Why is it so hard for top flight U.S pros to get into action?

G

gxman

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So it take months for Bergman to set up a match that ends in a no-match. Then Berg plays essentially a race to 100(best of 3 race to 30) 8ball match on a BARBOX vs Corey.

I will give it every time I step into my pool hall, there's a few guys asking to play for $10 a game.


Here DD practically just step off the plane in the Philliplines and is already in action on live stream. https://www.facebook.com/RoysBasement/videos/523261828197022/
 
Because the majority of them are all primadonnas nowadays.
I made a post on Facebook regarding the failed Shaw match; "Players of yesteryear give today's pros the wild 8. Bunch of primadonna shit. Players used to show up with gamble and bet the sky." That quote was promptly "liked" by Johnny Archer with a reply, "I agree 100%!!"
 
I think it's because in the US pool has transitioned into primarily a tournament sport. In the Philippines, it's still primarily a gambling sport, as it used to be in the US.
 
FeelDaShot said:
I think it's because in the US pool has transitioned into primarily a tournament sport. In the Philippines, it's still primarily a gambling sport, as it used to be in the US.
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I'll play anyone any game even for $10.
I may be old but I have gamble.
Come to Denver if you want my action.

And if you give up a little weight we can kick it up to $12.00.
 
Is it really surprising that there aren't dozens of matches played for tens of thousands of dollars that players don't have?
 
I think a lot of them are in action but you just don't hear about it and it is not streamed. Most people don't care unless it is a race to 100 for 10k. Why would they post playing $200 sets on a daily basis or whatever?
 
Dead money

It's about the lack of dead money. Dead money drives the pool economy.

In the late 60s and 70s people could run the roads and win hundreds a day in bars playing average joes for $10/game and hustle up bankrolls of thousands of dollars in a few weeks. There was so much dead money for a top player it practically grew on trees. Then they'd come into a big city and be totally comfortable matching up with better players for fortune and fame because they knew if they went broke they could just start over. They'd be bankrolled up again in a few weeks or months.

Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time. Walk into a pool hall, and you'll get handicapped $10 a rack one pocket action or 9 ball for the table time.

Without the river of dead money guys like Louis Roberts wouldn't have had the gamble they did. And if you were to reinstate that money river today, the players would be throwing around hundreds like confetti just like in the old days of pool.

The same thing happened with poker and happens with all games. The dead money attracts the sharks, the game gets tougher and tougher until the dead money goes away, then you're left with a bunch of guys that play at a higher level than ever before, fighting over less than they ever did before.

It has nothing to do with the talent or heart of today's pool players.
 
Tin Man said:
It's about the lack of dead money. Dead money drives the pool economy.

In the late 60s and 70s people could run the roads and win hundreds a day in bars playing average joes for $10/game and hustle up bankrolls of thousands of dollars in a few weeks. There was so much dead money for a top player it practically grew on trees. Then they'd come into a big city and be totally comfortable matching up with better players for fortune and fame because they knew if they went broke they could just start over. They'd be bankrolled up again in a few weeks or months.

Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time. Walk into a pool hall, and you'll get handicapped $10 a rack one pocket action or 9 ball for the table time.

Without the river of dead money guys like Louis Roberts wouldn't have had the gamble they did. And if you were to reinstate that money river today, the players would be throwing around hundreds like confetti just like in the old days of pool.

The same thing happened with poker and happens with all games. The dead money attracts the sharks, the game gets tougher and tougher until the dead money goes away, then you're left with a bunch of guys that play at a higher level than ever before, fighting over less than they ever did before.

It has nothing to do with the talent or heart of today's pool players.
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This is a very plausible explanation. I'll give you a great example that happened last night. Me and three buddies paired up after our league match and played a friendly race to 3 scotch doubles for $ 20 bucks a person. We played a few races, swapping money back and forth, and were generally cutting up and having a great time.

This guy from the bar comes over and says him and his friend play pretty sporty and could they have winner....When I told him what we were playing for and he quickly informed us that htey had no cash, but he would be glad to play us for beers... My partner reminded him that there was an dATM at the front of the bar...to no avail...
 
