I had Nick VanDenBerg down 2-1 in bank pool, and tied 3-3 in balls on my case game. He then proceeded to win 2 in a row
PS, I only practiced on GC's before going to DCC, and did great that year, cashed in the banks.
Nice! I have a Gold Crown here too in Germany, with semi-properly extended rails. Plays better than most every table in the surrounding area, confirmed by good players in my club.
Note: About my inconsistent play in the past: I was playing on an extremely bouncy Red-Label Diamond, that banked WAY short... I must have gotten one of the early models, and never realized it. It created a tendency in me to "jump" a little whenever I ended up too thin on a ball and had to try to hold.. Overuse of spinning to try to get a thicker hit on balls near rails, etc.
Since moving to my extended rail Gold Crown here in Germany, I feel much more confident, and noted that certain of my position routes have morphed into something much closer to the routes the pros take. That Red Label had a very disruptive effect on my game. I couldn't hit cross corners to save my life on Blue Labels after practicing on that Red Label. I suffered from extreme trepidation on balls I got too thin on, when there was no easy back-and-forth two rails across the table path available.
Having a half ball hit into the side, I used to lag stroke it in and use a lot of spin to minimize the force I put into the cue ball, and to shape the pattern I wanted. Extremely speed-sensitive way to play the shot, but almost necessary on a super bouncy table. Now, I am much more comfortable just giving it a semi-firm punch-stun stroke, and am confident on how much spin the balls retains at different distances to the first rail, so I am much more consistent on the "spread" I am gonna get off that 90 degree hit on the first rail. So I don't end up with consistent "weird" angles coming off a half-ball hit into the sides, coming back up table to play position on balls into the opposite corners.
All this being said, I LOVE the way the Blue Labels play... But the particular Red Label I had was awful for working on the particular shots I need to defeat pro-caliber players. The super bounciness of those rails cost me specifically in the two matches I mentioned before:
Against Morra in the DCC One Pocket, first round 2012, I was leading 2-1, and forced cross corners out of him twice in the following two games, with a throw-in runout if I could have made any of about 4 different tries. I sailed all of them long, and hit them all at lag speed due to having to hit them that way on my Red Label. It's just a bad way to hit a must-make cross-corner in One Pocket. Same thing cost me against Cliff Joyner, maybe two years later.
Against Joey Gray, I ran a 4 pack in the 9 ball (due to heavy break practice in tohe month or two before Derby), and made a ball on the 5th game, but ended up super thin, with one of those shots that on my Red Label, rockets the cue ball back and forth 2-3 rails..On a Blue Label, it's a much easier shot. But, I jumped halfway out of my shoes anticipating the hit. Purely because of the table I had been practicing on. In addition, I couldn't kick worth a darn because my table kicked EVERYTHING so short, so I had trained myself to kick everything at what I later learned to be 1/2-3/4 optimal speed. Joey reeled me back in because he played perfect, and I kicked poorly.
I never realized how important having a table set up approximately the same as tournament standard responsiveness was. Thank goodness, I love the way my table is set up now, and I do feel it would have prepared me well for Derby if I had lost weight, and actually USED it.
I would still prefer a Blue Label Diamond, tho..