Are Junior players being set up for a tough life?

iusedtoberich said:
Someone who will become a 700 level willl be a 550 for about 2 months. You either have the genetics for it or you don't.
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I would agree with this, in general. Someone on their way to a very high level isn't going to get stuck or plateau at a mid-level for long. 550 is "just passing through" on the way up.

The exception is that some players get involved in Fargo quite young and have a huge number of games in the system, then as they mature and get better, the number is slow to move. Case in point is Savannah Easton, who plays beyond her 660 range (she beat several men that were well over 700 in a recent tournament, not to mention many such women), but she has thousands and thousands of games in, so it looks like she is stuck at a rating when the tournamant results show otherwise.
 
billiardshot said:
I believed CJ Wiley was playing as a Youth and made pool his life! As well as Charlie Williams!!
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CJ Wiley did other things besides pool. He was into martial arts and had business sense. He took care of his health.
Charlie also had business sense and was involved with (and created?) Dragon Promotions.
This kid looks like he is already overweight. Sure, success in pool can be had if the kid is "all in" so long as he pays attention to his health and saves some of his money along the way. Those two are an absolute MINIMUM.
 
sjm said:
I think the key here is to have one's expectations in place. No matter how hard one practices, how much one wins/bets in action matches, and how much effort a player makes to improve, it is always worth bringing in an expert opinion.

I recall a recent post by JAM noting that Keith had watched the 12-year-old Josh Filler play and knew he was watching a future great. Thorsten Hohmann had said the same of the very young Filler.

Do the top pros see greatness in Colsten? By the age of 18, for example, the future greats can usually comfortably gamble with all but the best 50 players in the world. We now live in a world in which any player not carrying a Fargo of 790+ will be hard pressed to earn a living at pro pool and a Fargo 750 is a long, long way from world class speed. We also live in a world in which expecting to earn a living through action pool alone is probably unrealistic.

Where is Colsten's game relative to those who went on to earn a living at pro pool? Does he play as well at his age as they did at his age? He needs to know if he is going to make the best possible decisions with respect to his path in life.
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even if a player is world class Filler, SVB, Gorst, Yapp level talent, they also have to be prepared to live their life out of a suitcase 3/4 of the year. That is fine for some people, but that wouldn't suit my personality- never mind the fact that I'm just an average league player. I wouldn't want a lifestyle with that much travel and relative instability
 
easy-e said:
I saw a thread on Facebook where Colston Harrelson (great young player) has been matching up with people for $10k sets. Someone commented something about being careful going down this road and make sure he has a backup plan if the pool thing doesn't work out. He took a lot of heat for that, but it got me thinking. I see tons of junior players out there asking for sponsorships and traveling from city to city playing big tournaments. Very few of these young players are going to carve out a living playing pool. Not sure what kind of conversation I'm even looking for here, but does anyone else see what I see? There are teenagers out there posting of big tournaments and matchups that can't string a legible sentence together.
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What is really sad is the young players that aren’t even that good and not naturally gifted that say they want to become a pro player. They have absolutely no chance.
 
westcoast said:
even if a player is world class Filler, SVB, Gorst, Yapp level talent, they also have to be prepared to live their life out of a suitcase 3/4 of the year. That is fine for some people, but that wouldn't suit my personality- never mind the fact that I'm just an average league player. I wouldn't want a lifestyle with that much travel and relative instability
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No doubt, this is good advice. A player that aims to be a pro must make sure that the lifestyle that comes with being a pro is one they would welcome.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I go by the opinion of do whatever the hell you want. I don't care if it's a 15 year old or a 50 year old. It's a free country. If a kid wants to dedicate himself to xyz, so be it.

Dedicating yourself to any sport, even the major ones that pay millions, for 99.999% of people will result in less money than working full time at McDonalds. That's the reality of pro-sports.

But so what? Life isn't just about money. If someone loves poking the balls with a stick, let them.
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I think the parents are often times doing their children a disservice. Not the kids' fault at all.
 
Badpenguin said:
Gambling is different than becoming a professional pool player. A professional pool player can hustle and make more money doing other things related to pool, lessons, paid appearances, merchandising, sponsorships, etc... Of course, all of these things require you to have personality and looks that will sell.

As far as gambling, most people aren't going to buy anything from drug addled cigarette smoking tatted up hustlers living out of a car who will rip off anyone any chance they get so they can survive. You'd have a better chance starting a rock band and making it big.

