Look up pool in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Pool may refer to:

Pools of water[link]

• Running pool, an artificially enclosed body of water intended for swimming
• Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings
• Tide pool, a rocky pool on an ocean shore that remains filled with seawater when the tide goes out
• Plunge pool, a small, deep body of water
• Stream pool, a quiet slow-moving portion of a stream

Sports and gambling[link]

• Pool (cue sports), a group of games played on a pool table
• Pool (poker) or pot, money wagered during a single hand of poker
• Pool betting or parimutuel betting, a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together
  • Betting pool, a form of pool betting where gamblers pay a fixed price into a pool
    • Football pool, an association football (soccer) betting pool
• Pool play or group stages, the round robin stage of many sporting championships
• Singapore Pools, Singapore's sole legal lottery

Geography[link]

• Pool, Cornwall, in England
• Pool, West Virginia, in the United States
• Pool Department, a division of the Republic of the Congo
• Pool-in-Wharfedale, in West Yorkshire, England
• Pool of London, a stretch of the River Thames
• River Pool (London), a river in England, tributary to the River Ravensbourne
• River Pool, Cumbria, a river in Cumbria, England, tributary to the Gilpin

Computing[link]

• Pool (computer science), a set of initialised resources that are kept ready to use
• Connection pool, a cache of database connections maintained by the database
• Memory pool, a dynamic memory allocation method
• Memory Pool System, a memory management system
• Object pool pattern, a pattern to construct sets of initialised programming objects that are kept ready to use
• Thread pool pattern, a programming method where a number of threads are created to perform a number of tasks

Media[link]

• Pool (album), an album by John Zorn
• The Pool (2004 film), a short British film
• The Pool (2007 film), a 2007 drama film co-written and directed by Chris Smith
• The Pool (2009 film), an adaptation of the 2006 play
• The Pool (game), a role-playing game by James V. West
• The Pool (play), a 2006 play by James Brough and Helen Elizabeth

Other uses[link]

• Pool (surname), a surname (and list of people with the surname)
• Pooling (resource management), grouping together of resources or effort
  • Press pool, group of news gathering organizations pooling their resources
  • Secretarial pool, group of secretaries available to assist executives
• Egyptian pool, a water symbol used in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing
• Risk pool

See also[link]

• Gene pool, complete set of unique alleles in a species or population
• Poel, an island in the Baltic Sea
• Pool Group, a trio of inter-war experimental artists and film-makers
• Pool-type reactor, nuclear reactor that has a core immersed in an open pool of water
• Poole (disambiguation)
• Poul, a given name
• Winter Pool, a part of the admissions process for Cambridge University
• All pages with titles containing "pool"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Efren Reyes

Born	(1954-08-26) August 26, 1954 (age 57) Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines
Sport country	Philippines
Nickname	Bata (Kid) The Magician

Efren Manalang Reyes (born August 26, 1954) is a Filipino professional pool player and a two-time world champion.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Reyes was born in Pampanga in 1954. He moved to Manila with his family at the age of 5. In Manila, he worked as a billiards attendant at his uncle's billiards hall, where he started learning the various cue sports. Because he was not tall enough to reach the pool table, he played while standing on Coca-cola cases that he moved around. At night, while he was dreaming of playing pool, the pool table was his bed.^{[citation needed]}

He is called Bata, which is Filipino for "Kid", because there was another older pool player named Efren when he was young. To distinguish between the two, he was referred to as Efren Bata.

Career[link]

Gambling from a young age, Reyes played three cushion billiards in the 1960s and 1970s. After establishing himself as a winner, he was discovered by promoters. This gave him the opportunity to compete in big time tournaments.

During the 1980s, when Reyes was considered a top-class player in his homeland but not yet internationally recognized, he went to the U.S. to hustle. Popular legend claims that Reyes earned US$80,000 in a week; this feat made him a folk hero back home.^[1]

Reyes began winning a number of tournaments in the U.S., Europe and parts of Asia. Thus, he started to gain attention and recognition worldwide. At the start of his career, he used aliases to hide his identity so he would be allowed to compete. By the mid-1990s, he had become one of the elite players of the Philippines, alongside Jose Parica and Francisco Bustamante.

