SVB is the best player on earth

[westcoast]

In terms of all around (10 ball, 1 pocket, etc), don't most people think Alex P is the best?

 

[CreeDo]

That linked match to the Japan Open is pretty entertaining.
Lee Van is shooting well. He scratches on the break and leaves this...

Good luck trying to run 7 balls on on the side rail haha.
The guy tries and gets hooked trying to float through a window to the 4 ball.
Sort of a nice roll for Lee Van. His opponent makes a fantastic kick that leaves it safe though.
Lee Van replies in standard filipino fashion.

 

[Celtic]

He still has to run out.

And no one has said otherwise. A long driver in golf still has to make putts as well. It does not negate tge fact that the long drive is still an advantage that makes it easier to get a low score in a round of golf.

 

[spartan]

I way I look at is like this

1. Is there anyone in the world Shane is an underdog against?
2. How many of the people he is 50/50 against are bigger favorites against the rest of the competition?

Depends on whether you are talking about long game (like race to 50 or 100) or short game (like tournament races to 11 or 13 etc)
1. Right now, in long game (10 ball) maybe none. Maybe a few would be 50/50 against him (Yang, Busta .....) . Don't know much about long game of Europeans like Thorsten, Souquet so they may or may not be in the mix since they apparently do not gamble and most long games played are money games. Maybe someone should start organising long format tournaments. Get the top 32 players and lock them up in neutral island for few weeks playing races to 50 every day to determine the long game king.
Now in short game (tournament format) like race to 11(10 ball), IMHO he may be slight underdog vs Ko, Wu. And probably at least 20 to 50 players in the world would be 50-50 against him in the short game
2. In long game, probably a handful. In short game, the top 50 can beat each other at any time at any tournament so it is flip of coin.
Only talking about 10 ball above. In 8 and 9 ball, those are different ball games and different story.

Alex would need to learn how to break a lot better. He outshot SVB pretty badly in that match IMO but his break was terrible and let Shane back to the table too often and Shane ended up putting huge packages on Alex at the end of both day 1 and day 2 to pull out the end of the night lead.

Shane is the best 10-ball breaker on the planet and that is a gigantic part of the game and it wins him most of his long sessions due to the offence it provides. I would say that at least 10 people in the world shoot better then SVB "after" the break, and Alex is certainly one of those players.

Look what happened in SVB vs Orcullo in their 8-ball match on TAR, Orcullo never missed a ball and never played a single safety and SVB wins the match despite having missed a few shot himself. The break WAS the decider in that match and that is clear. It outweighed the better shooting by Orcullo.

If you are going to say SVB is the best "player" in the world then you are saying he does more then simply "break better" then everyone, you are saying he "plays" better and that implies shots beyond the break. I simply do not see SVB shooting better then the elite players after the break.

Very well said.
SVB is one of my favorite players. Great breaker but as you rightly point out there are a bunch of elite players who have a better overall technical game and knowledge than he does. He reminds me of Boris Becker. Awesome breaker which served him very well to win in fast courts like Wimbledon where break makes a difference but he cannot win in other slower surfaces like French Open
Now is he the best player on earth ? In the long game, IMHO he is easily in the top 3 or top 5 probably. In the short game (tournaments), IMHO he is easily in top 10. So no, he is not the best. Yet.

Does anyone know if Shane is participating in the All Japan Championship this weekend? All the big guns are there including Reyes, Pagulayan, Orcollo, Biado, Corteza, Immonen, Hohmann, Ko-Pin, Bustamante, Wan Can, and Morris. I believe I read a post on Rodney Morris' facebook page saying he thinks he's the only American there, not sure how true that is.

No SVB is not playing. He played last year and finished in top 10 and won around $2K and likely not enough to cover his expenses so it is not a good deal for him. Plus this year they cut down prizemoney by a lot- Champion gets less than $20K compared to almost $30K last year. Well technically Rodney is not the only American cos John Morra is there but if you mean USA then Rodney is only one. :grin:

 

[JumpinJoe]

Appleton is a tourney sucker.

How's he fare in anything longer then 13 against anyone. ANYTHING.
Oh wait he's got bad vision can never see the finish line.

 

[JumpinJoe]

In terms of all around (10 ball, 1 pocket, etc), don't most people think Alex P is the best?

All billiard games included, yes he's by far the best. And he dedicates 50% of his time to poker. There's very few that can even compete with him when playing banks, Onepocket, rotation, 3 cushion, snooker, he's a great billiard player. Not a great 9 ball player only, like most