What is pool?
Pool is the family of pocket billiards games played on a six-pocket table: nine-ball (the professional standard — pot the balls in numerical order, the nine wins the rack), ten-ball, eight-ball, straight pool and one-pocket. Alongside sits carom billiards, played on a pocketless table where points come from caroming the cue ball off other balls, governed separately by the UMB.[1] [2]
How is professional pool organized?
Unusually, the sport's centre of gravity is a promoter rather than a federation: the WPA is the world governing body and sanctions the world championships and rankings, but Matchroom Multi Sport promotes and largely owns the events that matter commercially — the Mosconi Cup, the World Pool Masters, the World Cup of Pool and the US Open. Pool is also a World Games sport.[2] [3]
The Mosconi Cup
Pool's answer to the Ryder Cup: Europe against the United States over four nights of team match play each December, played in a deliberately raucous arena atmosphere with crowds chanting. It transformed the sport's television presence and remains its most-watched event.[3]
Where is pool strong?
The Philippines is pool's spiritual superpower — Efren "Bata" Reyes is widely called the greatest player who ever lived, and Carlo Biado's 2025 world title continued the line — with Taiwan, the United States, Poland, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands producing the modern elite.[2] [4]
How is pool awarded?
Who has won the most in pool?
Pool has several titles that are called world championships, so each table below names the lineage it covers, and all of them are the World Pool-Billiard Association's. The counts were parsed from the association's own champions tables and reconcile to the number of editions in every discipline except men's nine-ball, where 1999 produced two champions and 33 stagings yield 34 titles — nine-ball from 1990, men's ten-ball from 2008 and the women's from 2009, eight-ball from 2004, and straight pool for its four editions from 2006. No man has ever won the eight-ball title twice. The Mosconi Cup is not tabled: its promoter publishes no roll of honour, and the United States total cannot be derived from the two figures it does publish.
Most WPA World Nine-ball Championship titles — men (1990–2025)
| Rank | Name | Country | Years | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Earl Strickland | United States | 1990, 1991, 2002 | 3 |
| 2= | Johnny Archer | United States | 1992, 1997 | 2 |
| 2= | Fong-Pang Chao | Chinese Taipei | 1993, 2000 | 2 |
| 2= | Thorsten Hohmann | Germany | 2003, 2013 | 2 |
| 2= | Albin Ouschan | Austria | 2016, 2021 | 2 |
| 2= | Carlo Biado | Philippines | 2017, 2025 | 2 |
| 2= | Fedor Gorst | Russia (2019) / AIN (2024) | 2019, 2024 | 2 |
| 8= | 19 players on 1: Okumura (JPN 1994), Ortmann (GER 1995), Souquet (GER 1996), Takahashi (JPN 1998), Reyes (PHI 1999), Varner (USA 1999), Immonen (FIN 2001), Pagulayan (CAN 2004), Chia-Ching Wu (TPE 2005), Alcano (PHI 2006), Peach (GBR 2007), Bustamante (PHI 2010), Akagariyama (JPN 2011), Appleton (GBR 2012), Feijen (NED 2014), Ko Pin Yi (TPE 2015), Filler (GER 2018), Van Boening (USA 2022), Sanchez-Ruiz (ESP 2023) | – | – | 1 |
Most WPA World Nine-ball Championship titles — women (1990–2025)
| Rank | Name | Country | Years | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allison Fisher | Great Britain | 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 | 4 |
| 2= | Han Yu | China | 2013, 2016, 2018 | 3 |
| 2= | Liu Sha-Sha | China | 2009, 2014, 2015 | 3 |
| 4= | Robin Bell | United States | 1990, 1991 | 2 |
| 4= | Hsin-Mei Liu | Chinese Taipei | 1999, 2002 | 2 |
| 4= | Kim Ga Young | Republic of Korea | 2004, 2006 | 2 |
| 4= | Kelly Fisher | Great Britain | 2012, 2019 | 2 |
| 8= | 13 players on 1: Stark (GBR 1992), Loree Jon Jones (USA 1993), Mataya-Laurance (SWE 1994), Hofstatter (AUT 1995), Julie Kelly (IRL 2000), Xiao Ting Pan (CHN 2007), Yuan Chun-Lin (TPE 2008), Fu Xiaofang (CHN 2010), Zhu Qing Bi (CHN 2011), Chen Siming (CHN 2017), Chieh-Yu Chou (TPE 2023), Amit (PHI 2024), Seo Seoa (KOR 2025) | – | – | 1 |
Most WPA World Ten-ball Championship titles — men (2008–2025)
| Rank | Name | Country | Years | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | Eklent Kaci | Albania | 2021, 2023 | 2 |
| 1= | Ko Ping-Chung | Chinese Taipei | 2019, 2025 | 2 |
| 3= | 6 players on 1: Appleton (GBR 2008), Immonen (FIN 2009), Huidji See (NED 2011), Ko Pin Yi (TPE 2015), Szewczyk (POL 2022), Biado (PHI 2024) | – | – | 1 |
Most WPA World Ten-ball Championship titles — women (2009–2026)
| Rank | Name | Country | Years | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | Rubilen Amit | Philippines | 2009, 2013 | 2 |
| 1= | Chezka Centeno | Philippines | 2023, 2025 | 2 |
| 3= | 6 players on 1: Jasmin Ouschan (AUT 2010), Kelly Fisher (GBR 2011), Gay Young Kim (KOR 2012), Chou Chieh-Yu (TPE 2022), Tkach (AIN 2024), Fefilova (BLR 2026) | – | – | 1 |
Most World Straight Pool Championship titles (2006–2010)
| Rank | Name | Country | Years | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oliver Ortmann | Germany | 2007, 2010 | 2 |
| 2= | Thorsten Hohmann | Germany | 2006 | 1 |
| 2= | Niels Feijen | Netherlands | 2008 | 1 |
Medal lists rank on total medals, then gold, then silver; title lists rank on titles. Equal totals are separated by golds, then silvers, and every table states the period it covers. Verified September 2026.[5] [6] [7] [8]
References
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Billiards. Accessed August 2026.
- WPA — World Pool-Billiard Association. Accessed August 2026.
- Matchroom Pool — official site. Accessed August 2026.
- 2025 WPA World Nine-ball Championship — Carlo Biado. Accessed August 2026.
- World Pool-Billiard Association — world champions, all disciplines. Accessed September 2026.
- WPA — 2026 women's nine-ball world championship. Accessed September 2026.
- WPA — 2026 men's ten-ball world championship. Accessed September 2026.
- WPA — 2026 men's eight-ball world championship. Accessed September 2026.