Philippine Open

Wow, lets turn this into a racism discussion! How about the other side you moron. (sorry, i hate people bitching about racism just about as much as i hate racism itself.) Just because a country wants to know who thier best DOMESTIC player is, doesn't make them racists. I'm sorry are the Americans the only ones allowed to be Patriotic? In fact i wish the USA had a restricted tournament, then we could find out who the best American was, 'at that particular place and time anyways. =(:o)>. I am not positive on this, but i believe the Canadians are restricted. I'm basing this on all the Past winners are Canadian, which would be a pretty big fluke if it was not restricted. It annoys the hell outta me that someone has to mention racism just cause a Country wants to find its best. Pitiful. I get just as annoyed at black comics going off on white people being racist, or, nevermind I'm not gonna go any farther for a fear of someone jumping on my back. I'll cover my bases on that last one by saying 'I love all black/african american (or whatever is political correct) people' Then again, 'I hate all people equally'.
 
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I think I may have missed something here, but it probably isn't the first time and won't be the last.

As a matter of fact, I will reserve comment, unless and until someone else has an opinion about the insertion of the INFAMOUS race card here.

For the record, I am no racist, far from it, and I don't think anybody on this thread is "a moron." Sticks and stones...

JAM
 
JAM said:
At the last Open, I was chatting with Francisco Bustamante, and he was showing me a pair of new name-brand leather running shoes that he purchased at a discount warehouse nearby
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In a sane universe the sports companies should be fighting for the right to put shoes on Bustamante's feet.

Thanks for the detailed info as usual JAM. In this instance, the problem of which players get to enter which tournaments and earn championship points on an international basis is not limited to Pool, almost every international sport has similar issues. This is one reason why the big International sports have non-profit, non-industry related national and international governing bodies to help smooth out these problems. This also makes things like Olympic entry for those sports possible too. The sooner a true sports organization can take control of the Men's Pro game in the USA from the BCA the better. I know not everyone likes the UPA, but it is at least a step in the right direction IMHO.
 
I dunno if people here know this but I'm posting it.
Pool and snooker games are played in Asian Games.
Marlon Manalo and Del Valle are both gold medalists. Discovered via these kinds of tournaments.
Too bad pool is not part of the summer olympic games. If there were an American Open to determine which Americans go to the summer games, I don't think Efren or Bustamante would complain for not being invited in the American Open.
 
Call it What it is

You should call a tournament what it is, if it's the Australian Championships, then why would you allow non-Australians?

I live in New Mexico and the New Mexico Open hasn't been won by someone who actually lives here in a few years. Some guy from Cali won last year and before that Danny Medina had been coming down from Denver to win it. I wish they'd change the name and only let New Mexicans compete. The winner of that isn't the best player in New Mexico, just the best player here that particular day.

Just keep it simple and call it what it is.

It's not about nationalism or racism. I know to expect more from the people in this forum
 
fxskater said:
Wow, lets turn this into a racism discussion! How about the other side you moron. (sorry, i hate people bitching about racism just about as much as i hate racism itself.) Just because a country wants to know who thier best DOMESTIC player is, doesn't make them racists.
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Please do not insult us with the suggestion that this is an isolated and misrepresentative incident of Asia's philosophy in pro pool. There is far more to this matter than whether the Phillipines wishes to identify its best player. Men's pro pool in Asia has a disturbing tendency to exclude those of other nationalities and it's very widespread. In fact, an entire Asian tour, known as the San Miguel Tour, is restricted to Asians. I don't view this as racism, just short-sightedness. This is about Asia's failure to follow the admirable lead of the United States by embracing pool players of all cultures and nationalities.

Of course, why should we be surprised? Japanese baseball has long placed a ceiling of two on the number of Americans that can play on any of their major league teams. Imagine if last year, when the agent for Japanese baseball star Kaz Matsui contacted the New York Mets he had been told "sorry, the Mets are already at the foreign player limit, so we're not interested." Of course, it's unimaginable, because America doesn't work that way.

And so, in response to your post, there basically is no other side. American sports consistently embraces foreign nationals, Asian sports does not. I'm not sure that's racist, but it is foolish and unfair.
 
sjm said:
Imagine if last year, when the agent for Japanese baseball star Kaz Matsui contacted the New York Mets he had been told "sorry, the Mets are already at the foreign player limit, so we're not interested." Of course, it's unimaginable, because America doesn't work that way.
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Limits on foreign players are standard in many team sport's that have large international pools of players to draw from and are well enough funded to attract foreign players from economically disadvantaged countries. The reason is not discrmination but the recognition by the governing bodies of those sports that, if allowed, rich teams would simply cherry pick the best players the entire world to build super teams. This would in turn lead to great reduction in the development of local talent, which would decimate the national-level teams fielded for international competition.

