Is there anything to be learned from the Asian players?

(((Satori))) said:

Why are they so good?

Is it the action that the Filipinos stay in?

Is it the perfect mechanics of the Taiwanese?

Are they just born with it?

Is it their desire that pushes them above and beyond?


What is it?

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Let's add the Europeans into the conversation as well. Dedication and professionalism.

Filipinos - yes, action and dedication to playing competitive pool daily for many, many hours against top competition. Play for a car or a soda, they want to play and they want to gamble.

Taiwanese - So many seem to have emulated Fong Pang Chau, from mechanics even down to his facial expressions and patterns. They have a structured tournament system and are always playing somewhere in a tournament. No weaknesses.

Until now, the Taiwanese and Chinese have not done particularly well in the USA - not like the Filipinos. I expect a flood of Taiwanese and Chinese in the US Open next year. Maybe they need to expand the field.

Don't want to seem unpatriotic, but an Asian/Europe Cup would be good action. I'll take the Asians.

TATE said:

Let's add the Europeans into the conversation as well. Dedication and professionalism.

Filipinos - yes, action and dedication to playing competitive pool daily for many, many hours against top competition. Play for a car or a soda, they want to play and they want to gamble.

Taiwanese - So many seem to have emulated Fong Pang Chau, from mechanics even down to his facial expressions and patterns. They have a structured tournament system and are always playing somewhere in a tournament. No weaknesses.

Until now, the Taiwanese and Chinese have not done particularly well in the USA - not like the Filipinos. I expect a flood of Taiwanese and Chinese in the US Open next year. Maybe they need to expand the field.

Don't want to seem unpatriotic, but an Asian/Europe Cup would be good action. I'll take the Asians.

Click to expand...

I remember to this day watching Fong Pang winning the winner take all international with a display of pool that was unbelievable
There's no stoping the Asians now

1

Training...

In Taiwan the government supports cue sports, gives rewards to winners of international sanctioned tournaments, and has a system of mentors to grow younger players.

Unfortunately the U.S. has none of those...?

(((Satori))) said:

Why are they so good?

Is it the action that the Filipinos stay in?

Is it the perfect mechanics of the Taiwanese?

Are they just born with it?

Is it their desire that pushes them above and beyond?


What is it?

Click to expand...

not spectacular, ie., Keith, Earl, Louie, Jayson, etc., but, they get out when they're supposed to and the moment isn't too big for them

..................

klone said:

In Taiwan the government supports cue sports, gives rewards to winners of international sanctioned tournaments, and has a system of mentors to grow younger players.

Unfortunately the U.S. has none of those...?

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What you said "was" true.
Unfortunately, Taiwanese government basically doesn't give enough attention to pool, as they never really had.
We don't have a men professional tournament this year, and ironically, we won a lot of titles this year.
Just because pool is not being played at the next Asian Games, our government cut a whole bunch of budget on pool.
In short, there are currently NO professional tournaments for men in Taiwan, and I think that's sad.
Surprising right? We have so many talented players and they can't even play a single tournament in our own country.

A lot (most??? ) of the smaller pool halls in the Philippines charge on a per game basis, hence the tendency is to play a longer lasting game like Rotation, (one pocket is not played in the Philippines) think of it as 9 ball, but with 15 balls on the table. you pocket the lowest numbered ball, every ball counts and each ball is assigned a point based on its number. First to 61 points wins. You learn how to navigate around 15 other balls, once your used to rotation.. 9 balls is a cinch

I know that when I lived in Japan you could walk into any pool room almost anytime of the day and see kids either playing eachother low stakes, playing a ring game "Go-ku", or running drills.
Walk into a poolroom in the US and you see maybe one or two money matches with half the room sitting on the rail, and the rest of the good players sitting on their asses and preaching "I won't screw my cue together for less than $100.)

Hardly ever see anybody running drills or even playing good competitive matches unless there's cash involved.

I'm not at all against playing for cash, but I think I see US players reach a level where they feel they can gamble and make a little............and peter out at that level. Just good enough to get the cash isn't good enough to win major tournaments. Pool and billiards is a game here often being played by "pool players" while in some countries, it's a sport played by athletes.

Dave

(((Satori))) said:

Can you confrm what DTL said about the training? Are there any top pros over there who are not a part of the group that goes international... similar to how Kevin Cheng doesnt seem to be a part of that group.

Do you have any more insight on how the group that travels together trains? More details as to what they are doing? Drills what?

Thanks.

