Mosconi cup

[BeiberLvr]

Europe does not have a weak link.

FSR has played terrible so far.

He's a world class player, but in the context of this Mosconi Cup, he's their weakest link.

 

[The_JV]

I challenge you to name any player in the Mosconi Cup that thinks this is an "exhibition".

Opinions don't change reality. Until both teams adhere to a common and hard set of guidelines as to how each team is formed. The Mosconi will always be just an exhibition. That doesn't mean the respective parties don't want to win. Just that the show is more about marketing then competition.

 

[jay helfert]

Coach Johan Ruysink, who coached Team Europe and was called in to coach Team USA a couple years for the Mosconi Cup, has been sharing his words of wisdom based on his observations of Days 1 and 2. This is very enlightening and hit the nail on the head for me.

View attachment 673607​

My takes of day 2

Today, let's talk about line-ups, the fan’s choice and the interaction between audience and players.

One of the more complicated tasks of a captain on the Mosconi Cup is to make the line up. I am sorry to bother you with that, but it is important. The system for that has changed during the years. In 2007 I still had a free choice on who to play in doubles and who to play in singles. As long as every player played the same amount of matches. That ended up in me putting Tony Drago only in singles matches (because he is not a very good doubles partner, lol) and that brought him the MVP title.

Nowadays the days are divided in blocks. Most consist of 2 doubles and one single, but also 1 double and 3 singles or just singles. In these blocks every player needs to have played and the singles divided evenly amongst the players. And you can’t play the same double partner twice. So every decision, from the first day on, has implications for the next day. This means that captains basically need to make the full line up for the first 3 days before the start of the event. The last day is only singles and then it is all about the order that the captain thinks is the best.

Quite complicated and important to get it right. From as soon as this system was implemented, we found out that one way or another. The fifth match on day 1 (which is a singles match), is like an extra match. When it goes to hill-hill, every player had the same amount of matches, but the guy that had played the 5th match on day 1, had 1 match extra. Captains know this and it is one of the tactical tools, you can use as a captain, next to the captains pick on the very last match, when it come to that.

On top of that, Matchroom decided to get the crowd more involved and they came up with the fan’s choice. This is a monster for any captain. Because it hands over the tactical decision of the line up to the audience. And yesterday, the audience decided that they wanted to see Earl play, for old time reasons, and in spite the fact that he obviously had performed very poorly on the first day. The European choice was Jayson, as is the case most of the years. Earl came out quite strong on the open chances he got by some poor shots of Jayson, but when it got to the flic-flac pool of pushing out, safeties and kicks, he made critical mistakes.
For what I have seen team USA did a very decent job, both in team spirit, coaching and preparedness and they grabbed momentum on day 1. Obviously, as a coach you want to prolongue that momentum, but the fan’s choice didn’t leave Jeremy any choice.

Since only 4 matches were played on day 1, the last single (the “free choice”) shifted to day 2 and was now the match after the fan’s choice. It seems every year that for team USA it is hard to go around SVB. He is every year the one that plays this match for team USA. I understand that in a way, but on day 1 both Tyler and Skyler showed so much speed in their game, that I would have loved to see one of them being placed on that spot. For team Europe the choice of Joshua seemed logical.

So, here and now, I plead to get rid of this fan’s choice. The crowd is involved enough nowadays anyways, it hampers the tactical decisions of the captains and it gives us, as an audience, too often the same line ups and matches each year. In 2018 both the 5th match as the fan’s choice turned out to be Jason against SVB, so we had the same match twice in a row. Moreover: it interferes with an honest calculation for the MVP, because for example last year, Jason had played 7 matches in the MC, where his team mates ended up with 4 or 5 matches and since you earn points per match, it is close to impossible to win the MVP by only playing 4 matches in a winning team. I am a fan of the MC being a team effort, instead of it being the SVB/Skyler against Jason/Joshua show.
So in my opinion team USA lost momentum because of its line up in the first 2 matches on day 2. And of course because team Europe performed much better then on day 1, let’s not forget about that.

