Only 2 U.S. players?

[SouthernDraw]

... theres nothing from stopping me from holding the World Championship 3 Ball event in my basement... QUOTE]

Sorry Jcin...I've already held this and some 14 yr old kid from Bulgaria has won it this year...lol

 

[gopi-1]

Not hating, just saying. I think pool is a bad TV sport and golf is a great TV sport. You have Augusta, the Masters, the azaleas, St. Andrews, Pebble Beach, history, and superstars. The only TV game with as boring a visual as pool is poker. And what drives that is that there are millions of dollars on the line and the chance that a guy is going to draw a needed ace - i.e., drama. Pool is a great spectator sport if you understand its nuances, but those people are few and far between. Watching a guy run racks like water is pretty dull if you're not a connoisseur of the game. And for the people who go out once in a while after work to play date pool, which is the vast majority of people who play pool, it's a total yawn. There will never be any money in pool until it can draw a TV audience. It managed to do it to some extent with, say, Jeanette Lee, but I don't think they were watching for the pool.

That's why pool is alive and kicking in Asia, especially in the Philippines, Chinese Taipei, China and Japan, they have an audience to cater to. I heard that in the Philippines alone, an international tournament gets the lion share of the TV viewers, like more than 60% of the household share. If they have Nielsen ratings there, it will be off the charts...

 

[Falcon Eddie]

8-7 Hunter Lomardo , Ronnie Alcano ..Bring it Hunter !!!

 

[pt109]

That's why pool is alive and kicking in Asia, especially in the Philippines, Chinese Taipei, China and Japan, they have an audience to cater to. I heard that in the Philippines alone, an international tournament gets the lion share of the TV viewers, like more than 60% of the household share. If they have Nielsen ratings there, it will be off the charts...

Snooker, in England, got the lion's share of TV viewers quite often.

 

[Taco]

And a guy from Hong Kong named Kong Andrew (usually known as Andrew Kong - I had to google him), beat Orcollo 9-5. That's how strong the field is and might help explain why Americans don't want to take a 20-hour flight and burn a lot of cash for the slim chance of walking away with 40k.

 

[Mainplayer]

This was not a lack of Money. I would have loved to go to this tournament. To be blunt, I am sick of the way these invitations are sent out. I was playing Hatch when I got the invite. That is not even a month to get all the information I need to get ready for this. Not only that, I had the tournament that week that I was focused on. We need more time on these events and its getting old. I will go to every one of them and I could plan for them.
Now I am heated

Thanks
MD

There's more to this than simply lack of money. It's also a lack of motivation on the part of some pool players. We still have more good players in the USA than anywhere else in the world, maybe a couple thousand very good players in this country. Of that number at least one to two hundred are professional level players, capable of playing anywhere and being competitive.

The problem is that very few of these players have any real interest in making the sacrifices necessary to compete on the world level. There used to be at least a dozen American players who "wanted" to get out there and compete. You can't tell me Mike Dechaine, Dennis Hatch, Rodney Morris, Corey Deuel, John Schmidt, Oscar Dominguez and yes even good old Johnny Archer are not great players who can hang with anyone. And there are a dozen more I could name as well.

But to compete internationally they have to "want" it and want it bad! The backing is there if they really, truly want to compete. I can tell you that only a few years ago I offered to totally sponsor one of our top players to play in the World Championships in Manila, when the first prize was 100K. He was a past U.S. Open champion! The cost to me would have been $3,000, but I wanted him to play. He thought about it and turned me down, telling me that he didn't want to travel so far and have to finish in the top eight to make any "real" money. I never made a similar offer again to anyone.

Hat's off to Hunter Lombardo who is pursuing his dream. Perhaps we at AZ should create a fund to send one or two players every year to the major international events to represent our country. Shane is good to go, he has the sponsors he needs. It will take about $2,500-3,000 to send a player overseas for a tournament. I think there are thirty of us who could put in $100 apiece to send a deserving player to an event like the World 9-Ball Championship. If we can raise enough money we can send two players (better to send two so they can share a room). We could do the same thing for 3-4 tournaments a year.

The key is how to pick the players. Number one they have to WANT to go. I would love to see Dennis Hatch competing anywhere. He has all the weapons to succeed, abundant skill and years of experience. Mike Dechaine is another. A great young player who just needs to get out there more. Anyway those are my thoughts on the matter.

 

[backplaying]

I work and always have an I play a good speed (B+) for a working man. I dont buy it, that a guy with the speed that many of the top talent has cant work and maintain a world class speed, its just BS.

5 hours a day at Walmart aint going to kill your game, but it might keep you from sitting around look for someone to bite.

A full time job with two weeks off would mean that you would not be able to make every tourny, but you could make the big ones and work something out to get some additional time off to play an extra one here and there.

