Jay to live & breathe pool in USA is not affordable to most pool players in USA. So many not playing anymore that are top players.
Tougher tables did not help USA pros for 20 years
- Thread starter iusedtoberich
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I would say so.
The problem with the American pool scene isn't hustling...its the lack of incentive to get better because there's no action. That and anybody who is an APA 6 or better thinks they are borderline pros.
Put down the pipe sir
It is simple. One need players that are passionate and start very young age. That´s how you got SVB.
One need many players that start young because not many stay with pool.
Some find other hobbies, some get interested girls, alcohol etc.. School, work and a lot more..
That is obvious when i have seen it many times. Our club have one junior player. He came to club when he was 7 year old. He play all games. FInnish Kaisa, Pool and Snooker. Now he is 12 years old and focus more Snooker and just made 145 in practice last week... Scary how fast kids learn.
He also won 2 MENS ranking events last year when he was 11... Was now chosen to play snooker European champs under 16, 18 and 21... Think what this kid will be 2 years from now.
Fixing pool is making a Junior program. That is only way.. Anything else it delusional.
You can make difference. Start yours.
It is possible to get better after 25 but it is slow and hard work. Kids learn so fast it is not even fun..
One need many players that start young because not many stay with pool.
Some find other hobbies, some get interested girls, alcohol etc.. School, work and a lot more..
That is obvious when i have seen it many times. Our club have one junior player. He came to club when he was 7 year old. He play all games. FInnish Kaisa, Pool and Snooker. Now he is 12 years old and focus more Snooker and just made 145 in practice last week... Scary how fast kids learn.
He also won 2 MENS ranking events last year when he was 11... Was now chosen to play snooker European champs under 16, 18 and 21... Think what this kid will be 2 years from now.
Fixing pool is making a Junior program. That is only way.. Anything else it delusional.
You can make difference. Start yours.
It is possible to get better after 25 but it is slow and hard work. Kids learn so fast it is not even fun..
this is true. those that really want to get better and just get better because they play a lot are many people that crave some kind of reward.
and with little to win gambling at pool and no money until you are a winning pro then it is futile.
so that category of people tends to go to casino gambling like poker now, as it's action and you get rewarded highly if you get good.
far more than anyone can make at pool.
if you forget about gambling, when was the last time there was this kind of money in pro pool? first prize US open 100k, world 9b 250k, lots of 30-40k events. and thats just the WNT. add the predator events, add qatar 10b 100k..
yes it has come up a lot. granted. but the money is only there for a select few out of the thousands upon thousands that take up the game seriously. instead of being within reach. the pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow in pool.
what they need is high paying amateur events that all that can play, so at least some or many can have some chance of making some decent payouts to keep interest.
in a town i hang out. they have a tournament that would draw from 4 hours driving time around once a year. with an A and B division.
decent payout.
well, every single year the same top 4 players in each division took all the money and the pool. so it obviously basically died out for the most part.
what they need is high paying amateur events that all that can play, so at least some or many can have some chance of making some decent payouts to keep interest.
in a town i hang out. they have a tournament that would draw from 4 hours driving time around once a year. with an A and B division.
decent payout.
well, every single year the same top 4 players in each division took all the money and the pool. so it obviously basically died out for the most part.
I'm glad to see the money coming. About time. Last time I remember anything like it was in the ESPN2 heyday and the big money exhibition matches.
Right. And in the old days the tightest table was a triple shimmed GC. It was 4.5” at that mouth. Usually only the one hole players used it. The Diamond Pro-Cut is the same 4.5”, but with mile deep shelves and stupid facing angles, and pin-ball rubber rails that bounce the ball more if it slightly brushes on the way in. It’s twice as hard.
Stupid for the game this overall pocket geometry became the standard.
Didn’t make anyone any better.
All it did was make tournaments take forever.
Diamonds and Fargo combined, killed American pool.
I agree on the amateur events. Once a player gets too good for leagues, there really isn't a lot of amateur tours that would help one "get ready" for WNT qualifier events. It's kind of like a limbo for those players.
Your story is one that has been told countless times.
