Player: Johann Chua
Event: Matchroom Pool Reyes Cup
Location: Manila, Philipiines Date: October 17, 2025



Pool isn't necessarily a sport that lends itself to a “heat check,” which typically involves a basketball player who has drained a shot or two taking an even more difficult shot just to check his own temperature. Pool, after all, requires discipline, foresight, and strategy at depths greater than a baller thinking, “YOLO?”

But at the 2025 Reyes Cup, which pitted five-player teams from Asia and the Rest of the World in a best-of-11-sets competition similar to the Mosconi Cup, Johann Chua was definitely in the territory of a heat check. Team Asia rolled in the first day and a half of the competition, building a 6-0 lead against Team ROW. Up 3-2 in the race-to-5 set, the 33-year-old Filipino star drilled a tricky jump cut shot on the 3 ball. Unfortunately, he didn't give doubles teammate A.J. Manas much of a leave, who had to play safe. After a jump shot from Jayson Shaw, playing with Fedor Gorst as his Team ROW tandem, left the blocker between the cue ball and 4, Chua came to the table in the position shown in the diagram.

With the object ball more than six diamonds away, with the angle on the 4 ball asking for the thinnest of cuts, with position on the 5 a consideration for nobody but the best players in the world, he popped the cue ball over the 7, clipped the 4 right into the bottom right pocket, and barely missed the 5 ball against to long rail to play perfect position for his teammate.

The pair erased that table and the next to snatch another point en route to a 11-3 victory that left many folks wondering if Team Asia might be an unbeatable geographical region for years to come.

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