Yeah, Earl is certainly the best example, but there are plenty of other veteran players, other than Earl, that have all played in the Mosconi Cup, that you could include on the list of those that don't handle losing with any class. Ones that come immediately to mind are Shaw, Immonen, Dechaine and Hatch.
And Corey makes five.................
- Thread starter garczar
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Complete and utter nonsense. Most of them lose well. Maybe you been listening to the loud ones
After watching some videos of Styer, there are some things that really stand out as positives.
1. He seems very composed. Deliberate, but not unwatchably slow.
2. Fantastic fundamentals. Stays down on the shot. Slow backswing, slight pause, and then a straight finish.
1. He seems very composed. Deliberate, but not unwatchably slow.
2. Fantastic fundamentals. Stays down on the shot. Slow backswing, slight pause, and then a straight finish.
Do you know of anywhere online to keep up with the brackets / results of this $5,000 added tournament taking place in San Diego this weekend that likely includes numerous pro players? azbilliards doesn't seem to have any links to it that I can find - thanks!
Van Van Reyes....with a name like that...how does he get any action?....:shocked2:
Tyler finished tied for 7th-8th. Meanwhile Oscar is playing Vilmos for the hot seat now. Makes you go hmmmm
nobody fared very well last year.
I think the proof will be in the pudding. Johann obviously has a plan and he's incorporating it now with his picks for Team USA. On paper we are big underdogs but you don't win pool matches on paper. To me the biggest thing is to somehow light a fire under Shane, our acknowledged big gun. If he plays well and wins the matches he's supposed to win (like all of them!), that would create a big boost in confidence for the rest of our players. If he plays badly again, you can expect to see another blow out win for Europe.
In other words, as Shane goes, so goes Team USA! JMHO as always.
Shane will be slumped in a chair with a look of disdain on his face once he misses a ball or his opponent gets lucky. The rest of the team will see his demeanor and the MC will be over once again.
Did you get any action?
I think you may have overlooked the format they are using for the full event. There will be matches to 5 (singles, doubles, multi?) and the first team to win 11 matches wins the event.
You can use the fairmatch to find the chance that the average European will beat the average American in a race to 5. That chance is 61.3%. Then you can find a pair of ratings that will give that chance for a single game. That would be 802 vs. 735. If you then plug those ratings into a match to 11 wins, you get the chances for the complete event.
According to that method, the chances of the US winning the event is about 1 in 7. If you believe my calculation, you may want to bet everything but your room rent on the Euros if the return is better than 6 on a bet of 5.
Vegas of course sets the line to evenly split the best. They are counting on USA fans liking the team at 2:1 on the money.
It is a mistake to say that the cup is the equivalent of a single match of the "average" players in a race to 11 games. That calculation gives 2:1.
Yeah, either THAT... Or the smoking bans which knocked a lot of proper pool halls out of business.
But nah yeah nah.. It's TOTALLY because we're choosing to play too much pool on kiddy tables.
Condescending, much?
BESIDES that fact, that many European countries allow smaller member-run pool clubs to have liquor licenses, which help them support themselves and provide stronger players a place to play. As opposed to the U.S., that simply does not allow these things.
Pool is failing for economic reasons. Not because our pros choose to play on bar tables over 9 footers. Not because they are inherently less talented.
You are exactly the sort of condescending Euro I was mentioning to jasonlaus last week.
I disagree with this analysis. For starters, at the pro level, the players that are best on 9 ft tables are usually best on 7 ft tables too. While a couple of "specialists" might seem to exist, for the most part it is largely a myth.
And IMO the very en vogue excuse that gets thrown around by so many people for the reason the US players no longer dominate, which is because there are so many bar table events now, is just utter nonsense. For starters, bar tables are still only a relatively small portion of the events that pros will play throughout the year. It isn't like American players spend all their time on bar boxes. They spend literally 99% of their playing time on 9 ft tables. The reason most of the rest of the world out performs the US is that they take it more seriously. They train harder. They treat it more like a job. Simply put, they out work us.
Tyler finished tied for 7th-8th. Meanwhile Oscar is playing Vilmos for the hot seat now. Makes you go hmmmm
Oscar would wear Styer out in a race to 25.
Kind of like Bergman did to him.
It isn't playing on bar tables itself that makes weak players. It is a low level of handicapped competition and no big action that removes the incentive to improve. In a club type atmosphere the competition breeds real players.
I don`t think it is necessarily the competition, but how we Europeans connect sports and club life.
A year ago one of my buddies started to offer free kids coaching once a week and meanwhile we are three "coaches" and 17 kids between 6 and 14 years. We are by no means professional or licensed coaches, just normal amateurs who try to make the kids have a good time. We do Christmas and Halloween partys with them, and most of the time we have more Lego, Barbies and plastic bottles than balls on the pool table.
But most importantly it is no smoking, no drinking, no strange people, just a place where their parents know, that their children are in good hands for an afternoon.
For the three best kids we have another member, who actually has a coaching degree and he does the whole technical stuff, stroke drills etc. and he also gets in the car and drives them to a league match or a tournament, for example if their parents have to work that day.
And for our best young player, we now try to get Jasmin Ouschan into the boat, so he maybe can get access to her academy, where he would yet get another level of support.
So yes, sooner or later a young talent has to face the competition to get match hardened and fight his way up to the top.
But first you have to get your "raw material" you can filter for these talents an that is where clubs are very useful.
And even if you never find such a gem and have 50 untalented kids, who probably never even play in a competition, it is still better they come to the pool club than having 50 Playstastion-Zombies sitting at home.
Agreed. That's how you make pool players.
We do the same in my room. Except my kids are 26 and just starting to play serious.
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Really, what would be the point of employing the best ever coach at some expense with the hope of saving the fortunes of Team USA and with that the event itself and then tell him who he has to put in his team? None whatsoever.