“The Lion” Alex Pagulayan is King of the Jungle, in Vegas!!!

“The Lion” is King of the Jungle, in Vegas!!! Snaps off the Pool World Masters as well as wins the Action Challenge over Shane Van Boening!

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“The Lion” Alex Pagulayan takes down the PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters Championship presented by Matchroom Sport.

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Former World Champion “The Lion” Alex Pagulayan earned $20K last Sunday night at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in snapping of the World Pool Masters. He also follows up with major win defeating 2007 US Open 9 Ball Champion Shane Van Boening.

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In the final match, it was looking like it was all Mika Immonen as he was looking very dominant. “The Ice Man” has stepped up his game of late as he has been placing consistently in the top 5 in recent events.

Alex was down 6-3 in the match, and was thinking to himself that it was a repeat of the World Pool Masters in 2006, but lost to Ralf Souquet.

But what proved to be the turning point of the match “The Ice Man” Mika Immonen, broke and made an illegal break as he only had 2 balls pass the headstring.

“The Lion” Alex Pagulayan then showed Vegas who was the King of the Jungle as he wins the next 5 consecutive racks for the World Pool Masters Title.

Below is the breakdown of the SemiFinals and Quarter Finals of the World Pool Masters:
Please check out a post from Mika’s Blog as he shares his experience with his fans. Be sure to hit up Mika’s blog

Both finalists are sponsored by Mezz Cues.
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Semi Finals:

“The Lion” Alex Pagulayan (def:) “Busti” Francisco Bustamante 8-4

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Mika Immonen (def:) Ko Pin-yi 8-4

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Quarterfinals:

“Busti” Francisco Bustamante (def:) Imran Jajid 8-4

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“18 year old Junior National Champ” Ko Pin-yi (def:) Tony Drago 8-4
“The Iceman” Mika Immonen (def:) Corey Duell 8-5
Alex Pagulayan (def) Rodney Morris 8-6
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Final Results:
1st: “The Lion” Alex Pagulayan $20,000
2nd: Mika Immonen $10,000
3rd: Francisco Bustamante $5,000
4th: Ko Pin-Yi $5,000
5th: Rodney Morris $2,500
6th: Imran Majid
7th: Tony Drago
8th: Corey Deuel
9-12th: Thomas Engert, Mark Gray ?Bruno Muratore ?Shane Van Boening ?Ralf Souquet ?Niels Feijen ?Christian Reimering ?Daryl Peach $1,500

Mika is a fan favorite, and likes to share his experiences with his fans. Read below for Mika’s experience from his blog. www.icemika.blogspot.com
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 14
Masters was close, now the 10-ball

World Pool Masters, The 16-player invitational: I had a nice run at the Masters as well, coming out strong in the first round against reigning World Champion Darryl Peach.

I played very consistently, putting pressure on him early on. I managed to win with a nice 8-2 first round finally making it past 1st round in the Masters.

I have had a weird history with it, some freaky rolls… Anyways, match Nr.2 presented Corey Deuel.

I have played Corey a lot recently and most of the time coming out ahead. I am pretty sure he doesn’t fancy playing me by now.

The beginning of the match I made some stupid mistakes like missing the 9, to go up 2-0. ?There was a little infra-red beam that took my eye of the ball though.

Fans, you have to be carefull not to have that red-eye reduction on when you shoot pool shots LIVE. It really can mess up any shot almost worse than the flash.?Another mistake I made was an easy 8-ball. I simply rushed it.

I think I took one stroke. Might have been the nerves. But its not like me. Lately I have been focosing on my technique like taking at least three practise strokes before pulling the trigger.

At 4-2 in Corey’s favor he made a position error to get to the seven leaving himself jacked up on the rail with 7 straight in on the other end, diagonally across the table.

He missed it, leaving me a routine run-out and closing the gap 3-4. I then took a time-out, splashed my face with some cool water, gave myself a good slap on the face to redeem myself. No more unforced errors, and preferably no errors at all.

Then next rack I played a good safe, but Corey in return kicksafed me back. I did have a pretty routine kick but I accidentally kicked the ball in the side, leaving myself a table length Jump-shot. The object ball close to the rail at least two diamonds from the pocket…I made it!

Then I still had a tough cut on the six. I made it too and 7, 8 and 9 was pretty standard clearance. I took the next rack as well, but Corey fired back to make it 5-5.

From there I didn’t look back I ran out and broke and ran 2 to complete the match 8-5.

In the Semi’s I was up against the Taiwanese sensation Ko Pin-yi, who’s earlier victories included Souquet (8-3) and Drago (8-4).??This match was more strategy, since the break was dry most of the time.

I somehow with experience hanged in, though I was down 4-2. For the first time in the tournament I saw him falter a bit. He is human after all. I played my opportunities well keeping him on the defense the rest of the match. The fact that the 9 was on the spot instead of the 1 worked in my favor.

Taiwanese are known to crush the break from the side but this time there was very little advantage in doing so. The wingball went high and 1 went past the side. Anyways, the match ended 8-4.

Then I played the finals against my MEZZ Teammate Alex Pagulayan. I took charge early by copying Alex’s break. It was a cut-break with draw and some right english.

At 3-1 I had easy lay-out but I rattled the 3 in the corner. Should have hit softer. I was over-confident.I still managed to keep the lead even extending it to 6-3, but the Pool Gods decided I had had enough:?I broke, made a ball but got only one ball past “the kitchen”. It meant loss of turn due to “illegal break”.

The rule is suppose to be there to just eliminate soft breaks but in this case even though I was breaking hard, the balls went on a collision course downtable preventing anything from going uptable.

So I had to suck it up and watch Alex run four consecutive racks. He had nice lay-outs, no clusters. It put me in a bit of a coma.

Alex scratched at 7-6, and of course even ball in hand, I didn’t have an open table. Getting to the 2 balI was the key. I made a 1-3 combo followed by a horrible overstroke draw. Cueball scratched opposite corner. With ball in hand for Alex on the key ball, it was a routine run-out.

Well, what can I say? Congrats Alex, looking forward for a re-match. Somehow, somewhere.
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The World Pool Master was a huge success. Be sure to check out the World Pool Masters site, for more info and pics. CLICK HERE!!!

“The Lion” Alex Pagulayan reprieved himself from his last “Action Challenge” match up vs 2007 US Open Champion Shane Van Boening.

In a 3 day marathon race to 100 Challenge Match, Shane had Alex buried at one point by as much as 22 games down as it looked like Shane was going to easily cruise to the win.

Alex showed the fans who were watching it on TAR, as well as all of the people who were watching the match in person, what it is to have the heart of a Lion.

After the first day the score was 30-24 Shane. On the second day, Shane incrementally increased his lead to 70-63.

On the third and final day of the race to 100, Alex at one point was down 22 games and was clearly on the ropes.

In an impressive turn of events, Alex came out of his corner with a clever combination of tactical play, like a seasoned boxer looking to grind back points… and when saw opportunities to strike, started to combine racks like carefully placed punches.

Alex slowly grinded back to being 90-85 down, when Alex like an angry Lion in the jungle started to tear up his opponent in the field of battle.

“The Lion” roared back to take the lead 99-92, and while Shane gave his fans some hope as he won the next two games 99-94, it just wasn’t enough to stop the momentum that Alex built up.

Alex Pagulayan proved to be the “Lion” in the Vegas jungle as he closed out the 2007 US Open 9 Ball Champ and last years former 10 Ball World Champion 100-94.

The match will be for sale via DVD in mid June, which can be purchased from TAR’s website www.theactionreport.com

Written by “The Other” Alison Fischer