Then I need to address the reaction of Jason and Joshua to the audience. Like I said after day 1, I think the audience in America is pretty knowledgeable and respectful to the players. There are always some people that go too far in their excitement, but the mass intimidation that team USA encounters in Europe, is not even comparable. That’s why I don’t really understand the reasons for Jason and Joshua to react so heavily on the crowd after their wins. It seemed very disrespectful and probably Matchroom likes the show element of it, but as far as sportsmanship goes, it was ugly and unnecessary. For us, players and coaches, it is the biggest SPORT event in pool, the whole world is watching. Some sort of realization from the players of their ambassadorship for the sport would be nice.

All in all a good comeback from team Europe, this year they had an early “correction day’ and it was only Skyler who stopped this come back by putting so much pressure on a really strong FSR, that it forced the odd mistake of the rookie and Sky capitalized on that brilliantly.

Most of the times team Europe gets better during the MC, so team USA has its work cut out for them. Let’s hope they can keep the fight going, so we can enjoy more exciting, high level and close games.

Great insights here by perhaps the all time best MC Captain.

 

[skogstokig]

Opinions don't change reality. Until both teams adhere to a common and hard set of guidelines as to how each team is formed. The Mosconi will always be just an exhibition. That doesn't mean the respective parties don't want to win. Just that the show is more about marketing then competition.

sure, but still a big difference in winning or losing. 30k per player vs 15k per player.

guidelines to team selection has been improved a lot imo with a prize money ranking list. i wouldn't mind making it so that all players qualify from the ranking, and not just three.

 

[ChrisinNC]

Coach Johan Ruysink, who coached Team Europe and was called in to coach Team USA a couple years for the Mosconi Cup, has been sharing his words of wisdom based on his observations of Days 1 and 2. This is very enlightening and hit the nail on the head for me.

View attachment 673607​

My takes of day 2

Today, let's talk about line-ups, the fan’s choice and the interaction between audience and players.

One of the more complicated tasks of a captain on the Mosconi Cup is to make the line up. I am sorry to bother you with that, but it is important. The system for that has changed during the years. In 2007 I still had a free choice on who to play in doubles and who to play in singles. As long as every player played the same amount of matches. That ended up in me putting Tony Drago only in singles matches (because he is not a very good doubles partner, lol) and that brought him the MVP title.

Nowadays the days are divided in blocks. Most consist of 2 doubles and one single, but also 1 double and 3 singles or just singles. In these blocks every player needs to have played and the singles divided evenly amongst the players. And you can’t play the same double partner twice. So every decision, from the first day on, has implications for the next day. This means that captains basically need to make the full line up for the first 3 days before the start of the event. The last day is only singles and then it is all about the order that the captain thinks is the best.

Quite complicated and important to get it right. From as soon as this system was implemented, we found out that one way or another. The fifth match on day 1 (which is a singles match), is like an extra match. When it goes to hill-hill, every player had the same amount of matches, but the guy that had played the 5th match on day 1, had 1 match extra. Captains know this and it is one of the tactical tools, you can use as a captain, next to the captains pick on the very last match, when it come to that.

On top of that, Matchroom decided to get the crowd more involved and they came up with the fan’s choice. This is a monster for any captain. Because it hands over the tactical decision of the line up to the audience. And yesterday, the audience decided that they wanted to see Earl play, for old time reasons, and in spite the fact that he obviously had performed very poorly on the first day. The European choice was Jayson, as is the case most of the years. Earl came out quite strong on the open chances he got by some poor shots of Jayson, but when it got to the flic-flac pool of pushing out, safeties and kicks, he made critical mistakes.
For what I have seen team USA did a very decent job, both in team spirit, coaching and preparedness and they grabbed momentum on day 1. Obviously, as a coach you want to prolongue that momentum, but the fan’s choice didn’t leave Jeremy any choice.

Since only 4 matches were played on day 1, the last single (the “free choice”) shifted to day 2 and was now the match after the fan’s choice. It seems every year that for team USA it is hard to go around SVB. He is every year the one that plays this match for team USA. I understand that in a way, but on day 1 both Tyler and Skyler showed so much speed in their game, that I would have loved to see one of them being placed on that spot. For team Europe the choice of Joshua seemed logical.

