INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines - Dennis Orcollo and Gandy Valley and Antonio Lining and Ramil Gallego hurdled their respective rivals in the JBETpoker.net Scotch Doubles All-Star Challenge at the Skydome of SM North Edsa in Quezon City.

Representing Bugsy Promotions, Orcollo, last year’s world No. 1, and Valle, an Asian Games gold medalist, showed top form in blanking the Puyat Sports duo of former world champ Alex Pagulayan and veteran Rodolfo Luat, 5-0.

The shutout win in the second match improved on the 5-2 victory by Lining and Gallego, playing for the BMPAP Selection, over Lee Van Corteza and Warren Kiamco of Negros Billiard Stable.

Though paired for the first time, Lining, a Busan Asian Games champion, and Gallego, a veteran internationalist, came up with a solid performance to thwart the Negrenses in the four-team competition serving as appetizer to the Villards Challenge of the Legend: The Maestro versus the Volcano set Friday between pool maestro Efren “Bata” Reyes and fellow former double world champion Ronnie Alcano.

“We started well and the ball tended to favor us, so we took advantage of the opportunity,” said the Japan-based Lining in Filipino. “We’ll try to be careful because we have more matches and more tough opponents to play.”

The four teams will play a single round-robin eliminations with the top two advancing to the finals of the two-day event conceptualized by Bugsy Promotion’s head Perry Mariano and presented by Sen. Manny Villar’s “Villards: Tulong sa Pagsulong ng Philippine Sports” in cooperation with the Billiards Managers and Players Association of the Philippines.

Simple opening rites ushered in the event sponsored by Camella Communities and JBETpoker.net with Villar as guest of honor. He was joined by BMPAP president lawyer Vic Rodriguez and BSCP president Arturo “Bong” Ilagan.

Reyes and Alcano will tangle in a race-to-9 rotation match which will be aired live over ABS-CBN’s Studio 23 with real-time streaming in the Internet via www.JBET.net.