Mosconi Cup 2024, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, Orlando

Sorely disappointing MC this year. For those who don’t care about/enjoy/understand the mosconi cup, it most certainly is the biggest event in pool. It is not like the home run derby in baseball, but more like the Olympics in basketball. All these guys competing against each other and playing for themselves all year get to form a dream team of sorts and play for their country. That’s how myself and many others see it and why people care about it so much. America just doesn’t have the class of Europe, but maybe someday. My 2 cents on the players: Tyler was awesome, takes the game seriously and it shows. Billy doesn’t belong on the same table as these guys playing rotation, would have loved to see Oscar. Sky played fine but for a few key moments, conversely, europe tends to rise to those occasions. Shane and fedor are great players but I think they’re forced out of their element in this event, I think there should be less pressure on them to celebrate/bring energy/be good teammates and just let them be loners and do their thing
 
slide13 said:
But see, now you're cherry picking from those that were selected. You're only going to ever end up with 5 (or less) countries once the selection process happens.

If we use the European country to US state rough equivalency then we still have a similar gap. So now take that state by state in the US and you have South Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana. Total population 29,089,000.

I'm not saying population is the only or even the biggest factor, but it's a factor that I don't think should be ignored or discounted. Especially in the way you're trying to.
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Europe could field at least 3 teams that would/could beat the US
 
jbart65 said:
I don't want to knock Sky, but that misplaced 7 ball in the last doubles match on Day 2 just killed the USA's chances. Even more obvious in retrospect. He just didn't take his time and rushed his shot.

No way Alcaide, FSR or Kaci does something like that.

Going into Day 3 tied 5-5 would have been huge.
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That wasn't even as bad of a shot as you're making it out to be. Yes it was a mistake but previous US teams just blasted balls into rails. At least now we're complaining about positional shots that we actually could have recovered from. Had Gorst hit the 7 ball a touch harder, he bumps the 8, Sky is straight-in, they run out and nobody even mentions his mistake.

I say we are making progress when we are actually playing the game within inches. For so long, we weren't even doing that. Baby steps I guess.
 
jasonlaus said:
Europe could field at least 3 teams that would/could beat the US
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Clearly true. Even sneaking a Russian onto our side, we still got crushed. The Reyes Cup is so much better. I see little reason to continue this travesty. America sucks at pool face reality. Without SVB it would be completely hopeless and he normally dogs it in the Mosconi Cup.
 
dnschmidt said:
Clearly true. Even sneaking a Russian onto our side, we still got crushed. The Reyes Cup is so much better. I see little reason to continue this travesty. America sucks at pool face reality. Without SVB it would be completely hopeless and he normally dogs it in the Mosconi Cup.
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And they didn't have Filler
 
Pissflitsche said:
So when you're looking for only five (5) capable players to compete well in the MC, you really think there's a significant difference between a pool of 330 million people to 730 million?
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A little over 100 million in the Philippines and they would have no trouble finding five players who would be very competitive with Team Europe and heavy favorites over the U.S. team. So there's that. Then there's Taiwan with less than 25 million population. Need I say more.
 
jay helfert said:
A little over 100 million in the Philippines and they would have no trouble finding five players who would be very competitive with Team Europe and heavy favorites over the U.S. team. So there's that. Then there's Taiwan with less than 25 million population. Need I say more.
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Philippines has 29(corrected to 33) players above Oscar's Fargo lol. 6 full teams minimum before we get to billy and Tyler's Fargo- it could be 10, who knows
 
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jbart65 said:
I think David Alcaide and Albin Ouschan are the most tactically savvy among the best players in the world. Alcaide shows it time and time again.

FSR's rise to stardom is the result of two things: He mastered the new MR break format first AND he absorbed all the tactical acumen of Alcaide by playing with him for years. He was superb in the Mosconi and won the Peri in Vietnam. He is back at the top of his game.

Shaw and Kaci, imo, have really elevated their strategic games in the past year or two. Kaci is very clever, and his severe arm injury last year has forced him to get even better at safety play. He can be surprisingly cautious and is willing to play cat and mouse.

Shaw wants to hit the ball, but he's learn that discretion is the better part of valor.

Krause, for his part, is better at safety play than it might seem. No surprise, really. He has been the main sparring partner for Neils Feijin for a few years now. Weird to see vids of him vs Feijin when he was still short and clean shaven.

Feijin has become a master of safety play after admitting it was his biggest weakness before he became a true star. He studied safeties and strategy extensively with Alex Lely.

I don't think young European players are all exceptional at strategy and safety play, however. Many of them are not. It was the biggest weakness in Filler's game even just two years ago.

Instead, they seemed to have developed a buddy system in which they learn that part of the game from better or older players. Or by losing to lesser but more strategically sound pros.

SVB and Gorst are very good safety players and both are also high-level strategists now. But I do think they can be a bit more careless or too bold at times. Gorst relies too much on his jump cue when the better choice is safety play.

Sky hasn't won the big one, and his defensive play is the reason why. Tyler is better at safeties. If he ever puts his whole game together ... who knows.
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Bottom line

Sky, Billy and Tyler will never truly be world class.

Then the 2 guys we have that are....didn't play like it.
 
Pissflitsche said:
It's not about the one very good player who comes from a certain country. A good player can develop in any country if he starts playing the sport at a very early age and has the passion. Of course, good pool players can also develop in Albania or the UK or even the US.
And by the way: UK has a similar League structure for english eight ball and snooker in which Karl Boyes still participates. I don't know about classic Pool, but Snooker is probably the best example in billiards how to produce a mass of professional players once a good structure is established.
And the general output in UK can't be that bad when you look on the amount of top British Pool players like Boyes, Gray, Appleton, the Fishers, Melling, etc.

It's about something else: it's about the fact that a professional system produces many more good players much more often. Talent is recognised and promoted much earlier. Also, competition sorts out many players who don't make it. It's a natural selection process.
And these systems are attractive to foreign players because they can get better here and also earn money. There are some good clubs that buy these players from abroad. David Alcaide for instance played in the German Bundesliga as well - he traveled regularly, and it's quite a long way from Spain to Germany!
So it's not restricted to neighbouring countries.
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There is very little reward to playing better than 680 pool in the US. Especially now because there isn't much gambling and backer money is drying up.
 
JPB2 said:
Oh I know. He now has access to deep secrets about Viking and Triple Sixty products. Russia can reverse engineer them and get an advantage over us in jump cues. I can’t stand the idea of a jump cue gap. And talk about deep cover. Nobody expects a pool player to be a spy so all the three letter agency types will let him in sensitive facilities and get all the secrets. He might even see the Big Board.
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SBC said:
Just ignore him because as you say he is the dumbest or 2nd dumbest Fs of all dumb Fs.
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What are you whining about now? Christ, you`re like an old woman. Go stick your head up Searings ass.
 
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