maha said:

i dont follow all the names but the ones i know of on your list all gambled and got great.

would they have if they just practiced with worse players and played in tournaments that they had a picnic winning.

maybe so. maybe not.

my old nostalgia is a great thing with great times and profitable, and enabled me to go far.

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lol what kind of cherry picked argument is that. which one of them do you know of? can only be 4 for your previous statement to hold true.

Bump

jasonlaus said:

And we know tournaments are the only thing that matter to you - a guy could beat everybody in the world gambling and you still wouldn't respect them because they don't play tournaments. I think they both matter

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Wonder who you mean? Who today gambles only and doesn't compete but manages to beat the premier players in action? I can't even think of one such player. Tournament players make money now. The Top 19 per the 2025 AZB money list all made $100,000+ in prize money this year.

Anyone who consistently beats the greatest champions, in action or tournament play, has my respect. Nonetheless, you are correct in saying that I am far more interested in who wins tournaments. When you gamble, you can choose your opponent, but when you compete, you cannot. Winning at the major championships requires beating champion after champion, all having different skillsets and styles, in succession, and that is why so few manage to pull it off more than a couple of times in a career.

The major championships put all the greatest players in one place at one time. The last man standing is the best. That's the true test of a champion, and it is a much stiffer test than beating one pre-selected opponent whom you could have ducked if you wanted.

Kris_b1104 said:

That's great.

So let's say you have to play an opponent on your home table who is the exact same FR as you, but they've never played on anything besides 7 footers to achieve their Fargo rate.

Do you think he will perform the same as you on that 10' table?

All I'm saying is you would win a majority of the time, despite him being the same "skill level" as you number wise.

A 600 barbox-only player would play like a 550 on a 9ft diamond, or a little less under his 600 speed. Because in all actuality if you want to be technical, he's never shot as a 600 on a bigger table.

If you can provide me some examples that would be cool. I like math.

We just don't have the statistics.

This argument is only referring to people who have high Fargorates from playing in leagues or tournaments that are only 7ft tables, in very short races.

If you're saying it would be a dead even match, I can't see how that is possible.

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The player with no 10’ experience would be at a slight disadvantage. But only for a few sessions until he got used to it.

Same thing with two 600’s (from 9 ball tournaments), one has never played one hole in his life, the other does all the time. The one hole player will have an edge until the 9 ball player learns the moves. In this case it would take longer than the simple table size change.

i dont follow all the names but the ones i know of on your list all gambled and got great.

would they have if they just practiced with worse players and played in tournaments that they had a picnic winning.

maybe so. maybe not.

my old nostalgia is a great thing with great times and profitable, and enabled me to go far.

and the old time pool rooms were a social event it wasnt just about pool playing.

Have heard NOTHING good ever about Russian Kenny. I have a friend in NJ that has mentioned him before and his very LARGE DEBTS he owes locally there. I have seen him and heard him in action at the Derby a few times. He fast talks and says I have my backer flying in tomorrow with $50k, I need someone to put up $7k until he gets here tomorrow. Plays decent but honestly in the same level as MANY that play good enough to just get by and not so at other times. Listening to the interview of saying he sold only that 1 time, that he was HELPING a friend, is all the role that literally 10’s of thousands play when they get caught. Great BS Artist and full of more s&”t than a Christmas turkey. Listening to him say that he wishes people would hate him for things that they have actually been victim of says all I need to know without hearing or seeing any of the other stories. Just be a good person and you don’t have to worry about what anyone thinks of you. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Do the crime, do the time and BE A MAN and take responsibility for YOUR poor actions. And I ALWAYS find it comical when a grown man calls these people HATERS. Be a decent human being and you would not have So many HATERS. Hopefully he will change his actions and stop with NOT taking responsibility for his actions. It’s people like this that have made me not support pool in certain ways and have grown away from the pool life. Way more to life than being around this.