Oversight of BCAPL international teams?

malm16 said:
obviously, we all know the clear difference between the way americans and europeans play. they are more focused and less into sharking, intimidation and putting moves. skill-wise they are really just decent, but just they come in humble, respectful and looking to play and enjoy themselves, and there's nothing wrong with that worth condemning. it makes playing easier and well...enjoyable :) we can maybe learn a thing or two from their example if they really want to compete at a high level and perhaps have a shot at winning these events...let's not put blame on how their system works and take a look at ours to perhaps see how we can catch up...thanks, just mho.
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This was probably the best post on this thread... I can give you several examples of sharking, specially during some Master matches with Larry Price and another player that I do not recall right now and actually everybody praised the Portuguese players for their sportsmanship.
Well, we are really loud when we win, louder than the English :thumbup:
 
lolololol, that its past, we won, and now it's time for world champion soccer in South Africa, let's go Portugal, CRISTIANO RONALDO!!!!!!!!!

and VIVA JOSÉ MOURINHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, for the Inter Milan!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I play BCA but cannot go to Vegas or travel as work does not permit......so, I'll post as an outsider for the most part :D

From an outsiders point of view, I was under the impression that BCA teams that went to Vegas were based on teams that always played together.....ie, if I went to Vegas, I'd have to play on the same team I play on every Tuesday, and I would want to......if I showed up with my team, and we saw another Dallas team comprised of the best 7 or so players from our league, I'd be pissed.....if everyone did that, it's likely only 1/4 of the teams would show up and it would be more of an allstar type competition, as mentioned...

If other countries are doing that, IMHO it appears to be against the spirit of the rules/competition.....granted, Mark may let it slide because international competitors bring a bit of notariety....

Just my opinion :thumbup:
 
BENFICA said:
I know Bino and he is a super nice guy. As you can see is written English is also as bad as mine and I don't think he express himself correctly. I apologize for the guy if he offended anybody.
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theres no need to apologize, if portugal has such great pool players then why dont they come to the pool hall and steal more dumb americans money. Everyone on this thread knows the reason that foreigners won the events they won, but to get on here and gloat about it like its a real accomplishment, cmon thats just classless

I think Im gonna go to a town where no one knows me, win a c tournament and then post on here how special i think I am.....thats about the equivalent of a bunch of pros winning an amateur event.........have a nice day
 
BENFICA said:
Man, you didn't go to Vegas or you watched some other matches.
Nobody coached nobody... What happened this year was that some people that were watching told them to call a ref since the guy did not speak english. Also a few guys that spoke spanish (mexican) understood it perfectly.
We were just noisy when we won, and everybody was noisy when they won... Portuguese, Americans, Mexicans, Spanish, etc... Not sure what your point is.
Actually some of us were commenting on some plays during the matches and the Portuguese players themselves told the spectators to shut up.
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They coach EVERY YEAR...without a doubt. And then when the ref comes over, they play dumb and state they can't speak English, don't understand what the ref is trying to tell them about coaching. They speak just fine up to that point.
 
watchez said:
They coach EVERY YEAR...without a doubt. And then when the ref comes over, they play dumb and state they can't speak English, don't understand what the ref is trying to tell them about coaching. They speak just fine up to that point.
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Funny...
I have been going to Vegas for a while now for the BCA event and I have been with the Portuguese players since day one and work close with Bill Stock and the other BCA people and never heard those type of complaints. I can also tell you that about 75% of the players that went to Vegas speak some decent English, not fluent but decent.
 
I must say I'm happy that people are starting to take this seriously. The Americans clearly don't have the same abilities to put teams together as other countries. And rather than be meek about it, they're flaunting it. Strange.

Hopefully someone can alert Mark Griffin to this issue so we can hear an official explanation.

Thanks,
Steve
 
Steve Lipsky said:
I must say I'm happy that people are starting to take this seriously. The Americans clearly don't have the same abilities to put teams together as other countries. And rather than be meek about it, they're flaunting it. Strange.

Hopefully someone can alert Mark Griffin to this issue so we can hear an official explanation.

Thanks,
Steve
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In light of their flaunting, maybe they won't be so lucky next year. Maybe the BCAPL will decide to adhere to their own rules that Watchez had quoted instead of changing them to allow these people in.
 
Great thread

Great topic.

It is indeed true that these overseas countries in effect "stack" teams. I lived in Australia for 18 months and I know that teams are built for Vegas not through team competition, but indiiviual competition. The league will run with the good players usually spaced out on various teams to give all teams a better chance of competing in the regular season, but normally there is then a end of the year single player tournament, often seeded, and that single event decided via long race matches, will determine the 5 players who are going to represent Australia. As you can imagine this creates a team of monsters.

