And that's only if SVB sits in his fishing boat the rest of the year.[...]
SVB will be a guest at my house for a week or so as soon as DCC is over. We'll all see where he goes after that...
There's another issue bubbling up in these discussions that has nothing to do with conspiracies or conflicts with WPA events or the Lake Tahoe monster.
I think this is a good time to make some comments about 7' tables and their role in pool the future of pool. Take out your iphone and start playing "The Times They are a Changin" as some background music....
Let's look at some realities here. At Reno last year were a number of top US players, including SVB, Deuel, Woodward, Shuff, Bergman, couple of Dominquez's, Frost, and Saez, top Canadians Klatt and Moora, top Europeans like Shaw, Appleton, Hohmann and Immonen.... ... and then there's Kiamco, Biado, Orcollo...
When you look at this it is striking that a few top US players --Dechaine and Hall come to mind--near as I can tell haven't played in any of the Reno events in the last several years.
I think there is an "I don't do bar tables" attitude amongst some top players. But they should look around them! Dechaine should stuff that mindset in the same place he evidently stuffed his "I don't do One Pocket" mindset ;-).
Many of the old attitudes came from Valley bar tables with slow cloth, dead and inconsistent rails, stupid cueballs, and players that don't respect the game. But so much of that has changed. Now we're talking just smaller tables that play well, have good cloth and good balls. And here is another reality. You can fit more of them in a given space and you can transport them more easily. This is actually a big deal.
A few comments suggested short races on easy equipment is a joke... A single race-to-11 double elimination 9-ball tournament like the US Open--especially one that is not seeded--is a crap shoot too, and it's a crap shoot on 16 tables that takes more than a week to finish. At least at the USBTC, top players have three swings. This is another consequence of cost effectively being able to bring in a lot of tables. And if you did want to have one tournament, you could get away with longer races because you have more tables.
One good thing about the US Open--when it had 250 players that is--is the fact amateurs and regional shortstops can join in with the pros. Think about this. When that player you've never heard of from a small city in the middle of nowhere shows up at the US Open (or at the USBTC), that player plays like God and seems unbeatable many players back in that home city. The fact their guy is in the event competing with the pros is a big deal to them. That local interest in their hometown hero at a big event is a little pack of seeds that grows interest in pool.
We need more of these events. The US Open recently has been trying to go to larger entry fee and smaller field--so --other BB issues aside--that's not it.
The USBTC is it right now. It's the tournament that fits this bill. We need more of them. And we need the top players to participate. It will be used for Mosconi points? That's fantastic news! It means somebody is paying attention and has some ideas about what is good for pool....