The crowds at the event were amazing. I loved seeing pool pros being able to compete in a nice venue with great fan support.
That Vietnam crowd is what pool needs more of.
- Thread starter Positively Ralf
- Start date
As noted in another thread, the Vietnamese pool fans offered the best crowd of the year to this point.
As impressive as that is, they've also verified what most of us already suspected --- pool has become incredibly popular in Vietnam. Good news for both amateur and pro pool.
Also, as we saw, they are rooting for a lot more than their homegrown players. Vietnamese players didn't win a single match in Stage 2 of the Hanoi Open, and yet those fans got louder and louder with each round as the event built to its climax. What they love is great pool, no matter who is playing it, and that makes them fans of the highest pedigree.
As impressive as that is, they've also verified what most of us already suspected --- pool has become incredibly popular in Vietnam. Good news for both amateur and pro pool.
Also, as we saw, they are rooting for a lot more than their homegrown players. Vietnamese players didn't win a single match in Stage 2 of the Hanoi Open, and yet those fans got louder and louder with each round as the event built to its climax. What they love is great pool, no matter who is playing it, and that makes them fans of the highest pedigree.
Please refer to my statement about how sugar is in fact, physically addictive, and it is put in products it has no business being in, such as salad dressing. I think you missed those two super important points.
Also, if it is a problem affecting 60% of the population, that goes a bit more beyond "personal choice". You can only "choose" good choices if you have been properly educated on what exactly a "good choice" is. For a few decades there, the FDA recommendation was for the populace to be consuming multiple servings of "healthy grains", with a very small amount of fat, which is the EXACT opposite of a evolutionary healthy diet for most humans. FYI, there is NO SUCH THING as "healthy grains". We did no co-evolve with grains, and we did not even figure out how to use them as a food source until approximately 15,000 years ago, which is LONG after evolution had built us to operate primarily off of fat, with carbohydrates being nothing more or less than a quick way to build up fat reserves. We moved into a state of insulin resistance during the fruiting seasons specifically as a means to build up fat reserves for the winter, as an evolutionary adaptation. Fructose acts upon our hunger and satiety systems to make sure we crave it (so we keep eating it to build up as much fat as possible). This is the exact same thing that happens to bears in spring time. They go into an extremely insulin-resistant phase that induces them to eat and eat and eat and eat, never getting full. Fructose (and all other simple carbohydrates) are biochemically identical to sugar, with one extra bond that is immediately cleaved by lipase (correction: amylase) in our stomach acids. When you eat a plate of spaghetti, for all intents and purposes, you are eating a plate full of sugar.
The problem is, when you take the fiber out of our only natural sugar source (turning it into juice), you no longer have the stomach stretch receptors preventing you from eating more, so when you get isolated, concentrated sugar(s) in your diet, the evolutionary drive to keep eating/drinking is there, without any physical controlling mechanism to prevent you from eating too much (fiber). Remember when the FDA deemed orange juice as part of a "healthy" diet? Orange/Grape juice is chemically, effectively exactly the same as a can of coke. Without the fiber of the fruit to slow down the ingestion of the fructose, it goes straight to your bloodstream, spiking your blood sugar level, which in response, the body spikes your insulin level, which both promotes fat storage (as insulin the main hormone involved in fat storage), AND promotes insulin resistance, which causes more and more insulin to be released in response to any sugar/carbohydrate consumption, which wears out the pancreas early, leading to diabetes.
There are a lot of chemical/biological/physical processes at work to induce overeating that go FAR beyond your "personal choice", brother.
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Much of this is mostly true. I did not miss anything.
However it still does not negate personal choice and responsibility to make good choices. Your "omg blame it on everything else but individuals choosing good or bad" is a no sale with me.
Btw, I have been super fit,average and overweight at different times in my life.
PS dropping 500 word plus essays on a pool forum towards individuals who clearly do not agree with you is silly.
Welll.. You READ it, didn't you?
(Gotta know your audience, fams. I know you are capable of reading something more than a one liner quip..)And I reiterate... If you don't KNOW what a "healthy choice" is due to intentional manipulation of the facts by government/food industry, how can you possibly know how to make that choice properly? I have spoken to many folks who are overweight, and exercise regularly, but cannot lose weight, due to genetic (or developed) insulin resistance, and thinking that orange juice, oatmeal, with a piece of toast is a "healthy breakfast". Followed by a chicken salad sandwich for lunch, followed by a little all-grain pasta for dinner. That is what they have been taught their entire life, both by industry and government. If they try to look up what healthy eating is, they get misinformation from all angles. Not everyone who is fat eats "bad" in the simplistic way that you see it.
If you are interested, I can easily link you a couple of marathon runners who never ate "unhealthy" in their lives, and ended up gaining weight. While exercise is important for general health, it is not the "fix" for being overweight. Knowing how certain foods affect your body from an evolutionary perspective is, and that is NOT being taught in schools.
Of course I read it.Welll.. You READ it, didn't you?