Reyes' fame began when he won the US Open Nine Ball Championship in 1994 by defeating Nick Varner in the finals. He was the first non-American to win the event.

Two years later, Efren Reyes and Earl Strickland were chosen to face each other in an event called the Color of Money, named after the movie. The event was a three-day race-to-120 challenge match of 9-ball. It was held in Hong Kong, with a winner-take-all prize of US$100,000. Reyes won the match 120-117. This was the largest single-winning purse in a pool event.^{[citation needed]}

Although Strickland was the first to win the WPA World 9-ball Championship, Reyes, in 1999, became the first to win while it was broadcast on television. This tournament was not recognized at the time by the WPA, but Reyes was later retrospectively acknowledged as the winner of one of two world championships held in 1999. Nick Varner won the "official" world title. The two tournaments were merged for the following year, with both men listed as the champion for 1999. At the time, the Matchroom Sport-organised event in Cardiff, Wales, was called the World Professional Pool Championship (despite the entry of many non-professional players).

Efren Reyes posing with fan after he won a historic US$200,000 at the 2005 IPT King of the Hill Shootout

In 2001, Reyes won the International Billiard Tournament. The event was held in Tokyo, with over 700 players and a total purse of ¥100M ($850K). Reyes dominated the event and beat Niels Feijen in the finals 15-7 and earned the ¥20M^[2] ($170K) first prize. At the time, this was the biggest first prize in a pool tournament.

In 2002 he won the $50K winner-take-all International Challenge of Champions, defeating Mika Immonen in a deciding rack after both players split sets.^[3]

Near the end of 2004, Reyes beat Marlon Manalo to become the first-ever WPA World Eight Ball Champion. With the win, he became the first player in WPA history to win world championships in two different disciplines.

In December 2005, Reyes won the IPT King of the Hill 8-Ball Shootout. Reyes won a record-breaking $200K for first place by beating fellow Hall of Fame member Mike "the Mouth" Sigel two sets to none (8-0 and 8-5).

In 2006, Reyes and Francisco Bustamante represented their country as Team Philippines in the inaugural World Cup of Pool. They defeated Team USA, Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris, to capture the title.

That same year, Reyes won the IPT World Open Eight-ball Championship over Rodney Morris 8-6. He earned $500K which was the largest prize money tournament in the history of pocket billiards. Unfortunately, due to IPT's financial problems, he has not been able to claim much of this money as of 2007.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, the Filipino tandem of Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante beat the German pair of Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann by a grueling 11-9 score to take their second championship title. This, together with the semifinal finish of the other Filipino team of Ronato Alcano and Dennis Orcollo, was the best performance by a host nation in the tournament's history.

In 2010, Reyes clinched his fifth title in the 12th annual Derby City Classic as the overall champion, making him the most successful player in the tournament's history.

He has topped the AZ Billiards Money List five times: in 2001,^[4] 2002,^[5] 2004,^[6] 2005^[7] and 2006.^[8] In 2006, he set a record by earning $646K in a single year.

Family[link]

He is married to Susan Reyes. They have three children. His son, Frennie Reyes, once competed in the Asian Nine-ball Tour.

Accolades[link]

Numerous fellow professional players have credited Reyes with being the greatest living player in the world.^[9] During ESPN television commentary on a semi-finals match between Reyes and Mika Immonen at the 2000 Billiard Congress of America Open 9-Ball Championship, veteran professional Billy Incardona stated that Reyes was "indisputably the best player in the world—especially when you consider all games—he can play any game as well as anyone, maybe better than anyone.... In my opinion we're watching probably the greatest player in my lifetime and I've been watching pool for the better part of forty years."^[9]

In 1995 Billiards Digest Magazine named Reyes the Player of the Year.^[10] The following year, when Reyes was ranked number one on the U.S.'s Pro Billiards Tour, the June 1996 issue of the magazine featured a poll of "billiard cognoscenti"—pro players, billiards writers, industry insiders and the like—to pick the best in billiards in various categories.^[10] Billiards' own elite named Reyes the best one-pocket player of all time.^[10] The magazine wrote, "While a bevy of one-pocket geniuses abound, Efren Reyes, whose prowess in one-pocket is sometimes obscured by his 9-ball stardom, was the popular pick. Is there anything Bata can't do?"^[10]

In 2003, he became the first Asian to be inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.^[11]

Reyes was appointed Philippine Sports Ambassador of the 2005 South East Asian Games alongside some of the Philippines' greatest athletes (Allan Caidic, Rafael Nepomuceno) to promote the event throughout the country.

