The world’s most successful tournament competitors – like me, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth, and countless others – like to play small ball poker. It’s a style that we use to steadily increase our stacks in no limit hold’em tournaments without having to assume significant risk.
Something that needs to be better is making sure our athletes have the right insurance claims and are protected when we’re going into major tournaments and representing our countries.
I mean what’s the point of them becoming professional snooker players? If there’s not much money in the game, if there’s no guarantee of future tournaments, if no one knows what’s going on.
Well, you know, I’ve bonded with a lot of people over the years, you know. We played the same tournaments year after year and we go back to the same place and many times the seats have been full and that has meant the world to me for sure.
It is for me to realise my value and put in the effort to win big tournaments.
I had a really great career. I have won over 300 matches, won a bunch of tournaments, almost won a bunch of big tournaments, beaten a lot of good players and done more things than I ever could have imagined.
I don’t think I could ever say that I will never play again, because even if I felt I could never play in top-class tournaments again because I don’t have time for the preparation, after a while you might one day think: ‘maybe, maybe, maybe… why not?’
A lot of people knew at the national tournaments that I was a big puncher. We were known as ‘Samson,’ the boy with the long hair.
I was on a competitive ‘Halo’ team, and we would enter tournaments for money.
In general, I enjoy watching different sport tournaments and competitions.
You can’t win tournaments just with youngsters. In important matches we need experience.
I think the first step is definitely Top 5. From there, you can sort of see the end, and that’s the top. In order to do that, you need to win Slams and big tournaments. That’s just proven. There is no other way.
Yeah, there are good facilities in Japan and good coaches, but the toughest thing is you need to play a lot of tournaments in Europe or U.S., because they have more good players.
Grand Slams are four tournaments a year, so of course those are the big ones, those are the ones that people and us players want to do our best at. It’s just high level quality of tennis.
At the very beginning of my career, when I opened my business in Italy, I was also a ranked tennis player. I had won many tournaments. To be an athlete was my first choice. Second choice: designer. However! There was more money in being a designer at that time.
Everyone dreams of playing March Madness and playing in those tournaments, big-time games.
There’s something about being at the tournaments that you don’t really get on TV, although golf is a great sport to watch on television.
I’d rather be able to play great tennis at a slam than make eight finals of little tournaments and then lose first round of a slam. That doesn’t sound too good.
You could have all the tools in the world, but if you really don’t want to be there, or if there’s something that’s off course that’s playing on your mind… the game of golf is so mental, and if you don’t have everything in the right order, it’s very difficult to win golf tournaments.
I think the tournament is maybe the most fair way to fight for a title because, basically, it’s a ranking system. It’s an elimination system, so you gotta go through the tournaments to face the champion.
I’ve had it with the USGA and the way they run their tournaments. The USGA loves to embarrass guys who play in their tournaments.
Our job as players is to show up to tournaments, put on a show for The R&A and for the Tour and to handle our business.
I was always really smart in school. My whole family is smart. We have ‘Jeopardy’ challenges and have Scrabble tournaments.
I got into poker in the early 2000s. In snooker tournaments, you are always looking for things to pass the time between matches, so we’d play together, or I would play online.
I’ve played for 15 years and played in five major tournaments. I know what it gives me in terms of the joy, in terms of the love for the game. But I’m done with it.
You cannot be on leaderboards at big tournaments all the time and have things go your way all the time.
I have to fit holidays around tournaments, particularly the grand slams, in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.
It’s really great, winning some tournaments and leading the American group. It gives me a boost and a ton of confidence.
Every win that I’ve been going through, it’s been securing anyone’s doubts or even my own doubts about whether I belong with these guys, playing these high-level tournaments.
When I start winning big tournaments I don’t think I’ll just win tournaments, I think I’ll blow them away.
I feel like when I play, I play tough. That’s the New York in me. That’s the street tournaments.
When your friends win tournaments it is good for you in a way because it does fire you up. You see what it means to them and know you would like to enjoy the same thing.
My first season at Liverpool had good moments but also bad ones. We played three tournaments and we played two finals, and that was good.
We’d like to encourage more regional and national tournaments for our paralympians so they can regularly compete and hone their skills.
I used to be jack the lad, I was out a lot, I was mainly waking up with hangovers at tournaments rather than preparing.
There doesn’t need to be hatred after a fight, because it’s all said and done. I’m cool with a lot of my opponents in the UFC. There’s people I’ve fought who were my friends in kickboxing tournaments and after we were still cool.
There was a time when my parents had to sell off a plot of land so that I can buy a rifle for competitive tournaments. After that we stayed in a rented house for the next 15 years.
I don’t cover golf tournaments anymore – I preside over them.
To play in the men’s tournaments I have to keep getting stronger and get more distance.
Now I want to push on, I don’t want to be remembered for just winning one world title, I want to go on and win as many big tournaments as possible.
One of the thrills of playing at the top tennis centres of the world is to see the Indian flag go up whenever I’m participating in these events. That’s enough motivation for any Indian who has the opportunity to perform at these tournaments.
With tournaments such as the Women’s Big Bash and the Kia Super League, women are now well practised in the art of big strokeplay.
Tournaments are won by aggressively going after smaller pots with a range of starting hands. The trick is learning how to do that without becoming reckless.
I was always in the tennis business-from 1968. I was in tournaments and also on World Team Tennis teams as well.
Some tournaments maybe are important for others, while some are important for me.
I think when you’ve played at the level that I’ve played, anything outside the top 10 in certain aspects is just a number, unless you’re obviously trying to get into tournaments and stuff.
I just remember I used to go to each tournament to make a couple bucks. I did as a living thing; I got paid to do martial arts, so I’d go to these jiu-jitsu tournaments and make, like, $1000 every time I won the tournament.
If you’re not in the top three or four, you have to play a lot of tournaments.
I’ve been anchoring corporate events, award shows and cricket tournaments for so many years now that they have become an integral part of my life.
Sparks is a sporting charity that puts on golf tournaments for sick children, and my animal charities include Oldham Cats and Feline Care, a big cat charity close to me in Norfolk. I’m also a Freemason and the money they raise for charity is phenomenal.
If money titles meant anything, I’d play more tournaments. The only thing that means a lot to me is winning. If I have more wins than anybody else and win more majors than anybody else in the same year, then it’s been a good year.
People play games seriously. People host tournaments. People watch other people play and listen to broadcasters talking about it. The kind of entire ecosystem we see around other sports and forms of entertainment has formed around games as well.
Sometimes we complain about being on the road all the time, from tournaments to exhibitions and sponsors’ appearances, but really it’s a doddle.
I want to win as many tournaments as I can.
All the tournaments I enter I want to win, but especially in one of the biggest arenas we play in.
What tournaments want to do, typically, is support charities in their community that need the money and charities that are impactful to their community. The better the job the tournament does for the charities, the better they are able to sell the tournament and raise money for the charity.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, I took success for granted, winning four or five tournaments a year. I just expected to win them.
It was a tough year for me, ’89, losing two Slam finals and losing another five finals. It wasn’t until I won the Masters, or what’s now called the ATP Finals, that things changed again. Suddenly I won seven tournaments in 1990 and became No. 1.
Darts is a proper job now. There are a lot of people earning some very good money playing this game and we have to thank the PDC and all the sponsors of our tournaments for backing us.