Tin Man said:
It's about the lack of dead money. Dead money drives the pool economy.

In the late 60s and 70s people could run the roads and win hundreds a day in bars playing average joes for $10/game and hustle up bankrolls of thousands of dollars in a few weeks. There was so much dead money for a top player it practically grew on trees. Then they'd come into a big city and be totally comfortable matching up with better players for fortune and fame because they knew if they went broke they could just start over. They'd be bankrolled up again in a few weeks or months.

Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time. Walk into a pool hall, and you'll get handicapped $10 a rack one pocket action or 9 ball for the table time.

Without the river of dead money guys like Louis Roberts wouldn't have had the gamble they did. And if you were to reinstate that money river today, the players would be throwing around hundreds like confetti just like in the old days of pool.

The same thing happened with poker and happens with all games. The dead money attracts the sharks, the game gets tougher and tougher until the dead money goes away, then you're left with a bunch of guys that play at a higher level than ever before, fighting over less than they ever did before.

It has nothing to do with the talent or heart of today's pool players.
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This is a great post. Building on it, are two other factors I can think of. 1)it’s expensive as hell nowadays to go try get into action. Travel expenses take so much of the gravy. 2) all that illicit money that gets gambled, that used to filter down and through the pool player economy isn’t in the poolrooms anymore. It was in the poker rooms for some years, idk where it goes now.
 
sad

Where I play you can get $100-$500 a game one pocket every night of the week...seen a guy lose 32k and another lose 50k in the last month or so and another just won 10k 3 nights ago...but they werent top pros...I think when you get to a certain speed its hard to get everything straightened out and make games and other people putting money up and making sure people show up....its just hard
 
Tin Man said:
Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time.
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And if you do happen to win a few dollars chances are they'll want to stab you with a broken beer bottle over it. I gave up playing pool in bars a long time ago.
 
Tin Man said:
It's about the lack of dead money. Dead money drives the pool economy.
In the late 60s and 70s people could run the roads and win hundreds a day in bars playing average joes for $10/game and hustle up bankrolls of thousands of dollars in a few weeks. There was so much dead money for a top player it practically grew on trees. Then they'd come into a big city and be totally comfortable matching up with better players for fortune and fame because they knew if they went broke they could just start over. They'd be bankrolled up again in a few weeks or months.
Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time. Walk into a pool hall, and you'll get handicapped $10 a rack one pocket action or 9 ball for the table time.
Without the river of dead money guys like Louis Roberts wouldn't have had the gamble they did. And if you were to reinstate that money river today, the players would be throwing around hundreds like confetti just like in the old days of pool.
The same thing happened with poker and happens with all games. The dead money attracts the sharks, the game gets tougher and tougher until the dead money goes away, then you're left with a bunch of guys that play at a higher level than ever before, fighting over less than they ever did before.
It has nothing to do with the talent or heart of today's pool players.
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I don't know what 'dead money' is.
But I know that most players don't want to lose what they've got if they know they don't play well enough to take on a challenge from a stranger.
What's wrong with not wanting to make a bad bet?
Will YOU make a bad bet, just to show "how much gamble" you've got?
If you will, WHY???? Nobody but other pool gamblers gives a flip about "how much gamble" you've got.
I personally admire someone who can prove about how much they WON...not how much they LOST or threw away.
Sleeping in the park doesn't seem like much of a way to live to me.
I like a nice home in a civilized neighborhood, yard, boat, 2 cars, and some money in the bank.....I could care less about "having or showing a lot of gamble" to a den of pool players. I never cared too much for an old timer pool player named Don Willis, but gotta' give him credit, he didn't make many bad bets either,
*Proud and happy to be what most pool rooms call a NIT*<===ME
 
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Buster8001 said:
Because the majority of them are all primadonnas nowadays.
I made a post on Facebook regarding the failed Shaw match; "Players of yesteryear give today's pros the wild 8. Bunch of primadonna shit. Players used to show up with gamble and bet the sky." That quote was promptly "liked" by Johnny Archer with a reply, "I agree 100%!!"
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Gas also cost $1.00 a gallon and one could get a decent hotel room for $40.00. Both of which are critical if one is to go gunslinging against other good players.