So, here and now, I plead to get rid of this fan’s choice. The crowd is involved enough nowadays anyways, it hampers the tactical decisions of the captains and it gives us, as an audience, too often the same line ups and matches each year. In 2018 both the 5th match as the fan’s choice turned out to be Jason against SVB, so we had the same match twice in a row. Moreover: it interferes with an honest calculation for the MVP, because for example last year, Jason had played 7 matches in the MC, where his team mates ended up with 4 or 5 matches and since you earn points per match, it is close to impossible to win the MVP by only playing 4 matches in a winning team. I am a fan of the MC being a team effort, instead of it being the SVB/Skyler against Jason/Joshua show.
So in my opinion team USA lost momentum because of its line up in the first 2 matches on day 2. And of course because team Europe performed much better then on day 1, let’s not forget about that.

Then I need to address the reaction of Jason and Joshua to the audience. Like I said after day 1, I think the audience in America is pretty knowledgeable and respectful to the players. There are always some people that go too far in their excitement, but the mass intimidation that team USA encounters in Europe, is not even comparable. That’s why I don’t really understand the reasons for Jason and Joshua to react so heavily on the crowd after their wins. It seemed very disrespectful and probably Matchroom likes the show element of it, but as far as sportsmanship goes, it was ugly and unnecessary. For us, players and coaches, it is the biggest SPORT event in pool, the whole world is watching. Some sort of realization from the players of their ambassadorship for the sport would be nice.

All in all a good comeback from team Europe, this year they had an early “correction day’ and it was only Skyler who stopped this come back by putting so much pressure on a really strong FSR, that it forced the odd mistake of the rookie and Sky capitalized on that brilliantly.

Most of the times team Europe gets better during the MC, so team USA has its work cut out for them. Let’s hope they can keep the fight going, so we can enjoy more exciting, high level and close games.

He reiterates the point that most of us all knew - choosing Earl as the fan’s choice pick shows that the majority of US fans were more interested in seeing the drama of Earl perform than they were in giving the US their best chance to win this event.

How is the fan’s choice vote taken? Is that a vote of fan’s in attendance at the event or fan’s somehow placing their vote on the Matchroom website, or both? If the latter is the case, that could explain why our clearly weakest link was chosen to play this match.

 

[lfigueroa]

I think Earl will be the Achilles heel for Team USA, as this marathon continues. I say that, regrettably. He still shoots a mean ball, he just seems to be completely "in his own head," so to speak. I honestly hope I'm wrong.

My opinion is that Earl made a mistake if, as has been reported here, he's playing with a 14-15mm shaft.

Certainly that cannot be something he's been deploying for a long time. But Earl seems to like to fiddle with different contraptions he thinks improve his game, from all the bandages, finger extensions, goggles, ass-weights, and the Zulu-spear cue. Maybe he got it in his mind that a bigger shaft was better for the MC tiny pockets and for all I know it is. But certainly you'd think it would be better for a player to stick (ha, ha) with equipment he's thoroughly familiar and comfortable with.

Lou Figueroa

 

[skogstokig]

My opinion is that Earl made a mistake if, as has been reported here, he's playing with a 14-15mm shaft.

Certainly that cannot be something he's been deploying for a long time. But Earl seems to like to fiddle with different contraptions he thinks improve his game, from all the bandages, finger extensions, goggles, ass-weights, and the Zulu-spear cue. Maybe he got it in his mind that a bigger shaft was better for the MC tiny pockets and for all I know it is. But certainly you'd think it would be better for a player to stick (ha, ha) with equipment he's thoroughly familiar and comfortable with.

Lou Figueroa

you're a step behind buddy. 15mm tip isn't the latest earl invention - the plateau shoes are. get with it.

