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Re: An American perspective on snooker

Postby acesinc

Article is well written and nearly completely true. Besides Chris Bruner mentioned in the article (who is not actually a snooker player, but a very good and competitive pool player; I believe he mentioned to me that he did study to learn the game but this tournament was only the third time he had played on an actual snooker table), I was the only other natural born American in the tournament. The only incorrect statement of fact was about the "top 16"....as there were so few participants, the group stage was longer format, the top four were given a walkover so only the top 12 advanced. I know; I was number 13, a single frame behind number 12. I'm the guy chalking toward the right of the picture. Chris is in the bright blue shirt in the back. There are another handful of natural born Americans that sometimes play the US Nationals tournament, but I think for the most part, they live out in California or at least in the western states, so they don't invest to make the trip out to New York. As pointed out in the article, one's "investment" is a sure loss, even if you win the tournament prize money because just traveling to and living in New York for about a week will cost a couple thousand dollars. Historically, the tournament has mostly been held at a long established, China town venue in Los Angeles, the largest snooker venue in the US as far as I know with 12 tables. So a few more natural born citizens show up at those events. Every second or third year, the tournament is held at one of several venues in New York, and now a reasonably sized club has opened in Houston that may hold the tournament on occasion if the club can manage to survive.

Re: An American perspective on snooker

Postby Dan-cat

MEGA LOLZ Barry 'Do they have the ability to appreciate something that takes time and is cultured?'

- not exactly the way to win any friends. My friends who live in Brooklyn (where this event took place) have more culture than Barry will ever have. (Let it be noted that I love Barry, despite gaffs like this, he's doing an ace job.)

Also if we had a tournament in the US it could be short from - best of 9 semis over in one session. Not over 3 days. Weird for Barry to be so negative, I reckon it could work.

Thanks for the article SF, great read.
Last edited by Dan-cat on 10 Dec 2014, edited 1 time in total.

Re: An American perspective on snooker

Postby AC or LT?

That Hearn quote is beyond ironic

An American audience would never understand why a semi-final takes three days,

Not even the world championship semis take three days each, and most of the ones that took a full day have been removed from the calendar since you arrived Barry.

Re: An American perspective on snooker

Postby acesinc

Again, I think this is a clash of culture as stated in another thread. Both sides speak the same language but have no idea what the other side is saying. Barry is interested in the entertainment aspect of snooker and the dollars to be brought in from a potential American market. He is right. The game will never work as a spectator sport here...Americans play American games for entertainment. If the world does something that we kind of like, like say, rugby or cricket, we turn them into Football (American, of course) and Baseball, and we deny any relationship in the process. So Barry is correct that there is no American market for snooker but he has the wrong reason.

Ajeya, on the other hand (a really nice guy by the way), is looking for the sport to be embedded in American society as a pastime for the common man, not so much the spectator sport aspect of it. He wants for Snooker to become common recreation rather than something of which no one has ever even heard, as it is now. Unfortunately, I don't think Ajeya is correct on this, though I honestly hope that I am wrong. People want to feel good about themselves and the way they play whatever game they choose to play. Proper snooker is humbling and most people can't deal with that. Ajeya makes a comparison to golf and its difficulty level. Big milestones in golf are breaking 100, or breaking 90, or breaking 80 just like in Snooker, one strives for the half-century and century. But in golf, the toe wedge and the "mulligan" are commonly used to assist reaching those milestones and people justify it in their minds because "I didn't get a chance to warm up" or "the ball rolled into a pile of goose turd" or whatever reason they want so they can still feel good about their game. And another attraction of golf is simply being out in the open fresh air. This is where Barry is correct. Snooker is a difficult and sophisticated game when played correctly and most people just want to have a good time.

American culture is extremely resistant to adopt any sort of "world standard" for anything unless we adapt it probably simply for the sake of adaptation and calling it our own. Look at the metric system....they have been talking about implementing it since before I was born but ask someone on the street what a "gram" is and the answer will be "some sort of cracker".