For 2007, he was ranked #2 in Pool & Billiard Magazine's "Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players" poll.^[12]

Other awards and honors include:

• Philippine Legion of Honor
• Philippine Order of Lakandula "Champion for Life Award"
• Outstanding Filipino Awardee of the Jaycees
• Philippine Sportswriters Association Sportsman of the Year 1999, 2001 and 2006
• One Pocket Hall of Fame (inducted in 2004)

Films and television[link]

In 2003, Reyes was featured in the Filipino movie Pakners with the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr.. Reyes also appeared in the 2007 short film Nineball.^[13]

In one episode of the TV series Magpakailanman, the story follows a young Efren Reyes (portrayed by actor Anjo Yllana) in his early pool-playing days as he progresses from a money player to a tournament contender.

Nicknames and aliases[link]

Reyes is often called by his nickname Bata" (Filipino for "Kid"), given to him by friends at his regular pool hall to distinguish him from an older Efren.

Reyes, along with the other "Filipino invasion" players revolutionized the way pool is played by their introduction to the sport of pinpoint precision kicking (going into a rail with the cue ball and then hitting an object ball). Reyes' ability to "kick safe" and to kick balls into intended pockets is legendary. This ability, coupled with his superb skill at other aspects of the game, led U.S. professionals to give him the appellation "The Magician." Before Reyes and his compatriots came over to the U.S., no one there had seen anything like their kicking skill set.^[14]

"[The] first time I came over to the states, I used an alias of Cesar Morales. Pool players in the US already knew Efren Reyes as a great shooter from the Philippines, but they [hadn't]...seen...[me]...in person." — Efren Reyes^[15]

Titles and achievements[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Efren Reyes Matches
• Efren Reyes bio at AZBilliards

v t e Cue sports biographies Yank Adams • George Balabushka • Jean Balukas • Steve Cook • Irving Crane • Steve Davis • Pat Fleming • Masako Katsura • Luther Lassiter • Walter Lindrum • Keith McCready • Cowboy Jimmy Moore • Willie Mosconi • Shaun Murphy • Ronnie O'Sullivan • Jasmin Ouschan • William A. Spinks • Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone • Jimmy Wetch

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth^[1] (born June 17, 1987), simply known as Kendrick Lamar, is an American rapper and songwriter from Compton, California currently signed to Top Dawg, Aftermath and Interscope. He first gained major attention after the release of his 2010 mixtape Overly Dedicated. In 2011, his album Section.80, released exclusively through iTunes, instantly ranked as one of the top digital hip hop releases of the year.^[2] Lamar has amassed a large internet following, is a member of hip hop collective Black Hippy, along with Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul, and has worked with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Wiz Khalifa, Game, Drake, Busta Rhymes and Tech N9ne among other popular artists.^[3]

Biography[link]

1987-2009: Early life and career beginnings[link]

Kendrick Lamar was born in Compton, California, a community southeast of Los Angeles city limits, to parents from Chicago, Illinois.^[4] At the age of eight, in 1995, Lamar witnessed his idols, Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre film the music video for their hit single "California Love," a very significant moment in Lamar's life.^[5] In 2003 at the young age of sixteen, Lamar released his first mixtape, Youngest Head Nigga In Charge under the name K. Dot.^[6] The mixtape was able to garner enough attention for Lamar to get a record deal with Top Dawg Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based independent record label.^[6] He then released a twenty-six track mixtape two years later titled Training Day.^[7] More recognition came Lamar's way after a video of a Charles Hamilton show surfaced, where Hamilton goes in the crowd and battles rappers at attendance. Lamar didn't hesitate and began rapping a verse over Milkbone's "Keep It Real", that would later appear on a track titled "West Coast Wu-Tang".^[5] In 2008 Lamar made a cameo appearance on Jay Rock's "All My Life (In the Ghetto)" music video. After receiving a co-sign from Lil Wayne, he released his third mixtape in 2009 titled C4, heavily themed around Tha Carter III LP.^[8] Soon after, he decided to drop his stage name K. Dot and go by his real name. This resulted in him releasing a self-titled EP; the Kendrick Lamar EP in late 2009.^[9]

