Did you learn that while shooting for team Europe at the MC yesterday? :thumbup:
Cmon! The Americans are getting sharked!
- Thread starter gordml
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Did you learn that while shooting for team Europe at the MC yesterday? :thumbup:
I'm neither American nor European, I'm an impartial observer. And gambling IS the way we sort things out in this game, in case you hadn't noticed. Of course if you really think that pool dominance should be decided by a series of races to five with alternate breaks played on a substandard table with bucket pockets then that's a discussion that we can have, but I think you'll find yourself getting laughed at a lot.
You're not wrong, but not for the reasons you think. The reason why pool will struggle to get full 'sport status' (whatever that really is) is more because tournaments still favor formats that leave the true answer of who's best for the week up in the air. That isn't the case in most other sports. In golf when two people meet up and play for some money they almost always go 18 holes and usually match play, whereas tournament golf at the highest levels is pretty exclusively stroke play over 72 holes. In boxing casual matches or money bouts are usually three or maybe five rounds, maybe in extreme cases eight rounds, you'll like NEVER see them going twelve rounds -- but for the top levels they never go anything but twelve -- and it used to be fifteen rounds back in the day. Even tennis, the smaller events are all best of three sets, but in the majors the thing that makes it great is that they go the full five sets. Why is that? Because most club golfers would be exhausted after 72 holes of golf, club tennis players and even top amateurs can't handle five sets and low level boxers might not even survive twelve full rounds.
Heck even in your namesake game -- snooker -- they play real matches, races to 10 in most finals and in the world championships race to 18. But you'll pretty much never see casual matches in clubs where they're going that long. That's just not how the games work.
Nope, only in pool do we play some absurd sprint for all of our tournaments and then give all the prize money and hang a crown on whomever luckboxed their way through it. And look, it's happening again.
Anyways, as a man once said, "You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around you'll always be second best." Well in this case America is Edward G. Robinson and Europe is Steve McQueen.
Applauding loudly!
sports is entertainment. and this tournamnet gets the most comments and things than the others. it is played in different conditions and places than americans are used to. so what.
get over it and understand other countries live and have different values and ideas of how things go. play the game or lose. and try to win under the conditions you find yourself in. dont cry.
if each tournament was set up to absolutely show who the best player was, there wouldnt be any and it would be boring after a few tournaments.
get over it and understand other countries live and have different values and ideas of how things go. play the game or lose. and try to win under the conditions you find yourself in. dont cry.
if each tournament was set up to absolutely show who the best player was, there wouldnt be any and it would be boring after a few tournaments.
Just an "exhibition!" It's only one of the most important TOURNAMENTS of the year for all these players!
No, it's basically a challenge match which puts it more on the league of an exhibition, kind of like the Ryder Cup. Something like the Davis Cup in tennis would be closer to what you'd call a tournament.
And you don't think the Ryder Cup is important to the players involved! They only talk about it and prepare for it all year long, just like we do for the MC. Both these events are indeed very important TEAM tournaments for all the players, coaches and their families involved in them.
To characterize it as a meaningless exhibition is one of the most inane comments I've seen on here.
Well since others love to bring up other sports like golf & tennis, Ryder Cup, Davis Cup then riddle me this. Why is it good that in sport like this that requires an inordinate amount of focus/concentration that fans can't give ALL competitors the decency of letting them focus? Do fans show their ass like this at major golf tournaments or major tennis tournaments? No, it's quiet enough to hear a church mouse piss on cotton. Pool, always a circus carnival atmosphere. Never could wrap my head around the reasoning of this.
I've been trying to follow this thread and admittedly, sometimes the language leaves me confused.
Someone help a brother out - what's Gabbling?
I did say in ANY format, didn't I? So where exactly your suggestion above from my part comes from? In any tournament, under any conditions, the Europeans are performing better than the US players. World Championship, China Open, All Japan Championship, Kuwait Open, Kremlin Cup etc. Everything. Even in the US Open. Are these tournaments using the MC format and equipment too? Remind me again what was superior quality table the MC used in the previous years and what was the outcome, impartial observer?