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From what I heard and saw this July, players do gather at a local pool hall before this asian tournament to practice. However, they basically play against each other for 9/10 ball, or something called 235 (A different kind of carom, I think it's only being played in taiwan). By the way, they train on tight pockets (https://youtu.be/kFpgEIXdhmY?t=6m48s)
These pros come from different places, for example, Ko brothers, Wu (Yup he's taiwanese) and Chang Jung Lin attended the same high school, but other players attend other schools.
Hence they don't train together, except for those training sessions before major tournament (I think this is what DTL was referring to). We do have coaches for those training sessions, and that's all I know.
And yes, Kevin Cheng wasn't with the group, he came by himself and kicked everyone's ass lol. I think everyone else are with the group though.
It's just sad that our pool talent is being ignored by our government... Kevin Cheng actually posted on his facebook page in Sept saying he needed to think about his career...since there are no tournaments in Taiwan for him to play, and playing abroad is really like gambling...imagine how much he has to pay for this trip to the US if he got knocked out in 2nd round of US Open?

It's just their time right now. This is the push our top players needed to reach that next level. It's good for the game what's happening right now. Enjoy this time.

Well Said!

TATE said:

Let's add the Europeans into the conversation as well. Dedication and professionalism.

Filipinos - yes, action and dedication to playing competitive pool daily for many, many hours against top competition. Play for a car or a soda, they want to play and they want to gamble.

Taiwanese - So many seem to have emulated Fong Pang Chau, from mechanics even down to his facial expressions and patterns. They have a structured tournament system and are always playing somewhere in a tournament. No weaknesses.

Until now, the Taiwanese and Chinese have not done particularly well in the USA - not like the Filipinos. I expect a flood of Taiwanese and Chinese in the US Open next year. Maybe they need to expand the field.

Don't want to seem unpatriotic, but an Asian/Europe Cup would be good action. I'll take the Asians.

Click to expand...

I have traveled the world and this is the only place where the players take so much pride in stealing, beating tricks and bragging about it and ducking tuff action, it hurts their game.

Asians have better playing temperament but, more importantly, they make better decisions than Americans in rotation games. Their shot conceptualization is better, with better choices in offense, defense and far greater use of two way and other multipurpose shots.

Somewhat similarly, Americans, on average, are better at shot conceptualization than Asians at one pocket but Asians have gradually closed this gap by studying and copying the top Americans.

Americans need to similarly close the gap with the Asians in rotation games by studying the way that Asians play. Americans are so obsessed with the break that they, far too often, fail to develop complementary skills to the extent that is necessary. Sad but true.

It's no longer a secret.
Mika, Morra and SVB went to Asia and joined the action there to get better .
Rodney Morris did the same thing .
Action in Taiwan is really tough. These guys have super tight pockets down there.

Tokyo-dave said:

Hardly ever see anybody running drills or even playing good competitive matches unless there's cash involved.

Dave

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Back in the day when I was able to compete on a constant regular basis, I decided to develop my own training program to improve my skill set. In order to do that I adopted the PAT drills, added additional material from my library of books for shots to practice, and developed a variety of forms to keep track of my training efforts. I did that solid for 6 months before a car accident ended my ability to play. During those 6 months my playing improved a great deal. Enough to irritate/piss off local players who found it harder to get wins against me. I adopted a mental playing philosophy on par of other professional athletes based on reading multiple sports psychology books I read. I went from having an un-regimented no intent bang the balls style of practice to a regimented training system with planned goals and intent all to improve my overall game skills. And it was working very good for me.

I talked to a handful of local pool players about what I was doing. Showed them the forms I created to keep track of my drills and training efforts. U know how many local players asked for copies of my forms to use in their own efforts at self improvement? The answer was 1, maybe 2. It was a few years ago.

Know how many times I walked into the pool room to see any players doing drills and keeping track of their performance efforts? The answer was NONE.

Sure once in a great while I would see someone doing A drill. But never keeping track of how many times they succeeded or failed. Which to me made the whole effort worthless. Because without keeping track of successs/failure, balls made or missed, then how does anyone know that any direct improvement is taking place? To me that was pretty basic to my training efforts. Tracking one's training efforts to me seems fundamental to self improvement. But it seems totally lost on the vast majority of pool players here in the United States.

So if structured training programs in europe and asia lead to major differences in players in those regions to where those players kick the ass of American players in competition, then perhaps American pool players need to re-asses their bang the balls with no intent practice regimens, and make some changes to see some major improvement in their own game skills.

DTL said:

Agree.

I was watching the finals of the US Open on accustats live stream and Mark Wilson was talking about this. He said a lot of the top players form Taiwan train at the same facility........said "last Tuesday was jump stick training day".

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In Taiwan, there are a couple of senior high schools that have what we called "Pool Class" specifically for young fellows who are interested in pool.
It's similiar to those NCAA kids in colleges in the States.
They still need to finish their Math homework or attend their English lessons but they use their spare time to train.
The good thing is if they won a big tournament or ranked top 3 in the state or perform well, they will be admitted to the college/university without taking the entrance exam.
That gives them motivation to learn and work hard.
I have no idea how they trained in China since Taiwan and China are totally different countries. I do know a lot of Taiwanese professional players going to China for coaching young female talents. That's why Chinese young ladies are so strong in the WPC.