Also, (IMHO), the all too common double-elimination 8 ball tournament (replacing ‘action’) hasn’t helped. Coin toss/break & run play can be discouraging, and is not the way to determine the better player. Mosconi stayed the champion so long by winning grueling round-robin 14.1 matches.
Another thing that hurts American pool is the routine foregoing of a final where the top two spit the first and second place money. How often do we read on AZB Headline news that Player A and Player B split the top prizes in a recently completed tournament? It is bad enough that, in doing so, they are shortchanging whoever put up the added money, but that's the smaller problem.
Anyone that ever wants to become a world class player needs to play in as many finals as possible. Legendary player of the 1960s and 1970s Jonny Ervolino used to call it "time in the frying pan" and argued that in order to fully develop, a player needed as much of it as possible. Passing up a chance to play a final is one way in which players, through laziness, get in their own way of building their own competitive pedigrees.
Anyone that ever wants to become a world class player needs to play in as many finals as possible. Legendary player of the 1960s and 1970s Jonny Ervolino used to call it "time in the frying pan" and argued that in order to fully develop, a player needed as much of it as possible. Passing up a chance to play a final is one way in which players, through laziness, get in their own way of building their own competitive pedigrees.
but they split because the difference in prize money means too much for them to gamble for. as they are not sound enough financially from pool to go for it.
when ive been in those kinds of positions, i make the other player who is fearful of the difference take the worst of the split or tell him i am playing for it all. unless of course i am the underdog.
when ive been in those kinds of positions, i make the other player who is fearful of the difference take the worst of the split or tell him i am playing for it all. unless of course i am the underdog.
From what I've personally seen recently, most of the time 2 players decide to split in the finals is because it is already past 12am and no one wants to stay there till the early hours of the morning. As opposed to there being a huge disparity in skill level.
I think tournaments need to do a better job at time management to make sure it doesn't run too late. I don't really care to beat Johnny Whatshisname at 3am when I've already been here for more than half the day, spending a majority of time with my stroke arm being frozen cold while waiting for matches to finish and a table to open. Regardless if I can beat the person or not. Now if it's like 9pm/10pm, we're gonna play the final match.
You can defend this practice all you like, but anyone that is this risk-averse is unlikely to develop into a champion. Unfortunately, pot splitting seems a way of life in America, and it is one of many reasons that Americans are failing to develop into champions. You are OK with it and I am not.
The only time anyone ever asked me to split in an event final was in about 1998, and they were also my ride home. My answer was that even if it meant going home in a cab, I wasn't splitting first and second prize money. We played, I won, and I still got that ride home.
I think that's fair. Far too often, the split the pot scenario is due to poor administration of an event that causes it to go past schedule. Tournament producers must be held partly accountable for this.
Diamond bar tables are the only major change in the past 20 years, that and real estate prices have both pushed out a lot of the 9 ft tables with what pool rooms still exist. Before that casinos and after that what action wasn't stealing already that wasn't ruined was completely gone after Fargo became established. Once the action dried up then stakehorses would follow and surely a small % of their staking was to tournaments even if the primary objective for attending was action.
There's not even half as many players in the 30 - 40 range as are in the 40 - 50 range and the 20 - 30 age range is gonna be even less. What if SVB was 21 years old in 2026, would he still be an 800 Fargo player in 5 years or a US Open champion?? He'd have virtually zero action to get seasoned on although tournaments would be plentiful but he was a gambler before he was a dominant force in major tourneys.
The US needs to copy Europe/Taiwan for player development and the Philippines for seasoning as both seem to work quite well with completely different approaches that have similar results for dozens of top tier players.
There's not even half as many players in the 30 - 40 range as are in the 40 - 50 range and the 20 - 30 age range is gonna be even less. What if SVB was 21 years old in 2026, would he still be an 800 Fargo player in 5 years or a US Open champion?? He'd have virtually zero action to get seasoned on although tournaments would be plentiful but he was a gambler before he was a dominant force in major tourneys.
The US needs to copy Europe/Taiwan for player development and the Philippines for seasoning as both seem to work quite well with completely different approaches that have similar results for dozens of top tier players.