If you want it it there. The American players just dont want it, theyt dont love the game enough and thats why they cant keep up with rest of the world.

I completely disagree with this. There is no way someone could work a full time job and play at a top level. They can play at a top level by playing in matches, practicing, gambling. Many road players use to have a saying, I'll beat anyone who has a full time job!

 

[backplaying]

And a guy from Hong Kong named Kong Andrew (usually known as Andrew Kong - I had to google him), beat Orcollo 9-5. That's how strong the field is and might help explain why Americans don't want to take a 20-hour flight and burn a lot of cash for the slim chance of walking away with 40k.

Any good player can win a short race. One race doesn't mean anything.

 

[sjm]

There's more to this than simply lack of money. It's also a lack of motivation on the part of some pool players. We still have more good players in the USA than anywhere else in the world, maybe a couple thousand very good players in this country. Of that number at least one to two hundred are professional level players, capable of playing anywhere and being competitive.

The problem is that very few of these players have any real interest in making the sacrifices necessary to compete on the world level. There used to be at least a dozen American players who "wanted" to get out there and compete. You can't tell me Mike Dechaine, Dennis Hatch, Rodney Morris, Corey Deuel, John Schmidt, Oscar Dominguez and yes even good old Johnny Archer are not great players who can hang with anyone. And there are a dozen more I could name as well.

But to compete internationally they have to "want" it and want it bad!

My thoughts exactly, Jay. The economics are just as bad for the many male Europeans that don't get Olympic committee money toward their expenses, but they want it a lot more than the American men and make the sacrifices necessary.

I do not agree with you that we have many male players capable of beating a full contingent of international stars. With every major WPA championship missed , American players, foregoing the chance to compete against the world's most elite, drop a notch competitively. There is no end in sight to this decline in competitive pedigree.

Kudos to Hunter Lombardo for chasing the dream, but the undeniable reality is that Shane Van Boening is American pool right now. He is the only truly visible American player on the world pool scene, the only real star of the sport that America can claim right now.

Personally, I'm hoping for better.

 

[JumpinJoe]

I completely disagree with this. There is no way someone could work a full time job and play at a top level. They can play at a top level by playing in matches, practicing, gambling. Many road players use to have a saying, I'll beat anyone who has a full time job!

Donny Mills works. Has his whole life. Send any road player you got thru Clearwater and try and take him off.
I worked for him on and off a few times, I know he hit the office on a daily basis, like 6 days a week.
Pool players nowadays are downright lazy, want everything for nothing. And in return they are getting just what they deserve, nothing.

 

[softshot]

Personally I dont blame US players for not going to international events. You are getting 10 to 1 on your money to win (Qatar is a long way to go for those odds) ,.

and this is how gambling is killing American Pool..

no one is in it to Win...

no one is in it to be the best..

The only way to get Americans to show is an easy payday..

with no one trying to be the best the skill of the whole group diminishes..

all across the country bangers are begging weight with the only goal being to try and win a buck today instead of working to be the best

the rest of the world didn't get better.... we got worse

and it's not just pool

 

[Taco]

Any good player can win a short race. One race doesn't mean anything.

I see your point but think even a short race means something, not nothing. Orcollo is probably the best player in the world right now. I wouldn't want to bet anyone against him, even in a short set. Was just trying to say that the talent pool in Asia is incredibly deep.

 

[GaryB]

For the first time in years the Mosconi Cup is being shown in its entirety on Fox Sports, one match at a time. In past years they would bundle the highlights of a full day of matches into a one hour show. Not this time, you can see complete matches. My suggestion is to watch these matches and let Fox know you enjoy watching pool via e-mail. Maybe it could lead to more top flight professional pool on television here. There is nothing any better than the Mosconi Cup, even though the American side is a little out manned right now. :smile:

That is really good news!

 

[jay helfert]

Shane is out!

 

[Taco]

So there's one American left, on the loser's side, and two Canadians left, on the winner's side. Are they playing hockey?

 

[sjm]

Shane is out!

Disappointing for sure, but winning titles is about sustained excellence match after match, not about being able to find a really high gear at some indeterminate point, which is sometimes enough to win long matches. What I thought might help Shane a lot on this occasion was the memory of his stellar performance at the 2012 Derby City nine ball event.

My opinion is that there is no tougher test on US soil than the nine ball event at Derby City, where the races to seven give players almost no room for error. That's why only the true greats seem to win the event year after year. Some posters on this forum love to argue that the short race format stops the cream from rising to the top, but the truth is that it's just the opposite --- it ensures that the cream rises to the top, for at the Derby City nine ball event, the recent list of champions looks like this: 2012 Van Boening, 2011 Orcullo, 2010 Reyes, 2009 Van Boening, 2008 Souquet, 2007 Feijen, 2006 Souquet, 2005 Reyes, and 2004 Souquet. Only world beaters on that list! That's because only world beaters are up to the challenge of playing with the sustained excellence needed to prevail in a short set format tournament.

