Mosconi Cup...The Hard Truth -- Gambling is Just Easier!

Bob Dixon said:
You think that your one interaction with one league player is relevant? I don't.

Tournaments are, by necessity, brief interactions between two players. They can tell you plenty in a badly uneven match up and tell you NOTHING about two players who are at close levels.

A longer match will often tell you EVERYTHING about who is the better player. If they finish a long match close, too, then they need to match up more to come up with a reliable conclusion.

"Tournaments are a better measure" is absolute nonsense.
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Hey Bob, dig the sand out of your vagina and calm down. I never said one way or another was a better measure of anything. And if you think that was my one and only brief encounter with gambling you obviously don't know me. If you have read some of my other posts this week you would know that I am in favor of longer matches also. Apparently you took something I said the wrong way, or your so invested in your argument that you attack anyone with a different opinion. I honestly can't understand why you got so bent over my reply to the OP.

And yes I do think my experience was relevant to the conversation topic.
 
BasementDweller said:
Our friends :eek: from across the pond have been trying to tell us this in a roundabout way but we have a hard time swallowing their message, which is understandable to a certain extent.
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It is understandable, but if you don't make some hard choices after this fiasco, that understanding will evaporate for ever.

You get it. Now, how many other people around here do? Please don't make me start the "Where do we go from here" thread...
 
Cdryden said:
Pathetic Shark, from what I have seen from you, you are just a troll that likes to stir crap up and you're probably the reason why Bob is on tilt to begin with.
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I was just thinking the same thing. Uncanny! :smile:
 
Bob Dixon said:
It seems to be an obligatory answer. It's a $10,000 paycheck even if you play like a wet noodle so how else would you expect them to answer?

The truth is that they certainly don't act like it is the most pressure. The US team seems to have spent zip amount of time preparing. My bet is that they would be tuning up in earnest well in advance of even a $10,000 real match.

Also, as someone else already mentioned, the Euro players are much more psychologically invested in beating the Americans than vice versa. The Euro win seems to be a life changing event for some of the "America sucks" posters here. As far as I'm concerned- bleh. It's 15 minutes away and I didn't bother.
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If you can't see the pressure difference in the players yourself then you may not be qualified?
 
DrGonzo said:
To me, the Mosconi Cup is like the Ryder Cup in golf. The US has gotten beat a lot lately at the Ryder Cup even though their individual players are usually far superior. They just care a lot less about the Ryder Cup.

The USA has 5 of the top 10 golfers according to the World Golf Rankings. Europe has 2.
Europe has won 7 out of the last 10 Ryder Cups
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wonky rankings???:)
 
jhanso18 said:
REALLY???

How many tournaments have you played? How many gambling sets????

You think there's more pressure on a race to 6 free ride, than a set with a real chance to lose some dough???????????????????????????????????????????????


That tells me all I need to know. A free ride where everyone gets paid has more pressure than gambling...

The dirty little secret no one mentions, is that USA doesn't care the same way Europe does/did. Euro's come in wanting to shoot our nuts off. USA comes in thankful for the free ride. You think ANY of team Europe went out and tied one on the night before the Mosconi?????????? Get real man. You have NO idea what you're talking about.

Not one player on either team has any delusions about what the Mosconi is, and not one of them will gamble in the same format. Mosconi Cup isn't pool. It's the pool equivalent of a reality TV show.
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losers find/create reasons for their performance

those that party to hardy should be written off as future MC participants
 
Bob Dixon said:
I read the post that I responded to. Sorry I didn't review all your other posts in all the other threads first. I responded because your post gave every indication that you supported the argument that a tournament format is a better indicator of skill level than a long one-on-one match and I asserted some reasons why I think that is incorrect.

My comment about relevance wasn't related to whether or not your comment about an individual player was peripherally relevant to the topic. It was related to how relevant it was to specifically deciding what is the best format for determining relative skill levels.

Your additional comments about feminine body parts fits in with the low content quality of your original comment. I apparently made a basic mistake in even bothering to read your original comment.
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Bob,

This may surprise you but in my initial post I wasn't saying that a short tournament race is a better indicator of true performance than is a long race when you are COMPARING TWO SPECIFIC PLAYERS. Of course, the longer the race between two players the better the odds are of the more skilled player coming out on top. That's really not debatable. At the same time, you HAVE to be a great player to win any major tournament, no matter how short the races may be.

Anyway, I was trying to say something slightly different.

It is this very idea -- the idea that if only I could get this tournament player to match up with me then I could beat him. This is a built in excuse that I hear often out of the U.S. players and ONLY out of the U.S. players. Why is that? Quite frankly, I think it's because contrary to how we have all been programmed to think -- that the pressure while gambling is so intense, it's actually the other way around. With gambling, once someone is used to playing for a certain dollar amount it's no longer a big deal. You play a real long race and you don't have to worry as much about making a mistake. There are no TV cameras in your face and you can just play pool.