 

[JolietJames]

So they are using ip addresses to determine who votes for which player in the fan's choice?
They say Americans wanted Earl for the show/drama. Is that true?
Europeans are only able to vote for their player?
It seems to me that Europe has the numbers to determine both players if they are able to vote for each side.
Underdogs or not, Americans like to compete and win and I have a hard time believing there are enough
Jerry Springer-watching American pool fans who would vote the team an almost sure loss just for some TV drama.
The Euros on the other hand, would have every reason to vote for Earl to play as much as possible.
jmho

 

[decent dennis]

Interestingly, about Phil Yates, I listen to him on snooker matches all the time, and you can tell he researches the players and the game and the venue before each match. He's chockful of data and little tidbits. I enjoy his commentary.

And those who know me are well aware that I am a USA, USA, USA all the way kind of pool fan, but I much prefer the snooker referees to all others. The snooker referees just exude professionalism. Brendon Moore, who is there, is head snooker referee in the snooker world, but my favorite is Marcel Eckardt from Germany. My buddy in Vegas (Hal) saw Marcel in the hallway and told him he had an American fan (me) and showed him my Facebook photo. Hal took a photo of Eckardt and him, and Marcel send me some kind words. Wow! It really lifted my spirits.

View attachment 673602

Agree totally on the refs! Also like the blond chap but have not seen him here this year. And then there is Michaela.
Leahman just tries to hard and thinks he's on broadway imhop.

 

[ChrisinNC]

Underdogs or not, Americans like to compete and win and I have a hard time believing there are enough Jerry Springer-watching American pool fans who would vote the team an almost sure loss just for some TV drama.

Not sure if I agree with that statement. Even on this forum which is made up largely of way above average pool knowledgeable fans, there were at least as many positive responses about Earl being chosen for the MC team than there was criticism for his selection.

 

[decent dennis]

Interestingly, about Phil Yates, I listen to him on snooker matches all the time, and you can tell he researches the players and the game and the venue before each match. He's chockful of data and little tidbits. I enjoy his commentary.

And those who know me are well aware that I am a USA, USA, USA all the way kind of pool fan, but I much prefer the snooker referees to all others. The snooker referees just exude professionalism. Brendon Moore, who is there, is head snooker referee in the snooker world, but my favorite is Marcel Eckardt from Germany. My buddy in Vegas (Hal) saw Marcel in the hallway and told him he had an American fan (me) and showed him my Facebook photo. Hal took a photo of Eckardt and him, and Marcel send me some kind words. Wow! It really lifted my spirits.

View attachment 673602

Agree totally on the refs! Also like the blond chap but have not seen him here this year. And then there is Michaela.
Leahman just tries to hard and thinks he's on broadway imhop.

He reiterates the point that most of us all knew - choosing Earl as the fan’s choice pick shows that the majority of US fans were more interested in seeing the drama of Earl perform than they were in giving the US their best chance to win this event.

How is the fan’s choice vote taken? Is that a vote of fan’s in attendance at the event or fan’s somehow placing their vote on the Matchroom website, or both? If the latter is the case, that could explain why our clearly weakest link was chosen to play this match.

Why do you say US fans? You don't think the euros didn't want to see earl fail?

 

[decent dennis]

He reiterates the point that most of us all knew - choosing Earl as the fan’s choice pick shows that the majority of US fans were more interested in seeing the drama of Earl perform than they were in giving the US their best chance to win this event.

How is the fan’s choice vote taken? Is that a vote of fan’s in attendance at the event or fan’s somehow placing their vote on the Matchroom website, or both? If the latter is the case, that could explain why our clearly weakest link was chosen to play this match.

The latter

 

[Badpenguin]

So they are using ip addresses to determine who votes for which player in the fan's choice?
They say Americans wanted Earl for the show/drama. Is that true?
Europeans are only able to vote for their player?
It seems to me that Europe has the numbers to determine both players if they are able to vote for each side.
Underdogs or not, Americans like to compete and win and I have a hard time believing there are enough
Jerry Springer-watching American pool fans who would vote the team an almost sure loss just for some TV drama.
The Euros on the other hand, would have every reason to vote for Earl to play as much as possible.
jmho

Doubtful that they are geofencing the voting on their web site, which is probably why Earl got chosen.

