Appleton: We are better players than Americans...

Seriously??

“In the last three or four years we’ve now become the best in the world"

What a joke. Mika, Appleton, Souquet, Boyes and Van den Berg need to play Efren, Bustamante, Lee Van, Orcollo and Alex....etc before one of them says something stupid like that. The U.S leads the Euro's 11 to 5 in Mosconi Cup wins and has lost one time in the U.S. as oppesed to losing 9 times in the UK and 6 of them being in a row. Maybe Darren was quoting Paul Newman from the Hustler and he meant "even if you beat us we're still the best". :thumbup:

Why not add one pocket to the event and have Nick Varner play Johan Ruijsink...
 
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JB Cases said:
I lived in Germany for 10 years. I played on league teams there, played in tournaments from local weeklies to national events. I played in the Oeberliga which is the third highest league under the Bundesliga, which is the professional level. Oeberliga is about the middle class.

Players there are just like players here. Some of them are super disciplined and do drills until their arms fall off and some of them just throw balls out and most are in between.

If you have a coach then that coach is highly likely to make you do drills because that's what coaches are there for.

When I coach people I make them do drills but I also make them solve problems. You need both to be a complete player. Drills keep your fundamentals sound, free play allows your creativity to come out and teaches you to think on your feet.

I am pretty sure that the English don't train like the Germans. People are different all over. However Thorsten is right in the sense that the Germans treat it more like a sport and train that way. On the German teams there is often some structured practice time where the team members get together to work on their game. They often bring in guest coaches and review videos/books magazine articles etc.... in other words the club itself is a conduit for players to become students of the game.

This is something that is practically non-existent in the USA. In America most players are pretty much on their own as far as finding instruction, having structured practice with others, and being part of a community of like minded teammates dedicated to getting better and moving up together.

So for that reason the approach to becoming a good player in America is a highly individual and often unique path.

As we see though through results at world events that doesn't mean that the players each enviroment turns out are neccessarily better or worse than others.

In the same time when Oliver Ortmann and Ralf Souquet had four World Championships between them Johnny Archer amassed five and Earl Strickland has 2 or 3. Just seven years ago I think Earl Strickland won his last World Chamionship over Francisco Bustamante.

All pros have good to great years and also not-so-good years. Darren has come into his own these past few years and gathered some titles. But that doesn't make him "the best" it just makes him the "best" at the events he won.

Stats can be traded all day long. They honestly don't mean much on a per match level. In any given match with any other top professional player Darren Appleton has as much chance to lose that match as to win it.

What's special about Darren is that he belongs to an elite group of players who are the very best in the world at what they do. It's not because he is from England or that the English have some super special training regimen. It's simply that he is the one of the best guys from there and has taken his place among the best in the world.

You know what kind of bugs me?

All these "backers" in the USA who profess to love to gamble won't bet a quarter on actually TRAINING their players.

Imagine for a moment if some of these wealthy guys got together and put together several teams of players and got them some coaches and structured training in return for a percentage of the winnings? What would that look like if the American players were a sharp as razor blades, focused, determined and BACKED properly with a team behind them?

Imagine a situation where these elite teams were organized by performance and the players knew they had to put in the time or be off the team? What if we had hundreds or thousands of younger players whose goals were to get good enough and post the results to be invited onto these teams?

We could change and we don't need goverment support. But the fact is that we don't want to change. We want to complain that pool is in the dumps in the USA, we want to complain that no one wants to sponsor pool or pool players. But we don't give anyone anything but a loose collection of indivual players hapahazardly running around playing in one-off events.

Why not start with the one thing that is totally under our control? Ourselves. Why don't some of these wealthy backers who love the action step in and create their own teams to go and snap off tournaments?

I guarantee if they did this then eventually such teams would be backed by companies and groups.

And before someone posts up that CSI is doing this, no they aren't. They have a few players who wear the patch but these players are scattered all over the country, they don't train together, they don't have coaches, they aren't yet a "team" in the sense that I mean it.

Just my thoughts.
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For the most part we Americans are conditioned to want personal glory. We don't understand the total commitment to team sports. From a talent standpoint-Johnny/SVB/Cory.....are as good and maybe/probably better than there Euro opponents. The problem is American pool is about gambling and individual "scores". Our guys might be "buds" and get along, but at the end of the day their personal contactors looking to drill whoever is willing to get in a bad bet with them. Not about winning as a team. Lets just leave it like this....The Euro's and the Americans have a different outlook on the dedication to the sport of billiards. American pool being all about the gamble....Euro pool being all about the technical game of tournament/fundamental pool.....just my opinion.
 
stevansonson said:
should i take this the kind way? i'm not good at detecting hinted animosity online.
i suppose it was meant as written: you read threads, you decide you wanna post, you register, you can post instantly....
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Thank you for your kind reply. :)

This is new to me that someone can register and post instantly. When I joined, I had to wait a few days before I received an e-mail that I could post.

This must be an AzBilliards forum rule change, and it explains how some members seem to have multiple identities on this forum. I am not saying that this is you, Stevansonson; rather, I am making an observation in general.

Happy posting! :cool:
 
You could have an international organization .....
Points awarded for performance in major events ...
A qualifying system to allow improving players to enter major tournaments ...
Statistics and rankings based on points and/or money won over a specified period ...
Update rankings frequently to allow improving players on the tournament circuit to get into bigger tournaments, and kick out those who do not want to travel to be demoted to the smaller, regional tournaments ...

American pool might try it out as a demonstration project ....
Then it could sell its expertise to the entire world ....

And ABZ postings could get back to such more important topics as aiming and pool shoes.
 
