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Mosconi Cup standings after the US Open

J
sjm said:
Johan has some tough choices to make.
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Let’s say Hohmann is overtaken on points by Gorst. Or he decides to withdraw given his history of playing for Team Europe (three times). Who should be the two wild cards?

There are only three choices, of course. Skyler Woodward, Billy Thorpe and Justin Bergman.

If I were Johan, I would pick Bergman and probably Skyler. I would even favor Bergman over Skyler if they were vying for just one wild card.

Start with Bergman. Sjm is right in his evaluation of Bergman. He was away from high-level 9 ball for a long time. It shows up in his inconsistency.

The case for Bergman is stronger than sjm thinks, though, relative to Woodward and Thorpe. For one thing, he is still a very good player who can compete and beat the best. He has shown that this year.

In 2026, Bergman has beated Carlo Biado, David Alcaide, Mickey Krause, Felix Vogel and Arsenis Sevastyanov in long 9 ball races. He also secured wins in the PLP in races to 5 vs. Aloysius Yapp, Kledio Kaci, AJ Manas and Duong Quoc Hoang.

Bergman also beat Joshua Filler, Wojciech Szewczyk and Duong Huoc Huang in at the World 8-ball Championship in St Louis. He and Xiao Fang Fu, what’s more, got to the final of the mixed doubles event in St. Louis. That was more impressive than Skyler’s finish in the WPA World Team Championships.

Just as important to me, Bergman is motivated to play.

He wants to play in the Mosconi. He said it was hard to watch the last few years. He came back this year to try to make the team. He is even traveling for the first time ever outside the country for a major event, the World 10-ball Championship in Vietnam.
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Chinese pool starting to steal more and more 9 ballers, even without the big prize pool

sjm
uk_9_ball_convert said:
With snooker I think the boom is just local to China rather than the whole of Asia, but according to this article there are 300,000 snooker clubs in China and there are apparently 50-60 million snooker players in China:

metro.co.uk

China launches snooker team league in bid to become 'leading powerhouse'

A new snooker league has launched in China as the country bids to 'move from a major billiards nation to a leading powerhouse.'
metro.co.uk metro.co.uk

Last years world championship final was viewed by 25 million on Chinese TV and more people watched it online (424 million streams, though that figure is for whole tournament, not just the final)

www.wst.tv

Zhao’s Victory Has Massive Impact On Chinese Audience

The Official Website of World Snooker
www.wst.tv www.wst.tv

Think Matchroom started organising tournaments in China hoping it would become a new market, then Ding Junhui emerged as an elite player which helped grow the sport more. And it's just mushroomed in popularity from there.

The irony being that snooker halls are becoming rarer and rarer in the UK, and there aren't as many good players emerging from the UK. Ronnie O'Sullivan is probably the only snooker player that's actually a well known name to the general public. So it is a bit worrying what will happen to the game after he retires (he's already playing in a lot less events). Though they are bringing back a popular game show involving snooker to tv, so maybe that will help it get a bit more mainstream.

Just noticed after saying that the snooker boom is just in China and not the rest of Asia, that when you look at the womens world rankings there are quite a lot of women from Thailand doing well:
www.womenssnooker.com

World Rankings | WWS | Women's Snooker

View the latest rankings via WPBSA SnookerScores. The WWS world rankings operate on a rolling two-year basis. Learn more by reading our Rankings FAQ. We [...]
www.womenssnooker.com www.womenssnooker.com

Number one player is from Hong Kong and I wonder if that formerly being a British colony has left a snooker culture there. I know a lot of African countries play English pool rather than American pool which I'm pretty sure must be down to colonisation.
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Wow! Thanks for a great, informative post.
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Which Simonis Gray Is Darker?

GoldCrown
Frosty said:
I don’t agree on pleasant to play on. They changed one of the Diamonds at the place I play to it, we took a collection to get the owner to change it back, no one liked it compared to the blue.
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That's why they have 22 favors...buy what you like. And Blue is for Police. To stay on topic Which Grey is darker that's a tough question.
Frosty said:
As far as”fashion” goes, I guess that’s a “if you have a wife” kind of problem, I prefer function over form.
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If my wife took my pool table and left ...I miss my table. Seriously if wives have the say...the table will have claw legs, pink or red cloth and a top for dining.
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Mosconi Cup standings after the US Open

J
sjm said:
After that it's not so simple, but the only other American hopefuls who had a high finish in even one WNT major are Billy Thorpe, who was ninth at the US Open 9ball, and Thorsten Hohmann, who was ninth at the Florida Open.

Johan has some tough choices to make.
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Who’s going to join SVB and Styer? Gorst is a lock, as you note, even if he doesn’t surpass Hohmann in points.

Hohmann is still a very good player. In interviews, he comes across as a gentleman. Friendly, thoughtful and respectful. I applaud all his effort and hard work to become a U.S. citizen. Impossible not to like him.

Still, I admit: I’m not crazy about two-fifths of the players on Team USA not being native born. Yet If Hohmann earns a Mosconi spot on points, he deserves the right to play. I will cheer for him, too, just like the other players.

My bigger quibble is with the decline in his game. Hohmann, 47, does struggle vs better players. He has inexplicable misses at times that seem to be a clear result of his age. In that sense, he's not at David Alcaide’s level.
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