen 11-5 on Friday. Other matches on Saturday will see Tony Drago take on Hui-Kai Hsia, Alex Pagulayan vs Sin-Young Park and Francisco Bustamante vs Thorsten Hohmann.
Follow all the action Saturday at the official site of the 2003 empirepoker.com World Pool Championship, www.worldpoolchampionship.com
Results - Last 16
Alex Pagulayan (Can) 11 - 5 Ramil Gallego (Phi)
Sin-Young Park (Kor) 11 - 5 Alex Lely (Hol)
Hui-Kai Hsia (Tpe) 11 - 4 Marcus Chamat (Swe)
Tony Drago (Mal) 11 - 9 Young-Hwa Jeong (Kor)
Ching-Shun Yang (Tpe) 11 - 5 Mika Immonen (Fin)
Earl Strickland (USA) 11 - 9 Steve Davis (Eng)
Thorsten Hohmann (Ger) 11 - 5 Luc Salvas (Can)
Francisco Bustamante (Phi) 11 - 8 Efren Reyes (Phi)
