Cannot agree with this. After having just played in the VNEA where the 9-ball event was a race to 5 rack your own 9-ball with 9's counting on the break. The swings that luck can play on a Valley table with bucket sized pockets in a single race to 5 are overwhelming and luck can and WILL very often cause the lesser player to progress. I saw it happen, the match I lost to go out of the tournament I had not missed a shot and was down 4-1 while my opponent had missed 3 times, 2 times getting lucky on making a ball they did not intend and once getting the cueball dead frozen behind the 9 after missing a 3 with all natural rail kicks just for the hit being blocked. I myself on the other hand had 1 break where I stopped the cueball dead in the center of the table, made 2 balls, and then had a 6 come winging off 2 rails and hit the cueball dead into a corner.
On a 9-foot the luck will be reduced, but it is not mitigated. On a Valley? I doubt you would get many even money bets on Efren winning that 9-ball on the box race to 5 against a 200 player field despite his being the best player in the tournament by a large margin He would have alot of rolls to fade in that event in short races against alot of guys who can run a 5 pack on a valley box. The guy who wins that event got lucky not to get run over by the pool gods somewhere along the way. It IS alot like poker at that point, someone has to win but rest assured that player is going to have gotten some cards (rolls) along the way.