THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Oh, This Shark Has Missing Teeth, Dear (Published 2002) (2024)

IN the back of a dim two-table pool hall behind the bus station, a funny-looking man with no front teeth is practicing trick shots with his cronies. The yellow one-ball flies through the air and bounces along the concrete floor: a miss. ''Wow!'' the man cries, and he throws back his head and laughs.

People are billiards-crazy here in Nita's snack shop and pool hall, with its plates of cold fried fish and shelves of cigarettes, beer and canned mackerel. There is billiards on television, too, a replay of a championship match last November. ''The Maestro,'' announces the commentator. ''He is showing in the final just why he is one of the sport's greatest players. Truly, he is a magician.''

Wait! It's the same funny-looking man on television -- the same mussed-up hair, the same hopeless little mustache, the same goofy grin: Efren Reyes, maybe the world's best pool player at the moment and the biggest money winner in the sport.

Men in T-shirts stare up at his image on the television screen, but Mr. Reyes is unimpressed. ''Well, I know already what will happen,'' he says.

O.K., but still, how does it feel to be the Maestro, to be at the top of the world? How does it feel to be so good that nobody in the Philippines will play against you?

MR. REYES leans his cue against the dirty green wall and looks around at his friends and their squat brown bottles of San Miguel beer. ''I feel,'' he says, ''oh, like a big man!'' He raises both fists into the air. ''Yee-hee!''