First of all: I think Fedor is terrific. Love the kid.
I am not of the school of thought that thinks a player profits from playing an opponent who is WILDLY superior to him. The profit comes from playing an opponent who is better than you by a moderate degree. I have profited greatly from playing people better than myself even, but players who could, for instance, give me eight to-six in one pocket or the seven in nine ball. In the long run I’m a loser, but if I finish only four or five games down in a three hour session I’ve probably improved my game.
I go out of my way NOT to play people who are obviously worse than I am, and I have made it a personal rule not ever to play anybody worse than myself for money. Too much Catholic guilt. In addition, I don’t play anybody whom I don’t like.
I have, of course, had the experience of playing someone wildly better than me in a tournament. Some years ago I had to play Evgeny Stalev one pocket at the Derby. The match was scheduled to start at something like 2:00. At 1:30 I was fortunate enough to find our assigned table open. I practiced about ten minutes and Stalev popped up. I yielded the table and he took a few warm up strokes. By now it was 1:45. He looked at me and asked, “Is it allowed to start early?” I said I didn’t see why not. We flipped a coin and started. At 2:07 our match was over. I told Stalev I would report his win to the desk. He thanked me and went off. I waited about twenty minutes before I went to the desk because I was embarrassed to report a loss which would appear to have lasted only seven minutes if we had begun at the scheduled time.
What was I supposed to learn from that drubbing?
