Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiderWebComm View Post
I played JB at the expo last year, briefly playing him some one pocket just to get a good feel for how the match would go in a few days. The John that played me that night and the John that stepped into the ring with Lou were two completely people from two different solar systems. John played very solid one pocket against me, was rock-steady and made good decisions.
10k is a lot of money to bet on pool. I guess it could give anyone a rubber arm.
The bottom line is moments before John played Lou, Eric Hu was probably a blink of an eye from bashing John's face in for opening his mouth about playing some --- which not only caught Eric by surprise, but Eric didn't like the tone and content of the comment and basically put John in a "check" that probably shot John's heart-rate into orbit.
John played terribly the first couple of games for sure.
To be clear, John had zero business even LOOKING at Eric, given their history and probably deserved whatever Eric told him (I'm not knocking Eric for what happened or what was said). That said, it was evident to me that it took John a while to calm down and settle his nerves and he flat-out "GAVE" Lou the first collection of games.
Don't know about the Eric thing, as I only watched the stream. But John certainly played worse for the first couple of games.
I watched the stream from my phone while driving south on I-95 on my way to a client's location and HOW I DIDN'T wreck was beyond me (I held the phone in front of my left eye and watch the road and phone at the same time, like a heads-up display). All I know is John was a different human being than I played a few nights earlier and that's a fact. He's NOT the goofball player, like Lou's photoshop pics show.
That may be true, but anyone who's ever seen his CTE videos on youtube will attest to the fact that he frequently steers and uses body english, just like in those pictures.
Lou's margin for winning was NOT greater than the flat-out give-up games at the beginning and had John not made an idiot decision by engaging with Eric, the outcome might have been WAAAAAAAY different.
Maybe. I still think Lou would have won, and I'm certainly not some Lou fanboy, in fact I was rooting for John to win, even though I was worried about the possible fallout of such a turn of events.
When you also pair that fact with the fact that Lou didn't have the heart to take the entire bet with his own money -- and if he was forced to, the entire match could have flipped upside down for sure.
Again, this may or may not be true. However, it is impossible to know for sure about these things. I know that I personally hate being staked, and have only accepted an offer of playing for other peoples money once. It was one of the most nervewrecking experiences of my life.
In short, when I played John in private, he played 100% better than Lou did in every single game in that entire set....prob because he was an inch from getting bashed-in and because Lou had a free roll by taking a very small % of his full bet.
I don't think anyone is unaffected by playing for big money. I remember watching the IPT final between Sigel and Reyes, and watching two of the best players ever making silly rookie mistakes, miscuing, missing balls, mental errors etc. That may have something to do with the pricemoney and prestige, don't you think?
Had Michael NOT given Lou a "heart injection" and gave him "permission" to play, this thread wouldn't have existed because there's zero chance Lou would have showed up with that cash on his own... like John did for himself.
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