How about some love for John Morra

hi, I think john and jayson played great pool. as far as the rules, everyone plays by the same rules. mike runs a great tourney and has his rules like it or not. he always fills the field so they cant be that bad.watching john and jayson play mika was
something else.a world class player getting beat up by two youngsters is always refreshing.when mika threw his cue on the floor and kicked it was not world class. im sure he was very frustrated but no excuse to abuse his cue. I hope mike has many more tournys and we will be there. once again great playing by both john and jayson. back to back wins.is not an easy thing to do. hats off to both players in the finals. it could have gone either way. jim and sue
 
everide said:
hi, I think john and jayson played great pool. as far as the rules, everyone plays by the same rules. mike runs a great tourney and has his rules like it or not. he always fills the field so they cant be that bad.watching john and jayson play mika was
something else.a world class player getting beat up by two youngsters is always refreshing.when mika threw his cue on the floor and kicked it was not world class. im sure he was very frustrated but no excuse to abuse his cue. I hope mike has many more tournys and we will be there. once again great playing by both john and jayson. back to back wins.is not an easy thing to do. hats off to both players in the finals. it could have gone either way. jim and sue
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He runs a great tournament and I hope there are many more. I do not care for the single race in the finals. It's not a true double elimination.
 
AtLarge said:
He did have a long break, but not 5 hours. The hot-seat match ended at about 3:43 and the finals started at 7:00.

Shaw also had a wait; his semi-final match ended at about 5:22.
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You are correct, I forgot about the 3 pm round for Morra. But the break didn't serve him well before, nor Sossei when strickland won.

Can you run the numbers and see how many turning stone winners were from the one loss side? Im guessing it has to be a majority.
 
medallio said:
Rewarding slop? Then Morra's two 9 balls breaks shouldn't have counted either 😄
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Morra did make the 9-ball on the break twice in the final match, but one of them had to be spotted because he scratched on that break.
 
Kickin' Chicken said:
was it "about 3:43" or was it, in fact, 3:43? :grin: .../QUOTE]

Yeah, I thought someone might think it kind of weird to use "about" in that situation. But I never want to state a number that isn't correct, and the times I was quoting are from my computer's clock, which might not be precise.:)
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Cardigan Kid said:
... Can you run the numbers and see how many turning stone winners were from the one loss side? Im guessing it has to be a majority.
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OK; you owe me a research fee on this one.

Through a combination of the Joss Tour archives and old magazines, I was able to find the answer to this for 22 of the 23 T.S. events -- all but the very first one.

9 of the last 22 winners of the T.S. events have gone undefeated; 13 have won from the losers' side.

Interestingly, we are currently on a streak of 6 in a row from the losers' side. Before that it was 9-7 from the winners' side.
 
everide said:
something else.a world class player getting beat up by two youngsters is always refreshing.when mika threw his cue on the floor and kicked it was not world class. im sure he was very frustrated but no excuse to abuse his cue.
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Mika is a diva. Each time he wants to throw tantrum he should listen to this nice song "Relax Take it easy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVmG_d3HKBA
The song by you guessed it Mika :D
 
AtLarge said:
OK; you owe me a research fee on this one.

Through a combination of the Joss Tour archives and old magazines, I was able to find the answer to this for 22 of the 23 T.S. events -- all but the very first one.

9 of the last 22 winners of the T.S. events have gone undefeated; 13 have won from the losers' side.

Interestingly, we are currently on a streak of 6 in a row from the losers' side. Before that it was 9-7 from the winners' side.
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This was a fabulous tourney with a great stream. Thanks to all that made my weekend.

I believe that Morra made a few bad choices early on in the finals that made the difference in his loss. The slop by Shaw didn't help but I believe John's fate was his own doing. For the record, I was pulling for John.


In reference to the quoted post:

This is not surprising to me. If you have ever fought through the one loss side, you know the reason why. The guy playing on that side plays back to back with very little break time. He is absolutely in stroke. The hot seat winner sits around waiting and getting out of stroke. Usually the tournament directors have rules prohibiting practice on open tables to stop other problems. There's nowhere to practice. The guy coming through has the advantage.
 
AtLarge said:
OK; you owe me a research fee on this one.

Through a combination of the Joss Tour archives and old magazines, I was able to find the answer to this for 22 of the 23 T.S. events -- all but the very first one.

9 of the last 22 winners of the T.S. events have gone undefeated; 13 have won from the losers' side.

Interestingly, we are currently on a streak of 6 in a row from the losers' side. Before that it was 9-7 from the winners' side.
Click to expand...

