US Open - Where are the Pinoys?

iba7467

iba7467

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Not much being said but only a couple Philipinos are playing.

Some factors that may play a part:
1. Barry's previous payment issues
2. Lowered added money this year (partially done to address number 1)
3. High entry fee and deep payouts making odds on money low except very high finishes
4. Cost of travel from Phillipines - especially when considering multiple players.


Factor everything together and you lose some of the greatest players on the planet. I hate to say it, but this will be one of the weakest Opens ever. You cannot dispute this. I will list the number of players missing from the top 12 of recent year's finishes.

2010 - 3 of 12 missing
2009 - 1 of 12 missing
2008 - 3 of 12 missing (including second place finisher)
2007 - 5 of 12 missing (including second place finisher)
2006 - 6 of 12 missing (including second place finisher)
 
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I see Antonio Lining and some others from the Phillipines are attending.

Is this a function of sponsorship/or a particular stable funding travel arrangements?

How does this work? Aren't there several different 'stables' that help support
and subsidize different players?
 
i was under the impression that there are 2 stable of players being backed in the Phillippines. I know 1 of them are backed by bugsy promotions and if 1 group goes to a tournament the other won't go......atleast that is the rumor i heard a couple of years ago..............mike
 
I'm not sure, but i'd look into the reason for this being other, more lucrative (when considering expenses) tournaments may just simply be much closer to them now.
 
I have very mixed feelings here.

Let me preface my remarks of by noting that Shane Van Boening is on the short list of the world's greatest players, perhaps along with Souquet, Orcullo, Immonen, Appleton and Pagualyan. It seems these days that one of these six is found in the winner's circle of every prestigious event having a deep international field. Of these six, five are in the US Open field, so the winner of the event won't have to apologize to anybody.

*******************************************************

In my opinion, Shane Van Boening's maginificent play shouldn't be allowed to obscure a growing truth about the performance of male American pro pool players as a group.

The truth is that no other American is having too much success in overseas events having deep, elite fields. In fact, over the past couple of years, many of America's most elite players have thrown in the towel and stopped attending these events. On the AZB forum, I've expressed concern over this trend on more than one occasion. I feel that this growing trend has, and will continue to, make Americans less competitive on pool's biggest stages. Without frequently competing against the cream of pool's crop, a player cannot, in my view, expect to keep up with them over the long haul.

Of course, I am thankful that we still have events like the Derby City Classic, the pro events at the Riviera in Vegas, the US Open, and a few other events in which America's best can try their luck against many of Europe and Asia's best. Of course, even on American soil, only Van Boening and Rodney Morris are taking down titles in events having elite, international fields.

The only events on American soil contested in the last twelve months that had significant Asian and European representation relative to field size were, in my view, these:

US Open 9-ball won by Darren Appleton
Derby City Banks won by Alex Pagulayan
Derby City One Pocket won by Shane Van Boening
Derby City 9-ball won by Dennis Orcullo
Derby City 10-ball won by Rodney Morris
Derby City Straight Pool won by Darren Appleton
Super Billiards Expo 10-ball won by Ralf Souquet
US Open One Pocket won by Efren Reyes
US Open 10-ball won by Shane Van Boening
Straight Pool Championshp won by Thorsten Hohmann
Turning Stone XVII won by Rodney Morris

As many of America's elite have stopped participating in overseas events, the importance of having overseas stars attend events on American soil has added importance.

For this reason, I am genuinely concerned about the absence so many stars of international pool in the 2011 US Open field. If this is a sign of things to come and the stars of Europe and Asia gradually stop travelling to events on American soil, I fear the standard of play will drop in American professional pool, for only those that consistently compete against the very best can expect to be the best.
 
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Don't know the answer, so I'm not trying to be smart here, but have a large number of Asian players ever showed up for the American events? The Chinese players rarely if ever come here, and while we have had some Phillipino players come, we probably only get a small portion of that talent pool. How many of the top 25 Phillippino players come to the US Open in any given year? Ten maybe? It is my opinion that they don't come here for the same reason Americans have quit going overseas- expenses compared to payouts. If you have to finish in the top 10 just to meet expenses, it's probably not worth going.
 
Mole Eye said:
Don't know the answer, so I'm not trying to be smart here, but have a large number of Asian players ever showed up for the American events? The Chinese players rarely if ever come here, and while we have had some Phillipino players come, we probably only get a small portion of that talent pool. How many of the top 25 Phillippino players come to the US Open in any given year? Ten maybe? It is my opinion that they don't come here for the same reason Americans have quit going overseas- expenses compared to payouts. If you have to finish in the top 10 just to meet expenses, it's probably not worth going.
Click to expand...

Let's preface this by noting that the field has yet to be finalized.

To stay on topic here, American-based Filipinos like Jose Parica should not be counted here.

The following Philippines-based superstars of pool all made the trip in 2008, and four of them finished 9th or better.

Ronnie Alcano
Warren Kiamco
Lee Vann Corteza
Francisco Bustamante
Ramil Gallego
Rodolfo Luat
Efren Reyes

By comparison, this year, Warren Kiamco and Lee Vann Corteza are, arguably, the only big name Filipinos coming over. Possibly Anotnio Lining, too. The absence of Alcano, Orcullo, Gomez and Bustamante, perhaps the four biggest stars among those who are Philippines-based, is very noteworthy.
 
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Last I saw the list, I counted 9 and two of those are from NYC and just good shortstops.
 
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