There is less gambling pure and simply because both inflation and exporting jobs overseas has created a situation where there is a lot less disposable income floating around in the pool community. It's one thing to fire a barrel or two at a tough game when you know you can grind out a bunch of $10.00/$20.00 9 ball/8 ball games to get a little stake back together, but those small games no longer exist in most pool halls and bars any more.

It's REAL easy to badmouth the general lack of action amongst the pros these days, but these are dudes who, for the most part, have no marketable skills outside of the game, so they rely on stakehorses to get in action, and these days, if you are not winning a sizeable amount of those staked matches, your stakehorse goes away.

And since virtually every decent bit of action is staked on both sides these days, someone has to lose, right? And so you get the exact situation we have these days... One guy at the top of the heap can get staked in any game he likes, and everyone else running arround trying to find an up and comer who's not quite a champion yet, and whose backer belives in him enough to lose a few thou. This is not a recipe for a bunch of action...
 
Tin Man said:
It's about the lack of dead money. Dead money drives the pool economy.



In the late 60s and 70s people could run the roads and win hundreds a day in bars playing average joes for $10/game and hustle up bankrolls of thousands of dollars in a few weeks. There was so much dead money for a top player it practically grew on trees. Then they'd come into a big city and be totally comfortable matching up with better players for fortune and fame because they knew if they went broke they could just start over. They'd be bankrolled up again in a few weeks or months.



Today there is no dead money. Walk into a bar and try to get $10 a rack action. You'll have a hard time finding a bar with a pool table. If they have one they'll either refuse to play or play for a beer, or they'll be a league that runs out of there with a league player that will play you for the time. Walk into a pool hall, and you'll get handicapped $10 a rack one pocket action or 9 ball for the table time.



Without the river of dead money guys like Louis Roberts wouldn't have had the gamble they did. And if you were to reinstate that money river today, the players would be throwing around hundreds like confetti just like in the old days of pool.



The same thing happened with poker and happens with all games. The dead money attracts the sharks, the game gets tougher and tougher until the dead money goes away, then you're left with a bunch of guys that play at a higher level than ever before, fighting over less than they ever did before.



It has nothing to do with the talent or heart of today's pool players.
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This is a really insightful post. I would add the internet and YouTube make it hard to be an unknown in most areas.


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It's very simple:

If you can play at even an "A" speed, go to local rooms/bars and TRY to drum up some action without giving up nuts.

After doing that, well, now just imagine how hard it would be if your name was Shane Van boening etc...etc...etc... pro.

Money is tighter than the pockets.
 
Low500 said:
I don't know what 'dead money' is.
But I know that most players don't want to lose what they've got if they know they don't play well enough to take on a challenge from a stranger.
What's wrong with not wanting to make a bad bet?
Will YOU make a bad bet, just to show "how much gamble" you've got?
If you will, WHY???? Nobody but other pool gamblers gives a flip about "how much gamble" you've got.
I personally admire someone who can prove about how much they WON...not how much they LOST or threw away.
Sleeping in the park doesn't seem like much of a way to live to me.
I like a nice home in a civilized neighborhood, yard, boat, 2 cars, and some money in the bank.....I could care less about "having or showing a lot of gamble" to a den of pool players. I never cared too much for an old timer pool player named Don Willis, but gotta' give him credit, he didn't make many bad bets either,
*Proud and happy to be what most pool rooms call a NIT*<===ME
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Rowell, is that you?
 
No money and very few backers anymore.

The best thing is more action like Corey vs Bergman where the room,abd streamer pay them to appear and if they win their backers pay them as well.

The days of pros betting their own went with Rodney Morris and Jose Parica.

Maybe Donny Mills bets his own...though people with money tend to be the smartest with it...hustlubg pool is a bad incestment.
 
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