Alcaide Makes The Final In His First Masters

DAVID Alcaide has reached the final of his first ever PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters final.

Alcaide defeated Scotland's Pat Holtz 8-5 and will now meet the winner of the second semi-final - either German Thomas Engert or local favourite Nick van den Berg.

Both Alcaide and Holtz were competing in their first ever World Pool Masters but one of them would be making the final.

The Spaniard claimed the opening two racks. In both of them he was handed opportunites by his Scottish opponent, who failed to get out of a snooker and gave the Spaniard ball-in-hand in the first and missed three pots in the second.

But Holtz then won the third and fourth racks after Alcaide failed to get tricky jump shots right. A 4-9 combination from Alcaide put him back in front and he extended his lead when Holtz left the brown seven after failing with a bank attempt.

Alcaide moved three racks ahead at 5-2, but considering some of the fightbacks that have been seen over the previous matches still had a great deal of work to do to book his place in this year's final.

However, he took another small step towards that goal by winning the eighth and would have the break in the next.

He sunk a ball off the break in one of the better breaks of this semi-final, but gave Holtz another opportunity by failing to down the blue two. Later in the same rack Holtz curled the ball around the black eight to get out of trouble, although he still looked like losing the rack.

Alcaide was two shots from going to the hill but then scratched to give ball-in-hand to Holtz who had a simple task to make it 6-3. That appeared to affect Alcaide as a shocking shot in the next rack left the Scotsman an easy 1-ball and later scratched into the right side pocket. 

Those mistakes and some astute play from Holtz made it 6-4 but Alcaide then put one foot in the final by taking the 11th for 7-4.

All Holtz could do now is win off his own break and hope Alcaide made mistakes on his. Holtz did the first part by breaking and running through the 12th as the scoreboard showed 7-5 but he would then have to sit in his seat and hope.

He got back to the table but could not do enough as Alcaide clinched the rack for his first appearance in a World Pool Masters final.

Player profiles
David Alcaide   Pat Holtz

The ref in this match was Michaela Tabb. Click here to see pictures of her in action.