And I reiterate... If you don't KNOW what a "healthy choice" is due to intentional manipulation of the facts by government/food industry, how can you possibly know how to make that choice properly? I have spoken to many folks who are overweight, and exercise regularly, but cannot lose weight, due to genetic (or developed) insulin resistance, and thinking that orange juice, oatmeal, with a piece of toast is a "healthy breakfast". Followed by a chicken salad sandwich for lunch, followed by a little all-grain pasta for dinner. That is what they have been taught their entire life, both by industry and government. If they try to look up what healthy eating is, they get misinformation from all angles. Not everyone who is fat eats "bad" in the simplistic way that you see it.
If you are interested, I can easily link you a couple of marathon runners who never ate "unhealthy" in their lives, and ended up gaining weight. While exercise is important for general health, it is not the "fix" for being overweight. Knowing how certain foods affect your body from an evolutionary perspective is, and that is NOT being taught in schools.
"Much of this is mostly true. I did not miss anything.,"<<<
No sale. I appreciate the effort....but it still comes down to personal choices and freedom for me.
Props to the amazing people behind this great pool event. I hope their efforts are rewarded well and they continue to have success like this in the future.
More anti America
blah blah blah
Of course it does.
Call it what you like, but the business environment doesn't support pool in America, we CERTAINLY don't have a national structure set up to develop young players, no legit trainers with an incentive to develop them other than their own wallets, nor to provide them any meaningful competition against stiff competitors, such as it is in European countries. Our young players, if they are lucky, get to come up in the game on a 7 foot league-cut table, while their counterparts are being trained by the same trainers that built world champions, on tough 9 footers.More anti America
Now, you can either just pass off that very real failing of America as it pertains to pool as me simply being "anti-American", or you can choose to acknowledge that I have defined the problem very clearly, and that something needs to change in America if we ever have any hope of being relevant on the world stage in the near future. SVB is a "1 in 375 million" talent, who, if he was not born deaf and didn't feel isolated from his peers, might never have developed into the player he was, due to the pool environment of the USA.
I know it hurts you deeply to acknowledge any of the failings of America, because you have bought into this "rah rah rah, we're the BEST!" BS for a very long time. But the brutal truth of it is, that we are NOT the best in pool, and in a lot of other pursuits that we don't take seriously as a nation any more, because we have gotten soft, and gotten used to everything being handed to us on a platter in recent times. Only by acknowledging it, do we have any chance to overcome it.
I'd much rather "blah blah blah", than I would unjustified "rah rah rah!" Kapiche?
Which is exactly the reason I avoid it and my cholesterol level is way better. So I do understand and agree.
I told my best friend in 79 if he kept doing what he was doing he would die, He kept on and died within two months. When I looked at him in the open casket my heart sank. I tried and failed to get him to change.
He made his choice and I made mine!
Why would anyone who lives in the greatest country in the world want to dedicate all that time and effort to become a pool player? It makes no sense when there are so many other ways to make money in the US. Let’s have our youth dedicate their lives to a game that pays peanuts instead of school, sports etc.
Yeah. Because making money is the definition of "living a good life". So sad to hear this. I am betting SVB might disagree with your assessment. With his drive, he could have made a lot more money in his life. He seems to be enjoying his fishing.
I paid $250 to enter the Hanoi Open as a player & this gave me free entrance for the full 6 days including the final which I feel was great value. I was also able to practice on a match table the day before it started which was invaluable as I’d never played on a table with 4” pockets before. I’m a low level amateur & my target was to get some racks on the scoreboard which I managed to achieve so I was happy from a playing perspective despite losing both my matches.
As a spectator my experience was outstanding. The first 4 days I spent wandering around watching world class players from close up & this was a great learning experience. For Day 5 I sat up in the cheap seats with the locals & really got a feel for how much fun they were having. They were predominantly in their 20’s I would say & the noise they made whenever a player made a great shot (or a fluke) was amazing. The atmosphere in the stadium on the last day was like Mosconi except the crowd was cheering for both players. The enthusiasm of the spectators was infectious, everyone was smiling and having a great time, you couldn’t help but enjoy it. A wonderful experience & something I will never forget.
As a spectator my experience was outstanding. The first 4 days I spent wandering around watching world class players from close up & this was a great learning experience. For Day 5 I sat up in the cheap seats with the locals & really got a feel for how much fun they were having. They were predominantly in their 20’s I would say & the noise they made whenever a player made a great shot (or a fluke) was amazing. The atmosphere in the stadium on the last day was like Mosconi except the crowd was cheering for both players. The enthusiasm of the spectators was infectious, everyone was smiling and having a great time, you couldn’t help but enjoy it. A wonderful experience & something I will never forget.
Jedco
Well-known member
I recently spent a few months in Australia and visited several pool halls in Sydney and Brisbane. The Asians are definitely keeping pool alive down under. The contrast between the Asian-run and traditional halls was stark. The newer Asian halls had large groups of young players, and lots of them. Meanwhile, I went into several old-school places with great history, but no patrons. Many of these halls were in rough shape, with extremely old equipment and poor standards for quality and cleanliness. I discussed the demise of pool with lots of old-timers, while trying not to bring up the big crowds at the Asian run places. It left me wishing a bunch of Asians would move to Nebraska, so I could be a regular. I stuck out like shark on a mountain top, but I had a great time and they treated me like an old friend the minute I walked in.