Bob Jewett said:

If a four-day single elimination event pays the same as a six-day double/single, I think the pros will prefer it. On average they will make the same in prizes and spend less on travel. Right now the SE events pay less.

SE is also less costly to produce and likely generates as much useful content.

I think we can say goodbye to true double elimination. Thank the Lord.

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how do you make a 4 day SE event pay the same when you cut out half the prize fund by limiting the field?

sjm said:

Wow, the event is just hours away.

As always, handicapping the US Open 9ball is near impossible, but I suspect that we'll get a champion with a Fargo of at least 830. Pretty good chance the winner will be someone who has won the event fairly recently (SVB, FSR, Gorst, Filler, Shaw, Yapp, Biado) but it's interesting thinking about who might break through to win their first US Open 9ball title.

Those that might have the pedigree to break through, as I see it, are Kledio Kaci, Moritz Neuhausen, Wojciech Szewczyk, Robbie Capito, and Daniel Maciol, but I seem to get this wrong every year, so expect a couple of players that I have not mentioned to find their way to Sunday's final four.

Let the games begin!

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Nice list. Hard for me not to include Aleksa Pecelj in there somewhere though. He made final 16 last year and his current form has been awfully good.

i prefer you tube for two reasons,

the 5 second fast forward and rewind (the app is 15)

the ability to zoom in

AtLarge said:

Looks like 17 living players are at 830 or above, but 5 of them didn't enter -- Ko, Ko, Ali, Chua, Raga. So any of a dozen players could fulfill your prognostication. We'll see!

Szewczyk is in that 830+ group. The other 4 you named range from 816 (Kaci) to 823 (Capito).

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Yeah, I guess eyeballing the Fargo rates would have saved me time relative to just going through the draw.

My picks are pretty chalky. Cinderella stories were not so uncommon in the early days of the US Open 9ball, most notably Tommy Kennedy, Mike Lebron and Reed Pierce. In the last twenty US Open 9ball events, however, only the Taiwanese Kevin Cheng emerged as a true Cinderella champion. To be fair, the field quality skyrocketed in 2019 once Matchroom took over the event. It's soooo hard to win the event since globalization in pool went viral about ten years ago and the title seems the sole domain of the game's superstars ever since.

Szewczyk, former World 10ball champion, may be the hardest player to handicap. When he is on, he is crazy good. I saw him live twice this year. He was brilliant in the Las Vegas Open 10ball and, despite being beaten soundly in the final, was in dead stroke all the way into the final at the UK Open. Definitely one to watch.

Reviving this threat a bit for those who look in the future. After a lot of hemming and hawing, and a few custom cue makers who have stopped making these for various reasons....

We ran across Jacoby at their booth in Vegas this month. They can fit their extension to a Schon. Fits great, works well, perfectly happy with the outcome. About 20 minutes for each cue was their estimate, and I think pretty much right on the head.

They put a plastic spacer of some sort in the butt cap to fill it in without adding noticeable weight to the cue, and some parts that look similar to those mentioned in this thread. If you're looking, reach out and they can hook you up.

Need to move this cue-new lower price-
Hit me up—listening to all offers