The only reason you do not see a lot of this in the USA is not, IMHO, because of an American sense of fairness, but because the biggest team sports (In terms of revenue) are all sports played almost exclusively as major professional sports only in the USA. (American Football, Baseball and Basketball)
 
sjm said:
And so, in response to your post, there basically is no other side. American sports consistently embraces foreign nationals, Asian sports does not. I'm not sure that's racist, but it is foolish and unfair.
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Well, if we say ASIAN Tour, then I guess open only to Asians. Philippine Open, Japan Open or Taiwan Open, then all nationalities are welcome. I don't know about any US Championship Pool where only American players should be in. Here in the UK, we have the UK Championship Snooker and only open to British nationals. And also the British Open, include other notionalities. It is the countries and regions choice to see who their best player/s. We should respect that. So maybe USA or the Americas should also stage their own championships and then at the end of the year lets have an inter-continental world team chanpionships. Just a dream.
 
I think some people are reading too much into this.

The reason certain Asian tournaments are restricted to Asian participants is because Asia is bursting at the seams with world-class players. You can qualify 30 players and at least 50 players who missed the cut can be considered a threat to win a month later.

America allows foreign players to compete in all our tournaments because we're starved of world-class players. After 10th rank we're talking no man's land, no where near the quality and calibre of play that the Asians exhibit in the last 10 years.

Take a look at the last 3 years' WPC results, and you'll know what I'm talking about. Strickland, Archer, Morris are basically the only American talents that can be considered dangerous in Asia, which is one reason why these three receives invitational spots to a number of Taiwanese/Philipino tournaments each year.

-Roger
 
buddha162 said:
The reason certain Asian tournaments are restricted to Asian participants is because Asia is bursting at the seams with world-class players. You can qualify 30 players and at least 50 players who missed the cut can be considered a threat to win a month later.
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And America is bursting at the seams with world class baseball players, but regardless of nationality, anyone can play in our baseball leagues if their play merits it. Yes, there are pool events in which Americans can play in Asia, but for Americans to be completely ineligible to compete in what is by far the most prestigious level of competition in Asian men's pool, the San Miguel Tour, is a disgrace, and my comments hold. Perhaps one day Asia will embrace all the athletes of the world. Sadly, they don't do it today and there seems to be more than a few who give them a free pass.
 
sjm said:
And America is bursting at the seams with world class baseball players, but regardless of nationality, anyone can play in our baseball leagues if their play merits it. Yes, there are pool events in which Americans can play in Asia, but for Americans to be completely ineligible to compete in what is by far the most prestigious level of competition in Asian men's pool, the San Miguel Tour, is a disgrace, and my comments hold. Perhaps one day Asia will embrace all the athletes of the world. Sadly, they don't do it today and there seems to be more than a few who give them a free pass.
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It's highly probable that Asians will drink more San Miguel beer, an Asian beer, because of Efren Reyes. It is improbable that Americans will drink San Miguel beer, granted that Americans knew about this Asian beer, because of Johnny Archer.

Johnny who???
 
kep2 said:
It's highly probable that Asians will drink more San Miguel beer, an Asian beer, because of Efren Reyes. It is improbable that Americans will drink San Miguel beer, granted that Americans knew about this Asian beer, because of Johnny Archer.

Johnny who???
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This analogy isn't quite the same (IMO). It is common knowledge that our Asian friends enjoy playing with equipment -- sticks, tables, and paraphernalia -- that are made in the good old U.S. of A when, and if, they are drinking the San Miguel beer. In my personal experience -- and I know this sounds strange coming from me -- 99.9 percent of the competitive pool players I see when in the heat of battle are drinking WATER, not beer.

A very popular Japanese newspaper read by pool enthusiasts in that country has conducted numerous interviews of American players for its readership because some American players enjoy a very huge popularity.

I'm not sure of the reason why some, not all, of the Asian tournament are restricted to country of origin or citizenship, but I do not believe that it is because they have heard of The Magician and have not heard of the Scorpion.

When you see the money listings for a year, Efren Reyes and our Philippino friends may rank higher on the list. It needs to be said, though, that they are competing in restricted tournaments, tournaments that ban and prohibit American players like Johnny Archer and/or European players like Thorsten Hohmann, as two examples. I'm happy to see ANY pool player get the opportunity to make money, no matter what part of the world it's in. The money rankings, though, are not statistically significant, for obvious reasons.