I am guessing that this is the way most of the overseas countries build their teams and if you think about it it makes sense. They are putting alot of money out to send players all that way and they might only send 1 or 2 teams for a entire country. Chances are you are getting 1 or 2 teams that represent the best players they can send.

In the USA or Canada we have many teams coming from each region and usually the top players get spaced out a little more for each city, let alone each country. One year the best players from western Canada got together and created a masters team for vegas similar to what the overseas countries do and won the event, but it was frowned upon and one of the players then got what was at the time a lifetime ban from competing in the BCA (Bernie Mikkelson) and another player Brady Gollan I have not see in the BCA since.

The main problem is that Bernie and Brady are more known to USA league systems then Rudolpho Santiago of Spain who just happens to be a top 5 player in his country. So Rudolpho and 4 of his peers in Spain get on a team that is strong as heck, they smoke everyone, and then next year 5 different players come to Vegas from Spain to do the same. It takes quite a while to knock 5 top players out at a time from a country and get through the master level players. Canada could stack a single team for years with each team of players being removed each time and the team 5 years down the road would still be a monster team, this is not even taking into account upcomming young players.

This is what happens, some team of random players from Calgary who all might shoot well end up playing the top 5 eligible players who were built into a team from Spain. If you took the top 5 best players from Calgary, or western Canada, or even Canada which has less of a population then Spain, then that would be a strong team too. And if you look at the fact that Spain has sent far less players to these competitions and had alot less of their top players lose their open status compared to somewhere like Canada that is how you get these ridiculously tough top teams year after year from overseas. Alot of those players playing on those open teams are in fact their countries equivalent of the USA and Canada's master level players and teams if they were stacked onto one top team.
 
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iceball said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2gVchDLQ5Q

Remember PORTUGAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That there is a great video.

One thing I will say is that the sense of playing for ones country such as these teams do is a very different thing then most North American teams and I think that it is a positive type of pressure and drive. If Western Canada were to run a singles event and have it's top 5 players in that region with open status qualify and then play for the pride of Western Canada I think the focus and mindset alone would create a far more dangerous team. Not to mention the quality of the team itself as it would be the 5 best open players in the whole of western canada.

Some people might wonder about chemistry but that is where these teams excel because they are not playing for themselves or even the team, they are playing for their country.
 
BENFICA said:
Funny...
I have been going to Vegas for a while now for the BCA event and I have been with the Portuguese players since day one and work close with Bill Stock and the other BCA people and never heard those type of complaints. I can also tell you that about 75% of the players that went to Vegas speak some decent English, not fluent but decent.
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I played a guy from Team Spain last year in Vegas, he did not speak a lick of english. We both had a crash course in pool sign language during that match. He had no team mates around so no issues with coaching but if someone is playing a match IMO it should be a rule that they cannot talkto other duringt he match whether they speak english or any other language. I don't want to have to worry about some guy wispering with his buddy about the table in english any more then I want to have to worry about two gys speaking a language I do not know. The two players simply do not talk to other people while the rack is in progress, problem solved.
 
Steve Lipsky said:
I must say I'm happy that people are starting to take this seriously. The Americans clearly don't have the same abilities to put teams together as other countries. And rather than be meek about it, they're flaunting it. Strange.

Hopefully someone can alert Mark Griffin to this issue so we can hear an official explanation.

Thanks,
Steve
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I am pretty sure the official explanation is that if there "was" a national league system and that league system "wanted" to run a singles event with all of the players of that national league system playing under that same charter playing in a singles event for spots on a single team of the 5 top people in that tournament then it would be allowed.

Anything less then that and there truly IS something wrong.
 
briandlau said:
Unfortunately, there is a lot of this.
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Yeah, it is a simple fix. Add a rule to the official BCAPL rule book that both players do not talk with anyone outside of the match (oppoent or ref) while a rack is in progress. The rack is in prgoress from the instant the incomming breaking player approaches the table to break, to the moment the 8-ball has fallen in the pocket.

I would REALYL like that rule to be made and set in stone. It is not only players speaking different languages, it is the 14 perosn family matches where your opponent is constantly talking while you are shooting, the match where your opponent is sitting talking to his 2 team mates about every shot and the table while you are shooting, everything really.

Your opponent should be sitting, quiet, and not talking to others while you are shooting. That should be a set in stone rule.
 
BENFICA said:
Funny...
I have been going to Vegas for a while now for the BCA event and I have been with the Portuguese players since day one and work close with Bill Stock and the other BCA people and never heard those type of complaints. I can also tell you that about 75% of the players that went to Vegas speak some decent English, not fluent but decent.
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I am going to have to chime in with Watchez on this one...

3 years ago our team from Dallas had a very contentious match with one of the Portuguese teams where we ended up losing 13-11...