Scaramouche said:
You could have an international organization .....
Points awarded for performance in major events ...
A qualifying system to allow improving players to enter major tournaments ...
Statistics and rankings based on points and/or money won over a specified period ...
Update rankings frequently to allow improving players on the tournament circuit to get into bigger tournaments, and kick out those who do not want to travel to be demoted to the smaller, regional tournaments ...

American pool might try it out as a demonstration project ....
Then it could sell its expertise to the entire world ....

And ABZ postings could get back to such more important topics as aiming and pool shoes.
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Just kidding you Yanks.
I've just been telling you what snooker does. :D:D:D
 
I just want to echo JB Cases and Scaramouche's comments a little bit.

What it's going to take is someone/some organization with money who cares enough and has enough of a long term vision to invest in it.

Given how rich people love to make money, it amazes me this hasn't happened already in the US with the success of snooker in the UK. It would be relatively easy to adapt their system for the States. All it takes is money and devotion. If I had it, I would do it myself in Canada.

So, yeah, if you have deep pockets, I'm applying for the job.
 
$TAKE HOR$E said:
“In the last three or four years we’ve now become the best in the world"

What a joke. Mika, Appleton, Souquet, Boyes and Van den Berg need to play Efren, Bustamante, Lee Van, Orcollo and Alex....etc before one of them says something stupid like that. The U.S leads the Euro's 11 to 5 in Mosconi Cup wins and has lost one time in the U.S. as oppesed to losing 9 times in the UK and 6 of them being in a row. Maybe Darren was quoting Paul Newman from the Hustler and he meant "even if you beat us we're still the best". :thumbup:

Why not add one pocket to the event and have Nick Varner play Johan Ruijsink...
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Hahahaha. Only problem is they will just say that times have changed. No one wants to look at the big picture when they are on top, nor do they want to look to the past.

Let the boys have their day in the sun. We'll have a chance next time to thumb 'em in the eye. :thumbup:
 
stevansonson said:
should i take this the kind way? i'm not good at detecting hinted animosity online.
i suppose it was meant as written: you read threads, you decide you wanna post, you register, you can post instantly.
by the way, i dont know about gambling mentality in the states. i just know that i picked up the game while i was living in thailand, where its basically pure gambling. now i came back to germany and joined a club, where the game is taken very very seriously (imo, way to much). we have official practice times, where its drills, drills and drills. if you show up at a league game without wearing black shoes, black pants and the official team shirt, you cant play. this mentality paints a clear picture about team sports in germany and other tight ass continental western european countries. order has to be maintained. lol.
that said, it aint all bad. if you start out playing, you will learn quicker being observed and playing drills. there is a very different mentality about in europe compared to the us.
being on this forum for a short while, can anybody tell me about their experience playing with compton custom cues, i've seen a couple of post by their representative jcaction, who...is...a...superbly...sane...poster...and...according...to...his...profile...also...a...fabulous...cuemaker
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My name is out there for everyone to see. As you are a new member I will not take much time to address this(you will probably be banned soon with the kind of post your leaving). My opinions on the thread have nothing to do with my cues. Leave that out of this thread.:angry:. I type like that as a signature and its just my way of typing. I have national pride involved. I had no problem and even liked and respected darren and the euros until he and karl boyes decided to make two very stupid and outlandish comments. They are not the best in the world. No better than us and certainly not better than the phinos. They have a couple years of success and they are full of themselves all of a sudden. Sorry but it is yet to be seen if they can stay on top as the usa and the phillipines have for as long as they have. And again do not choose to attack my cues again. You may as any human have a difference of opionion on this matter but do not talk about something you have absolutly no clue about. I will agree I should have said the things I said in a more proffesional manner, But as your man darren can't even hold himself to proffesional behavior I was more than a little steamed. I APOLOGIZE to anyone here who I may have offended but it is my opinion. And stevansonson your post are alot like roys??? Second account maybe??? Anyway I'm done folks:wink:
 
jcaction2587 said:
My name is out there for everyone to see. As you are a new member I will not take much time to address this(you will probably be banned soon with the kind of post your leaving). My opinions on the thread have nothing to do with my cues. Leave that out of this thread.:angry:. I type like that as a signature and its just my way of typing. I have national pride involved. I had no problem and even liked and respected darren and the euros until he and karl boyes decided to make two very stupid and outlandish comments. They are not the best in the world. No better than us and certainly not better than the phinos. They have a couple years of success and they are full of themselves all of a sudden. Sorry but it is yet to be seen if they can stay on top as the usa and the phillipines have for as long as they have. And again do not choose to attack my cues again. You may as any human have a difference of opionion on this matter but do not talk about something you have absolutly no clue about. I will agree I should have said the things I said in a more proffesional manner, But as your man darren can't even hold himself to proffesional behavior I was more than a little steamed. I APOLOGIZE to anyone here who I may have offended but it is my opinion. And stevansonson your post are alot like roys??? Second account maybe??? Anyway I'm done folks:wink:
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i never meant to be sarcastic ever...i just bought a cue...thinking about getting a ghetto cue next...thats the only reason for my absolutely honest inquiry...gl for all your future endeavors
 
JAM said:
Thank you for your kind reply. :)

This is new to me that someone can register and post instantly. When I joined, I had to wait a few days before I received an e-mail that I could post.

This must be an AzBilliards forum rule change, and it explains how some members seem to have multiple identities on this forum. I am not saying that this is you, Stevansonson; rather, I am making an observation in general.

Happy posting! :cool:
Click to expand...

i might have multiple identities in real life, but i can assure you, not on this forum
 
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