But when these same guys are playing under the lights something happens. They feel more pressure and kinks in their game begin to show. My theory is that the gambling culture is part of the reason so many of our players don't compete as well in tournament settings as do those that are solely focused on tournament play.

That's it in a nutshell.

The subject I'm contemplating now it the break. I knew the importance of the break had really grown in the past 10-15 years but I don't think I really understood its significance until watching the Mosconi Cup. It's got me really scratching my head now. But that's a whole nother' subject.
 
The Chipsta said:
Team pool is just a different type of pressure than gambling or tournament play. Some guys can't handle knowing that their teammates are watching their every shot and questioning the choices they make at the table. Gambling and tournament play are individual.

I only watched the match between Hatch and Souquet and their were great examples in that match. Archer tried to give Dennis a pep talk by telling him it looked like he didn't take his time on the previous turn. Not from the coaching 101 handbook. Should have reminded him to just slow down and take his time on the tougher shots. Hatch turned to his team after missing and tried to say the ball skidded. Replay showed that it did not. When you are up 4-1 in a team match and it starts to go south, the pressure builds much more than an individual performance. The thought of letting down your team makes the anxiety grow much faster.

I have seen too many good individual players that avoid team play because they hear voices in their head. They are wondering about what their team is thinking of their performance. European team was just more comfortable playing a team game.
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Chipsta,

You are right about the added pressure of playing on a team. Just for a banger such as myself, playing on a couple of VNEA teams last year brought about a whole new appreciation of pressure. I thought there was no such thing as a long shot on a bar table but when you are playing for the match and your entire team is relying on you -- it really changes your perspective.
 
Bob Dixon said:
I could certainly be wrong. I'm not exactly the most experienced or brightest person in the world. Not bothering to practice before the matches, staying up late drinking the night before the matches, and acting like you're at home on your sofa with your buddies watching television could all actually be indicators of players who have become disabled by the pressure.
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Unfortunately, for many players I don't think this is unique to the Mosconi Cup.

Sounds like a typical scene from the U.S. Open or Derby City.
 
In my humble opinion, I believe one of the reasons that we have trouble as a "united" team is that we lack the overall focus to be competitive. We (America) have become a culture of instant gratification and the duration of the MC isn't one that lends itself to that instant "feel good" atmosphere. When one gambles, success per race provides that feeling of euphoria instantly. If one loses, play another set. That is pressure, yes. But not the same kind of pressure that must be felt and managed over the course of not only the four days of competition but the weeks leading up to the team format.

We are a gambling culture, not a tournament culture. The rise of poker over the years is a testament to that. Even though the WSOP events are a tournament, we still view it as gambling, at heart. People will sit and watch those events for hours just to see somebody get crushed when they are "all in". That's the gambler in all of us.

But, with the MC, our players (in my opinion) don't have the focus to compete with the European team mentally, at this point. The US team is comprised of great "money" players. They play for the cash and play well when they can see the cash...individually. Being handed the cash after winning is instantly gratifying. The Euros know the tournament atmosphere and also the grind associated with the tournament schedule. They also have a well-defined hierarchy leading the way. We do not. The ability to be instantly gratified does not exist in a four-day event, such as the MC.

To me, the difference is the Euros came into this year's event with the mind set of a long-term achievement accented with short-term goals. We just had short-term goals. We are better than that. But until we learn to play "united for a common goal" and prepare daily to achieve those goals, we will continue to be dominated mentally by a team that is equal to us in talent, but not 11-2 better.

It all boils down to the importance of the MC in each individual players' life. Just my .02.
 
they are vastly different.

Johnnyt said:
In tournaments you only have 1 or 2 barrels to fire. Matching up gambling you can have as many as the amount of money in your pocket. If tournaments were races to 21 double elim, Id say it would be about the same pressure. Johnnyt
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Tournaments and gambling sessions and situations in pool are "apples and oranges".

To the casual observer it would seem that it's the "same game" so gambling and tournaments should be the same......but they are vastly different.

The best analogy is comparing Boxing and Street Fighting.....they are both fighting with the fists, but one has "rounds and gloves" and the other is more like "life and death" with no rounds and you fight until someone gives up.

The players with the gambling backgrounds are tougher in some ways and not in others. Mental and physical endurance plays a role in gambling that is also different because you have to be prepared to play for 20 straight hours if necessary to win the cash.
 
None of these players got any REAL MONEY!

Real money changes your life. The MC money just gets you through the week. Let the 1st prize be $25M. apiece and USA will kick those socialist assholes all the way to the moon and when they return to earth, they better not land in the USA!


If they do, we'll kick their asses BACK to the moon, just for the hell of it and MAIL them the MC.LOL
 
popman said:
None of these players got any REAL MONEY!

Real money changes your life. The MC money just gets you through the week. Let the 1st prize be $25M. apiece and USA will kick those socialist assholes all the way to the moon and when they return to earth, they better not land in the USA!


If they do, we'll kick their asses BACK to the moon, just for the hell of it and MAIL them the MC.LOL
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Remind me, what was the score again?
 
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