[edit] 2010–2011: Overly Dedicated and Section.80

Kendrick performing at a concert in Toronto, Canada

In 2010 he toured with Tech N9ne and Jay Rock on The Independent Grind tour.^[6] On September 23, 2010 he released O(verly) D(edicated) a highly acclaimed mixtape that included a song titled "Ignorance is Bliss" in which he glorifies gangsta rap and street crime but ends each verse with "ignorance is bliss" giving the message "we know not what we do".^[10][11] It was that song specifically that made hip hop producer Dr. Dre want to work with Lamar.^[12] This led to him working with Dre and Snoop Dogg on Dre's Detox album and him considering signing to Aftermath Entertainment.^[6][13] In January 2011 Lamar said his debut album was 90% finished.^[6]

In early 2011 Lamar was featured on XXL Magazine's 2011 Freshman cover along with CyHi the Prynce, Meek Mill, Mac Miller, Yelawolf, Lil B, Big K.R.I.T. and Diggy Simmons among others.^[14] On July 2, 2011, Lamar released his third solo project Section.80 to critical acclaim. It features guest appearances from GLC, Colin Munroe, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul and includes production from longtime collaborator Sounwave, Wyldfyer, Terrace Martin, J. Cole and more. On the topic of whether Section.80 would be an album or a mixtape Lamar said "I treat every project like it’s an album anyway. It’s not gonna be nothing leftover. I never do nothing like that. These are my leftover songs y’all can have ‘em, nah. I’m gonna put my best out. My best effort. I’m tryna look for an album in 2012". The first single for Section.80 was the J. Cole produced track "HiiiPower", of which the concept was to further explain the HiiiPower movement. Section.80 went on to sell over 10,000 copies in its first week^[15] without any television or radio coverage and received many very positive reviews. In the second half of 2011, Lamar appeared on Game's The R.E.D. Album, Tech N9ne's All 6's and 7's, 9th Wonder's The Wonder Years and Drake's Take Care.

In August 2011, while onstage with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Game, at the West Los Angeles concert, the three of them crowned him the "New King of the West Coast"^[16]

[edit] 2012–present: Good Kid in a Mad City

On February 15, 2012, a song titled "Cartoons & Cereal" featuring Gunplay of Triple C's was leaked.^[17] Lamar revealed later that the track was for his upcoming album and he was planning to shoot a video for it.^[18]

In March 2012, MTV announced that Top Dawg Entertainment, the independent record label Lamar is signed to, have closed a joint venture deal with Interscope Records and Aftermath Entertainment, marking the end of his career as an independent artist. Under the new deal, Kendrick Lamar’s projects, including his upcoming debut studio album Good Kid in a Mad City will be jointly released via Top Dawg, Aftermath and Interscope, while releases from the rest of Black Hippy will be distributed via Top Dawg and Interscope.^[19]

Lamar premiered "The Recipe", his debut single and the lead single from Good Kid in a Mad City, at Power 106 on April 2, 2012. The track was released for digital download the following day. The song was produced by Scoop DeVille and features Dr. Dre.^{[citation needed]}

It was announced on May 14, 2012, that Lamar is working on a collaborative album with J. Cole. In an interview with Bootleg Kev, Cole stated that "I just started working with Kendrick the other day. We got it in, finally, again. We got maybe four or five [songs] together."

Personal life[link]

In high school, Centennial in Compton, Lamar was a good student.^[4] Lamar said that he has seen relatives who have died in his dreams for years. Tupac Shakur is also his favorite rapper, and influences not only his music, but his day-to-day lifestyle as well. In terms of subject matter, Kendrick Lamar has often been compared to Tupac Shakur. ^[6][20][21] He revealed that his favorite and most influential rappers are Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Jay-Z and his label-mate Eminem.

Discography[link]

• Section.80 (2011)
• Good Kid in a Mad City (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kendrick Lamar on Twitter
• kedricklamar.com Official Site