Professionals playing in non professional events

If you choose not to improve by playing the best competition possible, then the only people you will be capable of beating are those who are even bigger losers than you!

People should be grateful that pros go to small time competitions whatever their motive is. Would you ever see Gary Kasparov play a moron at chess out of his own free will? Or see Manchester Utd play a pub team in a friendly?
 
tryhonesty07 said:
funny how the people on here who are like, "dont you want to get better" or it's hardly any money" are the ones that are pros trying to clam a couple hundred bucks off of others learning. typical.
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man if u have that outlook u should go to the nearest freeway over pass.... n take cues with u ..... when u see a semi truck coming throw them over
 
Perk goes to the bar. He says to his buddy, I just won this tourney the other day. Final result was 1. Perk, 2. Joe Smith, 3. Joe Smith, 4. Joe Smith...etc....Buddy says: Cool how bout them Lions?

Next week Perk goes to the bar. He says to his buddy, I just won a tourney yesterday. Final result was 1. Perk, 2. Earl "Pearl" Strickland, 3. Shane "SVB" VanBoening, 4. Corey Deuel, 5. BlackBalled.....Buddy says: "Holy crap thats awesome man, great shooting thats an excellent win and the field was tough. When you playing again?

Perk likes scenario #2.
 
Look at it this way, if your playing a pro and when they miss you will have a decent shots 90% of the time unless they are playing a safe. Unlike playing a lot of low ranked amateurs or bangers when they miss and unintentionally hook you. Nothing worse than getting beat by a lot of lucky rolls.
 
efirkey said:
How does everyone feel about professional pool players playing in events that are not professional events? I understand why they do it...for the money. But I personally don't want to play in a tournament where I feel I have zero chance of winning.
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Your question is meaningless unless you state how good you are.

In the DC area pros play in tournaments here all the time, and they are not guaranteed to win. I have seen them not finish 1st place more times than not. There are a lot of good amateurs here with the attitude of 'bring in on'.

So, what I am trying to say is that you must put your question in perspective because everything is NOT so black and white as you have tried to indicate.
 
Then you should get better? You're playing for the money and for the wrong reasons.. jus sayin
 
Absolute worst case scenario is you pay 50 bucks and go down 2 sets straight. You still played for an hour or 2, and now have something to look back on. Some people dont realize it, but even a loss is good experience....certainly better than none.
 
I love playing in tournaments where pro level players are present.
Not many other disciplines where amateurs are always mixing it up with the TOP level pros.

The only thing that bugs me is pro level players/promoters playing in their own events - if said events are advertised as handicapped. I feel that they are double dipping, getting compensated for promoting the event as well as the potential compensation for placing in the money. Most pro level players will typically place well in a handicapped event.

Steve H.
 
Best $10 I ever spent in pool was when I got to play CJ Wiley. In a local weighted nineball tournament. I got three on the wire in a race to seven. Played some of the best pool of my life that day! Even if I would have lost. It would have been $10 well spent!

Larry
 
tksix said:
I would also rather say that some Champion knocked me out of the tourney as opposed to saying, someone that couldn't even a hold a cue or make 2 in a row got me!!!
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I agree with everything you said in your post except for this final statement. I think a positive attitude is one of the most important attributes to have. So, I would rephrase the above statement to have a positive connotation. For example, "I knocked out a Champion out of the tourney." This may sound trivial to some, but I don't think having a defeatist demeanor will ever produce the greatest results. Just my 2¢'s, spend it as you wish.
 
I guess it depends.

If you think you have no chance of winning, you probably don't.

If you play as well as you can, and lose-you may have learned something important about your own abilities-and about the abilities of the pro caliber player. Shot selection, safety play, stroke mechanics-the list goes on and on. Pros play better than most of us-that's a given. How you perform, what you observe, what you may learn that will improve your game, how to deal with nerves in that situation-all these and more will add to your skill set.

I lost to Max Eberle and Rafael Martinez in the same tournament. 2 and out. Went hill-hill with Max. But, I gained more than I lost that weekend, from my perspective.

Do I like to lose? No.

Can I accept losing to the pros? Of course, I can. They are pros.

Playing much better players, can dent up your confidence level for sure-but when the sting of the spanking subsides, you are left with, I just got beat by a pro, and maybe I gained some knowledge in addition to the experience.

There are few other sports or games where you can compete against the very best for a reasonable cost.

Mad that they are allowed to play in the tournament? Upset that you got spanked?Any of that kind of depends on your expectations and temperment, and whether you can find the positives that exist whether you see them immediately or not.

Nobody wins all the time. But, hopefully, we will learn something every time that we lose.

