The round-of-64 of the World 9-Ball Pool Championship rolled Wednesday night at the Al Arabi Indoor Stadium in Qatar, marking the start of the knockout stages of one of the most prestigious billiards tournaments in the world on Thursday.

The felt wars started as early as Saturday with a total of 128 players hoping to survive the group stages. A few notable casualties failed to advance from the last 64 in the tournament with a total prize pool of US$ 250,000.

The biggest fish to fall was probably the Philippines’ Efren “Bata” Reyes, who fell to Dutch Nick Van den Berg in a rather easy 11- 5 win. Joining Reyes in the booted-out list are Germany’s Ralf Souquet, who fell to Carlos Biado, 11-5; and Great Britain’s Mark Grey, who got beat by Austria’s Mario He, 11-7.

Great Britain’s Darren Appleton, who is the defending champion in this event, defeated Ivo Aarts, 11-5, to advance to the round of 32 where he’ll face Thorsten Hohmann of Germany.

One of the marquee match-ups in the KO round was the battle between USA’s Corey Deuel and Great Britain’s Daryl Peach. The match saw a hill-hill struggle, but eventually, Peach showed more composure in eking out the 11-10 victory. Another big-name battle was between Canada’s Alex Pagulayan and Finland’s Mika Immonen. The Finn cruised to the 11-6 win to advance the next round.

2013 Qatar World 9-Bool Pool Championship Live Scoring

Round-of-32 – September 12, 2013 Games

Oliver Ortmann (Germany) vs. Antonio Gabica (Philippines)
Ko Pin Yi (Chinese-Taipei) vs. Mika Immonen (Finland)
Wu Chi Ching (China) vs. Nick Van den Berg (Netherlands)
Toh Lian Han (Singapore) vs. Hsu Kai Lun (Chinese-Taipei)
Karl Boyes (Great Britain) vs. Huidji See (Netherlands)
Israel Rota (Philippines) vs. Lo Li Wen (Chinese-Taipei)
Lee Vann Corteza (Philippines) vs. Daryl Peach (Great Britain)
Mario He (Austria) vs. Nick Ekonomopoulos (Greece)

*Matches begin at 6 pm Australia time

Naoyuki Oi (Japan) vs. Vilmos Foldes (Hungary)
Jeff de Luna (Philippines) vs. Mohammed Zulfikri (Indonesia)
Darren Appleton (Great Britain) vs. Thorsten Hohmann (Germany)
John Morra (Canada) vs. Dennis Orcollo (Philippines)
Chris Melling (Great Britain) vs. Ramil Gallego (Philippines)
Jalal Yousef (Venezuela) vs. David Alcaide (Spain)
Carlo Biado (Philippines) vs. Shane Van Boening (U.S.)
Marlon Manalo (Philippines) vs. Fabio Petroni (Italy)

*Matches begin at 7:30 pm Australia time