Their sportsmanship was absolutely atrocious and the crowd of people following them around was the worst I have ever seen at a major event...

One of the spectators actually made a "choke" sign to one of our players after a missed shot at 10-10 and then they were all shocked when a fight nearly broke out...

The worst sportsmanship I have ever seen...

The players barely shook our hands after the match...

The players on that team were 100% no doubt being coached from the side... And I know because I speak Spanish fluently... Not the same as Portuguese I know, but trust me they were being coached...

And Watchez is right when he says that once a ref got involved they just played dumb until the ref was forced to give up...

I have nothing but respect for the way those young men played, but everything else about them was shady...

I'd love for that group to have to play one of our all-star teams...
 
BENFICA said:
Funny...
I have been going to Vegas for a while now for the BCA event and I have been with the Portuguese players since day one and work close with Bill Stock and the other BCA people and never heard those type of complaints. I can also tell you that about 75% of the players that went to Vegas speak some decent English, not fluent but decent.
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Funny...the first year I went to Vegas was 1998 and a team from St Louis met the team from Spain (I believe Danny Alcaide was on the team) in the finals. The Spanish team was coaching the entire match and the ref was called over numerous times. When the ref was there, only one player spoke English. When the ref left, they all spoke English. And when the ref left, they continued to coach in Spanish. St Louis won the first set and a spectator offered the team a $1,000 bonus out of his pocket if they won. Unfortunately they lost 13-10.

I have witnessed simliar incidents each year that I have been back.

Oh and want to guess who the spectator was that offered the $1,000 bonus....






....Mark Griffin.
 
Ok...my team in the mixed open event finished 13th thru 16th. All of our players live within 15 miles of each other. I am doubting seriously any other team that finished higher than us could say the same.

In our city we have a choice of playing under three different vendors so it effectively cuts the strength of the teams down as not everyone plays in all the leagues. Plus we are confined to taking players just in our city.

So with square miles the country of Portugal is a little smaller:
Portugal 35,672 square miles
Ohio 40,953 square miles

So why can't Ohio have its own Open to determine teams. Drive to play together six times after the event to fulfill the written requirements and create a dozen super teams?

P.S. The coaching does go on every year by languages other than English...of course those speaking English cannot do the same cause we know that there is a good chance one or more of the opposing players speak English as well.
 
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As one of my teammates put it after our 13-11 to the team from Portugal...

"I hate those guys, but they didn't fly across a f***ing ocean because they didn't expect to win..."
 
renard said:
The coaching does go on every year by languages other than English...of course those speaking English cannot do the same cause we know that there is a good chance one or more of the opposing players speak English as well.
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Funny story from the APA Nationals where I had a team playing in the Master's Division...

Right out of the gate we drew a team from CA (that ended up winning the whole thing) that had a guy from China...

The rules state that only players are allowed inside the ropes, but tournament officials allowed him to have an interpreter AND allowed the interpreter to have an interpreter because she didn't understand the "language of pool"...

When I asked why the interpreter's interpreter couldn't just be the only interpreter I was told that the two interpreters spoke a slightly different dialect and that would be confusing to the player...

Yes, VERY confusing...
 
Great topic SL.

It has been talked about for years, and it is obvious to the casual observer that foreign countries stack teams to send to Vegas. It is also obvious that they are not held to the same rules as we are in forming those teams.

I said a long time ago how much I loved the team event. My quote was 'It's the closest I'll ever come to the Mosconi Cup'. Spain, Portugal, Australia, Great Britain and at one point Canada, all approach the BCA teams as if this was the Mosconi Cup. Question is, when will the states be allowed to do the same?

On the flip side of that coin, I have seen all-star teams come from certain states, with players of dubious qualification status, get thumped at the BCA. The only conclusion I could draw was they had no team chemistry or just broke bad.

As to the foreign teams and their entourages sharking opponents, I have seen that first hand from at least three countries. There are blatant about it, and will act dumb when called on it. Europe seems to have a different view of what a spectator sport means.

I recall a match between myself and one the champions from Spain a few years back. It was hill-hill and he had broken rather badly but was starting a difficult out. As he got down on a ball, someone in his rather large posse said in spanish 'Don't shoot that ball, make the 4 and then put him behind your ball'. Which would have been the right shot in that spot, I would be toast if he did that. Anyway, I turned and glared at what turned out to be yet another Spanish champion. He gave me a look like 'Who me? What?'. I said in Spanish, 'It's pretty sad it takes two of you to beat me, too bad he can't beat me on his own'. The looks on their faces at that moment was priceless.

This kind of thing goes on year after year and is just one more shit sandwich in a long line of shit sandwiches that must be eaten if you are going to participate in the nationals in Vegas at the Riviera.
 
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