Take care
 
Tournaments cheap lessons

efirkey said:
How does everyone feel about professional pool players playing in events that are not professional events? I understand why they do it...for the money. But I personally don't want to play in a tournament where I feel I have zero chance of winning.
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Don't mind playing tournament with pros or one loaded with A players. It's a whole lot cheaper than having to match up with such players.

Yeah, I want to have a chance to win but these are cheap lessons. I've always learned something playing such players.
 
I still remember the first time I saw Buddy Hall play. How can he make contact with the cue ball so lightly and still make the cue ball do things I had never seen before? He never hit the cue ball any harder than a normal lag stroke. Yet, he made all those shots look so easy.

I learned a lot from just watching him. I learned a lot from watching all the other PRO players in the late 70s and 80s and into the 90s. I also learned that life is too short to learn all there is abut pocket billiards.

See, up close, how the game is played by some of the best players in the world can only be a positive influence on your game. That is if you want to improve and continue to do so.

No one wins them all, but is sure is nice to win more than you lose. Always take advantage of a cheap lesson.
 
If you are looking at it purely from a financial viewpoint, you should find the weakest tournament with the highest payout. Otherwise, I think there have been a lot of very valid points for playing in any tournament with stronger players than yourself.

The bottom line really is it isn't really about the money to most people. As said before, it is about the journey of learning and the entertainment value you get out of playing. One of the sadist things about pool, in my opinion, is the better you get the less people want to play you it seems. :confused:
 
I love playing Derby City nine-ball, and I have exactly zero chance of winning. Except at blackjack where I made my entry fee back last year.

There are a bunch of pros from whom I'd love to receive a smackdown, and I'd gladly pay my entry fee for a first-round drubbing from any of them.

I play because I love it. I don't expect to make a dime.
 
Perk said:
Perk goes to the bar. He says to his buddy, I just won this tourney the other day. Final result was 1. Perk, 2. Joe Smith, 3. Joe Smith, 4. Joe Smith...etc....Buddy says: Cool how bout them Lions?

Next week Perk goes to the bar. He says to his buddy, I just won a tourney yesterday. Final result was 1. Perk, 2. Earl "Pearl" Strickland, 3. Shane "SVB" VanBoening, 4. Corey Deuel, 5. BlackBalled.....Buddy says: "Holy crap thats awesome man, great shooting thats an excellent win and the field was tough. When you playing again?

Perk likes scenario #2.
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Perk likes scenario #2.
I bet she does.
 
Let them play! Bring it on!

If you're already a good player who's trying to get better, deciding to enter a tournament that's allowing pros in shouldn't dissuade you from playing in that tournament. Like many have said no matter what you do in the tough matches as long as you're paying attention you're in for a cheap lesson or two and if things are going your way maybe you'll get your chance to teach one. You should go in with the positive attitude that you're the one to beat without being outwardly cocky and with the fight in you to get it done no matter if it's <Insert pro or tough player who scares you off your game here> screwing together his/her cue for your match but not be so deluded that if you lose that you don't know why or what happened.

When I enter a tournament I want to know who the best players are there, pro or not and I can't wait to draw those people for my matches. I don't care if I'm giving weight to a top pro(exaggeration of course, even would be fine) for the typical $50 entry as I'm in it to get better and for the challenge although the winnings don't hurt. You have to know if you are competing for the challenge or for some other reason. I guess I probably would care though if I was seriously in need of the cash from that tourney but I only rarely carelessly put myself in that position in the past. Players really should follow the adage if you can't afford to lose it don't play for it and for some who inflate how well they think they play that includes their pride as well. Some realism and humility help in the learning process but you have to get through it with a positive attitude.

For me it's about the journey, lessons learned and the challenge. If you're in it for the money or even worse, easy money, then you'll have to very carefully pick your tournaments to enter and even then nothing's a lock even for the very highly skilled among us.
 
I personally think there's nothing better than walking into a 3/2 bar tournament and seeing a couple of the best shooters in the state mulling around. It's really a coin flip as to if you beat them or not. You play great and they have one or two bad rolls and you've got them (and I have on occasion)... And it's only a $5 or $10 tournament, who's to say they really have it turned all the way up.

Now if you're going to a state tournament and they don't bracket it by rankings, and they're asking $110 or more to play and you know you're going 2 and out, yeah, maybe i just railbird. You still get to learn, you just don't get robbed for your trouble. You'll never hear me whine 'ugh, why's houston or kirkwood in my tournament', hell, it's fun to watch great people shoot, and watch other great shooters take it to them and sometimes get them good.
 
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