In his decades-long playing career, Efren "Bata" Reyes has seen and overcome countless difficult situations on the pool table. From seemingly impossible shots, to breathtaking matches, to confrontations with world champions – he has experienced it all.
However, in a recent tournament, even the Filipino "Wizard" could not have expected that he would witness an unprecedented strange phenomenon happening right before his eyes, leaving him stunned and the entire audience holding their breath.
The tournament took place at a modern stadium in Asia, where thousands of spectators flocked to see their idol compete with their own eyes. The atmosphere in the auditorium was bustling from the first minutes when Efren stepped onto the floor with a calm gaze and familiar confidence.
His opponent was a promising young player who had made many shocking shots in recent times. Everyone was expecting an exciting clash, but no one could have imagined that the biggest surprise would come not from the people, but from the table itself.
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From the very first minutes of the match, everything seemed normal. Efren played his usual style – calm, sharp and magical. He executed smooth shots, fooling both the audience and his opponents with unbelievable “kick shots”, each ball seemed to follow his will. However, on the fourth shot, something unusual began to happen.
When Reyes aimed the 5 ball at the right corner pocket, he made a moderate, millimeter-accurate shot – a simple situation that he could do hundreds of times in his sleep.
But what stunned everyone was that the 5 ball, after hitting the ice and aiming right at the pocket,… stopped right at the mouth of the pocket without rolling in, as if there was an invisible force holding it back. The crowd gasped, some stood up, and Reyes frowned, bending down to take a closer look.
He lifted the cue stick and checked the position of the ball, then called the referee. There was nothing unusual on the table surface – no dust, no tears, no foreign substances.
The table surface was still perfect. The referee decided to let the match continue, assuming it was just a random situation. But it didn’t stop there – the strange phenomenon repeated itself twice more in the following shots.
Another ball, after hitting a bank shot – bouncing off the ice to enter the pocket – also suddenly changed direction slightly at the end, inexplicably deviating from its trajectory. This time, the entire audience almost held its breath. Many people began to whisper to each other, “something is wrong”, “could the table be magnetized?”, and some even said “something mysterious is happening.” The situation became as thrilling as in a supernatural movie.
Reyes, with decades of experience, remained calm. He stepped back, carefully observing the table. Then he tried a light, aimless shot, just to test the ball’s reaction to the table.
And this time, he noticed something clearly unusual – the ball’s speed suddenly dropped near the center of the table, as if there was an invisible resistance. He signaled to the organizers. A team of technicians was called onto the court.
After more than 10 minutes of checking, one of the technicians discovered that there was a magnetic sensor attached to the bottom of the table, serving the automatic camera tracking system – a completely normal thing in modern tournaments. However, due to a technical error, one of the sensors had failed, creating a local magnetic field that affected the ball’s trajectory. This caused a strange phenomenon that stunned both Reyes and the audience.
After the problem was fixed, the match continued. But the mood had changed completely – the audience was now not only excited by Reyes’ shot, but also by the feeling that they had just witnessed something “supernatural”.
Each of Reyes’ subsequent shots was met with loud applause, as if to encourage his spirit to overcome the confusing experience. And of course, like a true legend, Reyes remained calm, turning all the tension into a peak artistic performance.
In the final games, he performed a spectacular counter-stroke, sending the white ball three times, avoiding all the blocking balls, and then hitting the target ball with textbook precision. The audience exploded.
Some burst into tears, not because of the victory, but because they had witnessed with their own eyes not just a billiards match, but a magical moment that could never be repeated – where reality, technique and mystery blended together perfectly.
When asked by reporters about his feelings after the match, Reyes just smiled slightly and said: “I thought I had seen it all before, but it turns out that billiards still has many surprises. It is strange things like this that make me love this sport more.”
The moment Efren Reyes was surprised by a strange phenomenon on the billiard table was not only a rare incident, but also a testament to the true spirit of sportsmanship – where people, even when faced with the inexplicable, still maintain their composure, calmness and play with all their heart.
And the audience, as if living in another world, held their breath to watch not just the match, but a legendary story right before their eyes.
