When you say "hiding your speed," are you referring to fudging your handicap?
How to save professional pool...no, really.
- Thread starter Boxcar
- Start date
I think there are all kinds of creative possibilities for displaying pool on a screen but it has barely been touched in pool.
I have not thought about this much. Certainly college football is a big deal. By the way, I did not add college programs into my discussion but it is a major factor. Without the existence of high school and college programs I do not think a sport can achieve major caliber. This also has been held back by the traditional image of pool as a hustling endeavor in a smoke filled room.
"That's trouble with a T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool..."
Mark Wilson ran aq college program for a few years but the college shut it down. I would like to see programs in high schools all across the country but since pool still happens mostly in establishments with liquor I am not sure if it is possible. On the other hand golf almost always has liquor on site as well but it is a bit more distant (except for the cart girls LOL).
Guy Manges
Registered
China, Joy world 8 ball, 400+ interies and players from 150 countrys, Almost 10 years now... Guy
You don't need to be amazing at every facet of the game, but the simple final line is if you win consistently, you have the better skill overall. If the guy that can run out with bad position is winning, he is the better player than others no matter if he has a horrible break since that clearly does not affect his winning. There are a crap ton of guys that can do some specific things better than pro players in other sports, but I don't see the 50 yr old that can make 100 free throws in a row in the NBA even if he can out-shoot everyone else in the building, but he is not there because he can't do anything else but that, and you need rounded skills.
The NFL games they do where they try for long throws, accuracy, etc... are not always won by the top team or winningest QB in the league, but you sure are not going to be the top player if you can't do many things very very well and maybe a few things better than anyone else. That is still a show of skill, just a well rounded set of skills vs a one-dimensional player that is just pure numbers in a single category.
Yes Fargo ratings don't measure how far you can spin a ball or how well you bank, but that does not matter, because you still need those skills to beat players that do have those skills, or you will have a lower rating than them. Just because someone is a 750 you can't say "I gave him 1000 shots and he executed 750 of them", that's not what the rating is for. But you simply can't win without being a well rounded player at the high levels of skill. A guy can maybe be a 500 and be so-so at banking or combos, but a 700 or 800 sure as hell won't be bad at anything, maybe not as good as someone else, but not bad.
I'll never agree with anyone that states you can have a high Fargo rating and be bad at playing but you just happen to win, that just won't happen over a longer period of time.
dendweller
Well-known member
Usually referred to as handicap maintenance.
A euphemism for "cheating".
baalpeteor
Member
Well anyone can have sharp eyes, if they are willing to change some of their daily habits, but seems most humans fear change and find happiness in doing the same old thing they always have (insanity). I've gotten people off eye glasses by just changing what they eat, or better what they don't eat. So imagine how better I could make any and every player if they would apply my advice. Same thing for a higher degree of focus and concentration... Easily obtainable.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
This. The right answer is to give those bracket fillers more, not less, hope of going a ways into a bracket. Loosen the tables, short sets, no soft breaks, would all add a bit of luck to the proceedings and encourage some drama. To use the golf analogy, we need more Tin Cups and Pat Perez's and fewer forged in a lab super specialists. When the PGA tour "Tiger-proofed" the courses, all they did was hand a huge advantage to the big hitters and drive the hot putting characters into retirement.This.
The main reason ANY decent pool player makes money is because the lesser players pay to play against them.
And I thank them
I'd love to see some 600 speed nobody from Nowhere get hot and go deep into a tournament. Give every league player hope, maybe one day...
Show me a gambler, in ANY game, who doesn't try to get the best of it before they start and i'll show you a broke-dick gambler wanna be. As a long time pool/golf friend has always told me "Brother, we ain't in church."
The best putters still win the most $$. You can't have decent-to-good putting stats and make the big $/win on tour. They all bomb it now btw. 100th place on the driving list still hits it 300. Daly was the longest for almost 13 straight yrs yet he didn't win much. The flat stick still rules.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
I agree putting is still the difference, but with very long courses you need a big driver to get in the door, or on the green as it were. The tour pros are stronger, taller, and fitter than the 90s. Kings Mill used to be the shortest course on the PGA schedule, now it is barely up to hosting the LPGA event. Sure a lot is equipment, another discussion, but there are a lot of solid players who don't have the long game to compete: people like Zach Johnson, Molinari, Kisner all start in a big hole and they average around 280 off the tee. Strokes gained suggest the tour isn't just a putting contest. The shortest hitters give up big weight both off the tee and on approach, as you'd expect.
Pool doesn't have to be like that. You can't really juice and gym your way into faster speed. Opening the game up to a wider and more open field would help grow the game. Non-players, even more than golf, are never going to decide watching Filler and Gorst grind out sets of ten ball is the best use of a Saturday afternoon.
Hope is not a strategy.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
That is very helpful. No seriously, a very insightful remark. You've added enormous amounts of value to this discussion.
Seriously, do you want the punters to donate and bid up purses or not? Imagine a casino that just taxed the punters on entry and didn't bother with all the "playing" fanfare. That's where we're headed, and it isn't a recipe for profitability. Professional sports are entertainment, how about we try to make them fun?
So, in the meantime, let's just openly admit that the only way the "winners" make money is by sucking the blood out of a bunch of "also-rans."
My thread. Bleeding losers for chump change has proved to be less than a formula for success. Rory didn't have to bleed anybody to win $1,890,000.00 in one event. The PGA Tour stands on it's own two feet, it doesn't have to beg.
Ghost of OBC
Well-known member
The pros are the product. The punters are the customers. Treat the customers to some fun. If they want to mix it up in the early bracket, make that fun (see DCC and most tour stops have Monday qualifying).
Treat them decently with hospitality, player/fan experiences, pro-ams, skills contests, clinics, fantasy leagues, mini tournaments, etc. Getting fans involved works all across pro sports. In pool it should be easy because you only need to be able to hold a cue to play. More people, more involved=more money. Elaborate moat building for the benefit of Country Club pros ain't the way.
Lots of aspiring pros donate in pro golf. The Florida mini tours, Open qualifiers, Korn Ferry are all full of golfers losing more than they make for a shot at the dream.
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No, they don't. Aspiring pros pay fees to enter qualifying events, etc. None of that money is considered a donation and none of that money is considered dead money. Tour winners don't need dead money to live.
As far as the idea of "we need the dead money to make a tournament" -- well maybe it is kind of true in the US. On the other hand, Matchroom has stated that eventually they want the US Open to have an entry fee of $0. That is, eventually the added money in tournaments will be 100% or close to it.
In effect, what MR is saying is that there will be syndication and organization, with normal, recognizable sponsors using the model that has proved successful since the earliest days of Television. Stealing from also-rans is lame.
dendweller
Well-known member
You're not wrong, there does tend to be a tacit agreement when it comes to that.
Guy I golf with in events etc. shot a 73 which was pretty low for him. We're in the bar afterwards and someone said, you gonna put that score in. He said well, noooooo.