Did anyone else feel like they overstated how bad Shane was doing?

CreeDo

CreeDo

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At the end, he lost by a big margin, granted. He was stuck at 82 for... it felt like at least 5 racks.

But prior to that, the guys in the booth can't stop saying "this is nowhere near his normal speed, he's sharked by the table or maybe his personal life is messing with his head, he can't figure out this table and is selling out 3 ball runs, he'd be dead if earl could break, the wheels have come off, he's dogging his brains out etc. etc. etc." Meanwhile they're saying "Earl is just playing phenomenal, he's turned into the devil, he's playing perfect"

They were saying these things around, ohhh... 11:30-12:00, when shane was down 11 games.
At the beginning of the day, shane was down 10 games.
At the beginning of the day before, he was down 11 games.

You can't spend 2 evenings talking about how one guy is playing bad, mentally shook up, etc. and the other guy is playing great, when the math says they have both won almost exactly the same number of games for the last 13 hours.

Only the final number matters but you gotta realize shane didn't play that bad! He went into give-up mode at the end and Earl ratcheted it up when he smelled the finish line. And earl jumped out to that early lead the first day, having played a lot more on the table that was basically custom built exactly to his specifications. But for 2 out of 3 days, they each won almost exactly the same number of games.

PS: no criticism to justin or john, both are awesome guys and I respect what they say. I think they just could have stressed this point more. Shane left the table on misses, earl left on bad safes and dry breaks, but at the end of the day, a win's a win and shane won plenty.
 
both happened. earl really played great. shane did not play well at all, and towards the end just got some horrible rolls and scratches.

We all know how that goes - you play like ass and the other guy just doesn't seem human.

But Shane definitely had his chances - that was the nature of the table. This match was really awesome.
 
Earl had moments that were outright spectacular.

However, Shane seemed to have lost his confidence. He looked awful at times
 
Couldn't disagree more. Shane would be the first to say that he played horribly. IMO, on a normal day and a normal table, Earl has less than a 33% chance to win a race to 100 against Shane. Even Earl said that he doesn't want to play him on a 9'er again. He knows better. Having said that, Earl played crazy good. He deserved to win.
 
Mr Hoppe said:
Couldn't disagree more. Shane would be the first to say that he played horribly. IMO, on a normal day and a normal table, Earl has less than a 33% chance to win a race to 100 against Shane. Even Earl said that he doesn't want to play him on a 9'er again. He knows better. Having said that, Earl played crazy good. He deserved to win.
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yep
im not an earl fan
but he played good the whole 3 days.
would be tough for anyone to beat him on that table.
 
CreeDo said:
You can't spend 2 evenings talking about how one guy is playing bad, mentally shook up, etc. and the other guy is playing great, when the math says they have both won almost exactly the same number of games for the last 13 hours.
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There's a psychological factor at work here that I think helps explain the phenomenon. Ever notice how when a team wins by 2 points in college basketball, for example, the post game comments about the team that lost will focus heavily, if not exclusively, on all the mistakes and bad plays that team made, while the comments about the winning team will focus on how well they played? And yet the winning team won the game by a mere 2 points.

We have a psychological tendency to do this in all sports. I think we naturally focus on the problems with the team that is losing or lost because we want to explain why that team is losing or lost and what that team needs to improve on in order to win. And we focus on the good things with the winning team in order to explain why they won.

As poorly as Shane played, so to speak, and as great as Earl played, Earl won by 18 games, which means if just 9 games go Shane's way that didn't we have a dead even match. Think of all the games Shane lost when he had control of the table with just a few balls left but made uncharacteristic mistakes and lost the game.
 
Mr Hoppe said:
Couldn't disagree more. Shane would be the first to say that he played horribly. IMO, on a normal day and a normal table, Earl has less than a 33% chance to win a race to 100 against Shane. Even Earl said that he doesn't want to play him on a 9'er again. He knows better. Having said that, Earl played crazy good. He deserved to win.
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Shane was just out of it. He missed a lot of routine shots that had nothing to do with table size at all, missing pockets by an inch or 2, hard to believe.

BTW Congrats to Earl, now go see a shrink. :thumbup:
 
Mr Hoppe said:
Couldn't disagree more. Shane would be the first to say that he played horribly. IMO, on a normal day and a normal table, Earl has less than a 33% chance to win a race to 100 against Shane. Even Earl said that he doesn't want to play him on a 9'er again. He knows better. Having said that, Earl played crazy good. He deserved to win.
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That's the way it goes sometimes. It just wasn't there for him this weekend. I think Shane's break gives him a lot of confidence. I know it does for me; when I'm breaking well I run out much better than when I feel like I'm starting bad.