The reality is, at least in the US, that neither a gambling or professional pool career is going to take care of you when you or your loved ones get sick or are beyond your prime and forced to retire. Maybe 10 out of a million can pull that off somehow. Otherwise, you are going to be living off of someone else's graces when you can no longer perform at the highest level, probably at about 40 or 45 years old. Two good examples of players who have realized this are Alex Pagulayan and Fedor Gorst, both are investing as much time and effort into branding and merchandising as they are their pool game. Of course, both of these guys have access to healthcare that the US players don't, so they don't have to worry about that as much.
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10 out of a million? More like 5 out of 360 million.
 
westcoast said:
even if a player is world class Filler, SVB, Gorst, Yapp level talent, they also have to be prepared to live their life out of a suitcase 3/4 of the year. That is fine for some people, but that wouldn't suit my personality- never mind the fact that I'm just an average league player. I wouldn't want a lifestyle with that much travel and relative instability
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Some of us love the travel, my work asked me how much I wanted to travel. I made it simple - I want to get rid of my apartment
 
sjm said:
No doubt, this is good advice. A player that aims to be a pro must make sure that the lifestyle that comes with being a pro is one they would welcome.
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For example- I think Landon Shuffett had the potential to be a world class player- he annihilated Earl on a 10 footer and looked nearly flawless at age 18, but he decided that wasn't the lifestyle he wanted.

 
westcoast said:
For example- I think Landon Shuffett had the potential to be a world class player- he annihilated Earl on a 10 footer and looked nearly flawless at age 18, but he decided that wasn't the lifestyle he wanted.

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Back in the day, I watched this match more times than I can count.
 
Kris_b1104 said:
Back in the day, I watched this match more times than I can count.
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Off topic but there's a significant difference between world beater vs world and world beater vs kid.* Maybe it's not real to Strickland. Maybe not. They both played well enough to win their engagements, that's all I can tell.

*see Strickland vs Seo
 
rexus31 said:
Apples, meet oranges. The US has one of the largest youth soccer programs in the world (AYSO), it just never really got traction as a professional sport here until recently. I'm not seeing any amateur Heyball leagues popping up. I'd doubt there are 100 Heyball tables in the US.
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Although I have heard of it I have no rough idea what "Heyball" is.

And don't bother providing a link, if it interested me I would check myself.:ROFLMAO:
 
The horrible notion that champions are born, not made, haunts me. In my deepest heart lurks the idea that champion pool players spring up like a jack-in-the-box in their mid teen years. They simply have it from day one. Hoppe was champion of the world at sixteen. Jimmy Moore, age nineteen, was Michigan state champion in 1929 after having played pool for one year. Ralph Greenleaf, at the top of his game, in an exhibition match lost to a high school student. Mark Wilson tells us that Justin Bergman and Justin Hall were terrors on the table about the time they got their learner’s permits. Jimmy Caras’s father would put him up against guests at his hotel when Jimmy was still in school. Shannon Daulton…well, enough said. We all know the story about Billy Incardona taking Mike Sigel to one of the Carolina’s to play a teenaged Earl. Jean Balukas said her father and Frank McGowan didn’t show her how to play. She simply learned herself.

I once heard the following single side of a phone conversation at a pool tournament. An unknown backer is sitting behind me. His cell phone rings. “Hello, Mrs. Smith…yes, Jimmy is with me. We’re in Lexington, Kentucky….You see Mrs. Smith, we don’t always know until late where we’re going to take Jimmy, so we can’t always say….oh, we’re very concerned about Jimmy’s education as well. That’s why we always get back by Monday morning. We don’t want Jimmy missing any classes. We know his graduating is very important…etc.”. I’ll let you figure out how old Jimmy was and how well he played pool.

In short, if you’re not beating the world after three years of devoting yourself to pool, you’re not going to be at the top of the heap.
 
two ways to make money at pool and some other games.

win tournaments and that can work until you no longer can.

gamble wisely and win enough to live off or get rich from. some can and some /most cant.
those that dont or cant, say you cant. but i know many many that have made much more than most others at any job.

in any case if you get money and then blow it stupidly you are doomed to be poor anyway. if you invest wisely then you will eventually be rich beyond your wildest dreams.
 
Take Vivian for example she was in top 3 or 4 in US for women's pool in late 90's. For many years she was dominate. How does she fall off the face of pool world. Last thing heard from her she was keeping people's $200 entry money for bigger tournaments she tried to run. Very few players can out run the money needed to perform on the road. There is always someone new on the scene that is going to start beating you. Sky was pretty dominant 5-6 years ago.... now not so much. I don't like where Savanna is headed.
 
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