Bank On It

DeOrcollo kept Souquet from finding a rhythm and closed out the fairly one-sided final for the $20,000 title.nnis Orcollo survived an early setback at the Predator International 10-Ball Championship to prove that he’s the world’s most dangerous player — no matter the setting.

JUDGING SOLELY by the look on his face the second he clinched the Predator International 10-Ball Championship, Dennis Orcollo was the last person who expected he’d win the prestigious event. Fist in the air and cue by his side, he unleashed a celebratory howl, with a smile of wonderment and surprise that hid what is fast becoming common knowledge: Dennis Orcollo, the Philippines’ undisputed monster of money games, is fast becoming the world’s most feared tournament player. And he knows it.

At the Predator Championship — held May 14-16 at the Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas — Orcollo not only bounced back from an early loss, he dominated every match from that point on, including an 8-3 victory over Ralf Souquet in the final. After a second-round misstep against Tony Robles, Orcollo was in complete control, displaying a range of emotions that never swung much past slightly annoyed to mildly satisfied. Only when the last 10 ball disappeared did the 30-year-old Filipino discard his poker face of tight-lipped concentration for an ear-connecting smile of accomplishment.

Standing all of five-feet and change with a fighting weight somewhere around a buck thirty, Orcollo is not the most intimidating specimen. But the lack of physical prowess doesn’t lend him to comparisons with a tee-baller’s getting that first hit. It’s the utter joy and total surprise — or at least what seems to be total surprise — at his accomplishments.

Orcollo, though, is hardly a flash-in-the-pan sensation. Since he began supporting himself with a cue 14 years ago, the diminutive Filipino has been challenging and, more often than not, beating anyone and everyone. The product of a small fishing village on the island of Mindanao, Orcollo ditched a subsistence living from the sea to chase his dream of playing pool, arriving in Manila at the age of 18.

By the middle of this decade, after years spent within the country’s flourishing money-game circuit, Orcollo had ascended to the throne as the action king of the Philippines. By 2005, national icons like Efren Reyes and Jose Parica conceded that the new man to beat was the baby-faced fisherman with a killer game.

“That’s how I practice,” Orcollo said of money games. “You get stronger. You always get better. Now, when I play in the tournament finals, I can bring that experience with me. I can tell myself, ‘I am strong. I am strong.’”

Barnstorming through the United States in 2006, Orcollo displayed his powerful game in front of American audiences for the first time. He collected a pair of major titles — the Reno Open and U.S. Bar Table 8-Ball Championship — and finished second in overall performance on the lucrative International Pool Tour (behind Reyes). He ended the year with $202,500 in total money and earned Breakout Player of the Year honors.

While his American ventures have been somewhat limited, partly due to a U.S. tournament schedule that has atrophied a bit in recent years, Orcollo has made the most of his time in the States. He snapped off the BCA’s 2007 tournament (dubbed the EnjoyPool.com 9-Ball Championship), before spending most of 2008 touring Asia.

But with a pair of big-money professional events invading the Riviera on successive weekends in May (Matchroom Sport’s World Pool Masters was held a week before the Predator 10-Ball event), Orcollo hopped back over the Pacific. Ousted by Immonen in the second round of the Masters, Orcollo kept busy with money games, a form of scrimmaging for Orcollo to stay sharp for the next event.

“Before the tournament, I find somebody to play a money game,” he said. “That’s for practice. I know that a tournament is going to have short races, so you have to start good.”

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