I really think his not making balls on the break killed him. Not only did he continue to give up control of the table, but when he made a ball most of the time he was hooked. His biggest strength became his biggest weakness, as much from the mental side as it was the actual balls on the table.
 
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The commentators got it right, I'm sorry to burst your bubble. The only reason Shane was playing even with Earl was because Earl couldn't make a ball on the break. Shane got control of the table after every single break (so it seemed). That is why they played even the last 2 days.
 
I would not be suprised to see shane put sime time in on one of these tables and want a rematch.
 
irock said:
I would not be suprised to see shane put sime time in on one of these tables and want a rematch.
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I would be shocked if it did happen. The guy is on the road constantly so where is he going find all the ten footers? It would take so much time away from 9 ft diamond practice which is what he makes a living on all so he can try a rematch where he has to play like God just to make it close and fade all that drama again.

Never going to happen.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Shane plays some more on that table just because Shane is a perfectionist, and he found a weak spot, and he will work on it, OR never decide to play on a 10'er again. lol.

Good job for bringing it in Earl. He brought it when it counted and no one can take that away from him.

Carl
 
"He can't beat me." has been Shane's signature line and a running joke with the TAR crew. I loved it when Shane was really stressing how Earl owns him on that table and he finally finished it off with, "I can't beat him." and a knowing smile that he had spun his own signature line.
 
I don't think it was overstated at all. I think it was stating the obvious. Shane was "spooked" of those pockets and I believe it eventually contributed to him missing by a inch or two on some shots, that's how bad it got to him.

Earl was not "spooked" at all by the pockets... he was right at home with them. You could see after Shane missed several shots on day 1, that there was indecision of how he was going to shoot those shots along the rail and he never did figure it out.

Earl's stroke was perfect for these tables. I believe he rolls the cueball, whereas Shane punches them in. It's just a difference of strokes, one worked great for those pockets and the other didn't.

I believe if Shane and him were playing on normal pockets, it would have been a much more even match, maybe even having Shane winning by a small margin, simply because his break was working better and he would have had control of the table more.

Not taking anything away from Earl though, he shot great all 3 days and showed he was the master of that table. I can't see anyone beating him on that table.
 
Best line from John Schmidt after a Shane miss: "That ball wouldn't have gone in even if they took the rails off the table."

Shane dogged too many games on shots he normally would make easily. Earl kept the heat on by continually making shots that were phenomenal on that table. Shane was intimidated by the table despite having had several days to practice on it. Earl wasn't intimidated by it in the least, knew the speed, and his pocketing was dead on for the most part.

Both of them gave away games to each other but it seemed as if Earl didn't give up games by missing at the end of the rack like Shane did.

You can look at the numbers and say that they both won the same amount of games but it's not the whole story. The real story is would Shane be able to steal games from Earl and FORCE him to give up the lead. Would Earl be cocky, overconfident, or suffer a meltdown and give up his lead? No, neither of those things happened and in fact the opposite happened, Earl continued to bring it and forced Shane to resign.
 
Earl played very well for the most part besides his break.. The commentating was great, I don't think they overstated anything.. Beav, JCIN and Schmitty all did a fine job.

It was my favorite TAR match yet and I think I've watched nearly all of them.. Props to the whole TAR crew! Well done.
 
Shane needs to get rid of that new pet he has acquired the dog...

when he played mike d with dippy breaking he dogged several shots in the end that would have put him in position to win ,, take shanes big break away make him think racks instead of free wheel he becomes very beatable,, the score he lost by to earl would have been doubled if earl had shanes break




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real bartram said:
yep
im not an earl fan
but he played good the whole 3 days.
would be tough for anyone to beat him on that table.
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hey Bartram who do you think has the best chance to beat him if he plays like that next time? Do you think anyone could beat that speed on that table?? Can Alex win if Earl plays like that? I think it would be hard for Earl to play 3 days that solid again even! Just asking you cause your a pretty good judge of pool speed.........some people were saying that if they would have played 9ball that Earl would have really probably ran away with a even bigger margin of victory cause he would have made balls consistently on break , do u agree?
 
I think they were both a little tired on the last day and it kinda showed. Race to 100 on a 5x10 is long.

The table also showed just how good Earl really can play when he is shooting good. His break is weak compared to Shane, but I think alot of folks are too.
 
Luxury said:
"He can't beat me." has been Shane's signature line and a running joke with the TAR crew. I loved it when Shane was really stressing how Earl owns him on that table and he finally finished it off with, "I can't beat him." and a knowing smile that he had spun his own signature line.
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Yeah... totally noticed he switched up his saying during the interview. He was pissed but still trying to make light of it.... which is all good.
 
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