As always, you are the king of stats. Awesome job. Very interesting 6 in a row from the losers side.
My advice to whoever is undefeated in August, to go to table 9 or 10 and just play the ghost starting at 5, until the losers bracket finals is settled, then take an equal break to your opponent, and come in at seven in stride.

I would send you more rep but it won't let me, I owe you for the extra work on this one.
Well done.
 
chevybob20 said:
This was a fabulous tourney with a great stream. Thanks to all that made my weekend.

I believe that Morra made a few bad choices early on in the finals that made the difference in his loss. The slop by Shaw didn't help but I believe John's fate was his own doing. For the record, I was pulling for John.


In reference to the quoted post:

This is not surprising to me. If you have ever fought through the one loss side, you know the reason why. The guy playing on that side plays back to back with very little break time. He is absolutely in stroke. The hot seat winner sits around waiting and getting out of stroke. Usually the tournament directors have rules prohibiting practice on open tables to stop other problems. There's nowhere to practice. The guy coming through has the advantage.
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In this case, however, they both had a cooling-off period before the finals (yes, Morra's was longer). And they had plenty of tables for practice, although I do not know whether, or for how long, they did practice.

But I think I will explore this issue a little more (beyond the TS events) to see what I can find about winning from the hot seat vs. winning from the one-loss side.
 
How about some love for Morra?

..... right on, brother.

By any reasonable assessment, Morra was Shaw's equal this weekend at Turning Stone. They played 41 racks against each other and Jayson won 21 of them while John won 20, and they split their two sets.

John may be on the verge of something big. He'd have won the 2014 Derby City nine ball if not for one of the worst rolls I've ever seen in the double hill rack of the final. Similarly, he went double hill with Shane at the Bigfoot 10-ball event at the 2014 Derby.

John has got his game in a very high gear right now.
 
Count me as a Morra fan, he plays great.

Count me also as NOT a fan of the double elimination - single final format.

It should either be all single elimination, or all double elimination.

Whoever came up with the idea of winning all through the winners side only to lose one game and come in second is crazy. They never had to wait hours for the loser side to catch up to them and get the final in play.

How can the promoter call one guy the overall winner when all he did was lose his one set earlier in the day than the finals opponent - who may in fact have beaten him over to the loser side in the first place.

True double elimination not only is more fair, it forces more drama into the tournament, especially if the loser side player wins the first of the two finals sets. The players then start the true final with both players needing to win that last set for all the marbles.

Of course, some true old school players will already have agreed to a money split long before the final set, so it is amusing to conjecture whether or not that last set or two was played at full speed since the money split was already predetermined.

I am guessing that today lots of players won't even consider an early split of the winnings. That's a good thing for the sport.

p.s. I run out every once in awhile, and I also played in a tourney where I went undefeated on the winners side, then had to wait so long I got cold and almost lost my focus. When the loser side guy finally got through to the final, I was discouraged that lost the first set to him - it was true double elimination. I realized I could easily come in second place if I didn't get my arse in gear. I won the second set for the tourney victory and the top money prize, but it took a hero shot to do it - a long gut-wrenching cut bank the length of the table that was either win or lose on that one shot. When the ball fell, it deflated my opponent no end - he thought for sure he was coming back to the table for a easy out and the win.
 
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John Morra is as rock solid fundamentally as anyone out there. He played superior pool all weekend and to me was super impressive. He had a safety barely leak out late in the match and Jason took advantage of the error. I hadn't seen Morra much lately but if I could model my fundamentals and game after someone it would be him.

Jason's win over Mika was the most dominating exhibition of 9 Ball I have ever witnessed. He has uncanny eyesight. One stroke and bam!

Great weekend of pool.

Thanks Al.
 
AtLarge said:
OK; you owe me a research fee on this one.

Through a combination of the Joss Tour archives and old magazines, I was able to find the answer to this for 22 of the 23 T.S. events -- all but the very first one.

9 of the last 22 winners of the T.S. events have gone undefeated; 13 have won from the losers' side.

Interestingly, we are currently on a streak of 6 in a row from the losers' side. Before that it was 9-7 from the winners' side.
Click to expand...

Just an update to this post. Jason Shaw went undefeated at TS XXIV, breaking the string of 6 winners in a row from the losers' side.

So the record is now 10 winners from the winners' side and 13 from the losers' side in the last 23 events. [I still don't know whether Immonen won the first event undefeated.]
 
Must be an error on the money list for John Morra? It shows he came in 2nd at the Turning Stone event?
 
Morra plays too slow.
Also "seemed" like a pompous *** at the Expo this yr.
But just my opinion on that 2nd part
 
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