Pure cowboyism.
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I never said it was meaningless. I'm sure it means a lot if you're American or European. It's still just a challenge match though.
Interestingly enough while lots of golfers enjoy the Ryder Cup lots of them don't, it just that it's so damaging to their 'brand' to come out and say so that none of them would ever admit it. That's the case with the Davis Cup too, actually. How many times did the likes of Roddick, Sampras, and Aggasi pass on playing in it? That wasn't because they enjoyed it.
Typical sarcastic comment from someone with nothing to say. Feast on a typo, if it makes you feel any better.
Bro , you're wrong !
The Europeans cant be performing better in these competition can they becoz therre are no americans turning up lol apartt for a guy name svb
Jokes aside, put it bluntly , americans apart from svb cant afford to travel and if they can , also choose not to becoz they know they got absolutely no chamce compared to a star studded european field where everyone is dangerous.. look at souquet thorsten mika niels Darren .
On the other hand for the Usa.. Its Svb n svb n svb n svb..
Any format but the only one that matters.
The funny thing is that if you think I'm wrong and your players are better all you have to do is bet me. Send your best up against the Americans' best and put your money up.
But you won't. That's kind of the whole point.
Is ur USA BEST a one man show name Svb.
Its hard to beat Shane in a long race due to his breaks.
However many top taiwanese pros have beaten him gambling in a shorter but reasonably long race to 21.
During the 2006 wpa 9ball in manila, all the taiwanese n pinoy pros were all woofing at svb the min he walks in the pool hall n he wldnt play any of em without a spot just so u know.
On tar he publicly admitted he stopped gambling with Ronnie Alcano because he was losing too much n he said Ronnie was too good.
He has improve so much since his days as an offering
Apart from svb , i dont think u will like any of the americans be it Bergman sky or mike 's chances gambling against the likes of Darren Mika or Niels... its gonna end real ugly for the americans.
You keep missing my point. SVB is a great player but his game is NOT indicative of the general quality of US pool. That's my point. There is a huge gap between him and the rest USA has to offer. Europe on the other hand is a completely different story. The titles across all over the world from lots of different players prove that in spades.
No, thats the way some people on this forum obsess about sorting things out. The rest of the pool world uses tournaments.
The World Snooker Championship final used to be best of 145 frames or something like that, I think they played it over a week...they cut it when TV came along.
Thats the problem with what you're talking about, for pool to appeal to TV audiences (and fit in with schedules) it needs to be short (or shortish) races.
That said, when the World 9-Ball Championships used to be shown on Sky TV here, from what I remember they had a group stage which was a series of short races, alternate break, then the knockout phase was longer races, winner breaks. I thought that format worked really well!
Is ur USA BEST a one man show name Svb.
Its hard to beat Shane in a long race due to his breaks.
However many top taiwanese pros have beaten him gambling in a shorter but reasonably long race to 21.
During the 2006 wpa 9ball in manila, all the taiwanese n pinoy pros were all woofing at svb the min he walks in the pool hall n he wldnt play any of em without a spot just so u know.
On tar he publicly admitted he stopped gambling with Ronnie Alcano because he was losing too much n he said Ronnie was too good.
He has improve so much since his days as an offering
Nobody questions the Philippines' excellence at pool, nor the Taiwanese. They're all amazing players. In fact a match like the MC between Taiwan and the Philippines might be more worth watching than this one.
Bergman destroyed Shaw just a short time ago. If the others feel like they would fare better then I don't see what's stopping them from playing.
Matters to you....not everyone.
I know this is AZ Billiards...but even you have to admit its a bit ridiculous to suggest someone's view is wrong because they aren't going to physically setup a pool match with real money involving professional players that they probably don't know personally.
To play devils advocate, why not front up first if you're so keen on the idea...see if you get any takers