This is NOT to say that Efren Reyes isn't a GREAT player. Of course, he is. But his money take includes multiple tournaments which are prohibiting all players around the world, except those of Asian descent.

We have State-restricted tournaments here in the U.S. The Virginia State 9-Ball Championship held in Richmond last year was restricted to residents of Virginia and the District of Columbia. However, at the U.S. Open, BCA Open, Reno Open, DCC, Super Billiards Expo pro event, Glass City Open, Midwest Open, Carolinas Open, and every other OPEN I can think of, all players are welcome, regardless of country of origin.

JAM
 
Obviously using the word "open" when the tournament is restricted is inappropriate. However, if Asians or Europeans hold tournaments exclusive to their region, that is their right and cannot be called unjust. They do hold tournaments where Americans are invited anyway. If the NBA and MLB stop accepting non-Americans, is that unfair? I don't think so.
 
sjm said:
And America is bursting at the seams with world class baseball players, but regardless of nationality, anyone can play in our baseball leagues if their play merits it. Yes, there are pool events in which Americans can play in Asia, but for Americans to be completely ineligible to compete in what is by far the most prestigious level of competition in Asian men's pool, the San Miguel Tour, is a disgrace, and my comments hold. Perhaps one day Asia will embrace all the athletes of the world. Sadly, they don't do it today and there seems to be more than a few who give them a free pass.
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The San Miguel Tour is an Asian tour. Pool and baseball/basketball are apples-oranges; regardless of the nationality of their players, NBA teams are AMERICAN teams. Your analogy would make sense if an Yugoslavian team is allowed to play in the NBA; as far as I know, they are not.

The Mosconi cup is restricted to European/American players. You can say that it is by definition a restricted competition, ala Ryders cup, but one can argue that the Asian tour by definition (their definition, not your's) is restricted to Asians.

-Roger
 
Maybe this people should include Manny Pacquiao in their ratings since he lives in LA now.
http://www.nabasite.com/current_ratings.htm :o
Before we worry about the Asian tour excluding American players maybe we should wonder why Tiger Woods has no membership at the Augusta b/c he is black/asian.
Any woman crack that club yet?
 
I really don't understand how we got so long about this. The original post is just informing us of the upcoming Philippine championships. Which is good. Just like our own UK championships, snooker though, and the Europian Championaship . So what is the problem? So far as I have seen on the list last year of the San Miguel Beer Tour( by the way, San Miguel Beer Europe taste awful, puke, puke), each Asian country sent their own top player/s. I believe only 32 top caliber players from the entire region are invited. Top seeds like Philippines and Taiwan got 4 each, Japan and Korea 2 each, the rests have 1 representative each. If we include top pro from the US or other regions then what country will they represents? Anyway, hope to have Europe vs Asia 9 ball. Europe The best!!! Another dream!! Wake me up!!
 
parvus1202 said:
Anyway, hope to have Europe vs Asia 9 ball. Europe The best!!! Another dream!! Wake me up!!
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This is all in fun but...Asia will surely crush Europe!

how about a west vs. east team cup? I think that would be a stellar event...

-Roger
 
JoeyInCali said:
... maybe we should wonder why Tiger Woods has no membership at the Augusta b/c he is black/asian. Any woman crack that club yet?
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In the case of Tiger, I believe the answer is that he declined the automatic invitation for membership that winning the Masters carries because of the club's failure to haqve a diversified membership. As for gender discrimination, we're absolutely on the same page. There's no room for it, and Augusta's conduct in this matter is thoroughly unacceptable. Of course, we're no longer on the subject of pro sports here, but we clearly see eye to eye here.
 
parvus1202 said:
Anyway, hope to have Europe vs Asia 9 ball. Europe The best!!! Another dream!! Wake me up!!
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That would be great, when do the tickets go on sale?
 
buddha162 said:
This is all in fun but...Asia will surely crush Europe!
-Roger
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No No NO!! Europe is the sleeping giant. .... wait.... well it seems that it is still sleeping. Snooker then!! Aaa... wait... I was in the 1999 WPC where Efren won the crown. He beat Jim and Ronnie ( not Steve) in snooker. But that was just for fun, not real kick ass games. So it means Efren was given the .... Can someone ask Efren to retire!!!! He is not needed anymore! I am just jealous. If you have just seen what he can do when playing snooker.
 
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