Daz, thanks for posting here. It's an honor to have a world champ participating in an online forum discussion.
As for Boyes, I don't understand all of the hate. I've played him once at the US Open. It was in the money and I got very fortunate. I was cut breaking and ran a lot of racks to get up 9-2 going to 11. You know what? I could barely put him away. I think I won 11-9. And this was after catching an absolute gear. Karl was playing just crazy. It didn't make me want to quit pool...but almost. The way he was bombing in full table length shots from the end rail was like nothing I've ever seen before. At NO point during the match did he ever do anything that struck me as sharking or disrespectful.
And he had reason to be frustrated. The next day I heard him talking to someone and kind of complaining about the cut break, talking about how he comes overseas and literally gets beat by some unknown stringing racks with a soft break. I was that guy and the funny part is I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. I only cut break because everyone else was and I have to in order to compete. I don't consider him whiny at all, he just is in favor of a game that involves more of the skills he has developed to shine. Because in reality without the five 7 ball gimme runs I got I doubt I'd be able to take a set off this guy more than once in a great while.
Now, this was just my experience. But listen, I've dealt with worse. Much worse. I won't name names, but some of our most revered US players are absolute antagonists at the table. One I played uses 'pillow talk', he talks too quiet for the audience to hear but is just nasty to play against. So my point is that not only do I have nothing but good things to say about Karl, the stuff everyone is complaining about is just absurd, not even on the pool sharking radar. His comments about the Mosconi Cup are not offensive in any way. If anyone is offensive it's the way people talk about the top players on this forum!
Good luck to team Europe and Team US. Thanks for competing and giving us a heck of a sweat!