Sadly for Shane, the WPA World nine ball championship format meant two bad matches in a short race and you're out, just like at Derby City, and Shane had two bad matches. The guy that snaps off this title will have achieved something truly remarkable. Sometimes I think we need to dwell on just how hard it is to win the biggest tournaments to fully appreciate susperstars like Shane, Ralf, Efren, Darren, Mika, Thorsten and the few others that have won several of the toughest titles.

Nothing to be ashamed of here, for even the greats can only snap off the big events once in a while. Thanks to Shane for representing America at the WPA world nine ball championships and wishing him every success in the future.

 

[parvus1202]

I agree, SVB is the only brave enough US player to rumble with the world. Very admirable. The rest are just too afraid of not making it in the top ten. It's as if nobody is thinking the same the thing, but they are out there trying their best to be number 1. Anyway it's their choice not to go.

 

[pro9dg]

There's more to this than simply lack of money. It's also a lack of motivation on the part of some pool players. We still have more good players in the USA than anywhere else in the world, maybe a couple thousand very good players in this country. Of that number at least one to two hundred are professional level players, capable of playing anywhere and being competitive.

The problem is that very few of these players have any real interest in making the sacrifices necessary to compete on the world level. There used to be at least a dozen American players who "wanted" to get out there and compete. You can't tell me Mike Dechaine, Dennis Hatch, Rodney Morris, Corey Deuel, John Schmidt, Oscar Dominguez and yes even good old Johnny Archer are not great players who can hang with anyone. And there are a dozen more I could name as well.

But to compete internationally they have to "want" it and want it bad! The backing is there if they really, truly want to compete. I can tell you that only a few years ago I offered to totally sponsor one of our top players to play in the World Championships in Manila, when the first prize was 100K. He was a past U.S. Open champion! The cost to me would have been $3,000, but I wanted him to play. He thought about it and turned me down, telling me that he didn't want to travel so far and have to finish in the top eight to make any "real" money. I never made a similar offer again to anyone.

Hat's off to Hunter Lombardo who is pursuing his dream. Perhaps we at AZ should create a fund to send one or two players every year to the major international events to represent our country. Shane is good to go, he has the sponsors he needs. It will take about $2,500-3,000 to send a player overseas for a tournament. I think there are thirty of us who could put in $100 apiece to send a deserving player to an event like the World 9-Ball Championship. If we can raise enough money we can send two players (better to send two so they can share a room). We could do the same thing for 3-4 tournaments a year.

The key is how to pick the players. Number one they have to WANT to go. I would love to see Dennis Hatch competing anywhere. He has all the weapons to succeed, abundant skill and years of experience. Mike Dechaine is another. A great young player who just needs to get out there more. Anyway those are my thoughts on the matter.

I think that you should add Brandon Shuff to that roster. The US quota of players in the major events is seldom filled.
Brandon could have got a slot in the current World 9 Ball Championship.
He was dead keen to play but nobody bothered to tell him.
By the way Jay you have a good idea there.

 

[DaveK]

So there's one American left, on the loser's side, and two Canadians left, on the winner's side. Are they playing hockey?

You can tell by the wood .... straight and they are playing pool ... curved at the end and they may be playing hockey (or have a very very very old cue, er, mace).

Dave

 

[JCIN]

and this is how gambling is killing American Pool..

no one is in it to Win...

no one is in it to be the best..

The only way to get Americans to show is an easy payday..

with no one trying to be the best the skill of the whole group diminishes..

all across the country bangers are begging weight with the only goal being to try and win a buck today instead of working to be the best

the rest of the world didn't get better.... we got worse

and it's not just pool

So because a guy doesnt want to spend $3000 and fly half way around the world to play a race to nine 9 Ball no one is in it to win it? Its just another tournament for those who havent figured it out yet. Just because someone puts World Championship on it doesnt mean a damn thing. I will guarantee if I ask 100 AZ members who won the last five 9 Ball World Championships in order MAYBE ten would know. Thats 10% of the most hard core fans in the pool world. Its just another pain in the ass international event with a really mediocre prize fund compared to the cost and hassle of playing.

The Euro/Brit players love and train for the international events. They have a different mindset as well. Look at the Euro Tour. If you tried to do the Euro Tour in the US players would actually laugh in your face and they would be right. Something else to remember is that for a lot of the Euro players they either have some form of support from player unions or all this is still relatively new to them. As in been doing it for less than ten years professionally. It's easy to want roll dice going all over the world when the fire burns and everything looks bright and exciting. Its another thing to do it when the mortgage is due and you have seen the movie ten times already.

Personally I could give a shit less what happens at some event I can't watch.