 

[Nostroke]

So they are using ip addresses to determine who votes for which player in the fan's choice?
They say Americans wanted Earl for the show/drama. Is that true?
Europeans are only able to vote for their player?
It seems to me that Europe has the numbers to determine both players if they are able to vote for each side.
Underdogs or not, Americans like to compete and win and I have a hard time believing there are enough
Jerry Springer-watching American pool fans who would vote the team an almost sure loss just for some TV drama.
The Euros on the other hand, would have every reason to vote for Earl to play as much as possible.
jmho

Many casual fans still think Earl is a top player.

PS_ I have never seen as "normal" as he is acting in this event.

 

[jokrswylde]

View attachment 673603
Cannot lie, was surprised to see Earl in three matches and Albin in one...

My take:
Match 1: Pick 'em....maybe a slight favorite to Shaw/Acaide, maybe not if SVB can be the "Earl Whisperer" and keep him in the zone.
Match 2: Based on how they have been playing, I like Tyler here...assuming he can let go of that hanger that he missed that might have cost them the match.
Match 3: Filler/Sanchez Ruiz...again Earl has not shown he can pull his weight as of yet
Match 4: Albin
Match 5: Woodward/SVB... Sky seems to relish beating Filler in this format, and maybe SVB has a little extra determination after getting boat raced by Shaw in their challenge match.
Match 6: Shaw

IMO, best case scenario, we win 1, 2, 5...although I would love to see Earl catch fire, and I would love to see Oscar sneak up on Shaw.

If you offered right now to end the day tied 7-7, I wnder if JJ would take it and run.

 

[Taxi]

Many casual fans still think Earl is a top player.

Many casual fans would probably vote to put Minnesota Fats on the MC team.

 

[ChrisinNC]

My take:
If you offered right now to end the day tied 7-7, I wnder if JJ would take it and run.

Although he may not admit it, yes, of course he would.

By comparison, the Euro team would not be satisfied at 7–7 going into the last day.

 

[SBC]

And you guys want pool to advance and be main stream? never when these dawmbz are running the scene and the pool world.....its never gonna happen!!! Let them be happy with their PPV BS.

Pool is a fringe sport

I think at this point it would be nice we just to believe we'll have a local pool hall in 5 to 10 years.

My opinion is that Earl made a mistake if, as has been reported here, he's playing with a 14-15mm shaft.

Certainly that cannot be something he's been deploying for a long time. But Earl seems to like to fiddle with different contraptions he thinks improve his game, from all the bandages, finger extensions, goggles, ass-weights, and the Zulu-spear cue. Maybe he got it in his mind that a bigger shaft was better for the MC tiny pockets and for all I know it is. But certainly you'd think it would be better for a player to stick (ha, ha) with equipment he's thoroughly familiar and comfortable with.

Lou Figueroa

He's played that for 2 to 3 years at least
He's done no worse than have the guys in the field

 

[JAM]

Many casual fans would probably vote to put Minnesota Fats on the MC team.

Since the Mosconi Cup is supposed to be a fun event for pool, having a legend like Earl in the house is pretty cool, pool cool, aside from wanting Team USA to win. It would be like having, say, Steve Davis in the house representing Team Europe.

The way the win went down between Earl and Jayson, I can't help but be reminded of the fact that Earl is 61 years old. For a player in their prime to beat their chest like a gorilla and roar about defeating a 61-year-old, well, it kind of broke my heart for Earl. But I consider him a friend, so that's probably why.

I know when my other half used to compete in pool tournaments in his late 50s and early 60s, people would brag how they beat him, like it was an incredible feat. Well, let those same braggarts play Keith McCready or Earl Strickland when Keith and Earl were in their prime on the same equipment and see how well they do.

So far, the Mosconi Cup has left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope today is different.

 

[SBC]

Not sure if I agree with that statement. Even on this forum which is made up largely of way above average pool knowledgeable fans, there were at least as many positive responses about Earl being chosen for the MC team than there was criticism for his selection.

Who's better thst didn't play?
Bergman and Dechaine are out cuz they won't ?

I'd bet Earl vs Billy all day if he had his mix right.