PRO Week 2 Predictions

I have an honors banquet tonight for school and I'm busy working toward graduation, so these predictions are going to be extremely brief.

SP is a well-rounded team while SS relies totally 100% on Pita. Well, except for last week, but whatever. SP is just too good to lose to this team. SP wins 5-2

Freedom is better than Deadstrokes, make no mistake about it. Still, Luis Baretto very well might have beaten SP single-handedly last week had he not timed out. I think he'll actually get the job done this week, and Freedom will be riding high at 0-2. DS wins 5-4.

Break & Run depends solely on Jordan. Unfortunately, Jordan is a very good player, not a great player. I just don't see him beating New Era's team if they actually bother to show up. I think they will, and I think they'll win. NE wins 5-3.

For the Win is way too powerful for PHP. After all, when you have Ant playing on two or three ids, how can you lose? Nah, I kid, kind of. Either way, FTW is going to win this one easily. For the Wins 5-2.

PRO Week 1 Predictions

Straight Shots vs Freedom -- Oh look! Freedom gets to play the opening match of the season. How did that happen? Not only that, but they are playing a team they are almost guaranteed to beat. Wow, the luck of the draw. Anyway, Pita isn't going to be good enough to beat Freedom, which simply has too many good players. 5-2 Freedom wins.

Sexy Poolerz vs Dead Strokes -- This match should be fairly interesting, just because Luis Baretto plays for Dead Strokes. There really isn't anyone on SP, or Yahoo! Pool, for that matter, that you would expect to beat Luis, but SP have plenty of people who could do it given the chance. I think someone for SP will slay the dragon and help SP take off with a 1-0 record. 5-3 Sexy Poolerz win.

For the Win vs Break and Run -- If I had a match of the week, this would be it. Well, I guess that means I have a match of the week, awesome. This match is going to come down to Ant vs Jordan most likely, although Dante could go undefeated as well. You just can't predict against Ant and Dante here, or at least I can't. 5-3 For the Wins.

Pool Hall Pros vs New Era -- This match should be close too. I think New Era might actually bring a full squad since it is the first week and all, and any group they bring should be good enough to beat the Pool Hall Pros. Irfan keeps it close, but not close enough. 5-2 New Era wins.

PRO Season 14 Preview

Looking at the upcoming PRO season, its safe to say that we can actually expect it to be extremely competitive, which is quite surprising given the current state of Yahoo! Pool. With that said, it seems like a lot of teams are going to be depending on only one or two great players, and hope that a few mediocre players can back them up.

Atlantic Conference

Dead Strokes -- DS is probably the wild card in the Atlantic Conference. Almost every single person on the team is absolutely pathetic, which would usually make a team pathetic, but oh yeah, they have Luis Baretto. Luis is going to be their only hope to make the playoffs. Its not so much a question of whether or not Luis can play good enough to challenge every team, its more about whether or not he'll actually find time to attend enough matches. For whatever reason, I think he's going to be at quite a few matches, but I just don't think he can win enough games to get DS into the playoffs.

Key Player:

• Luis

Freedom -- Freedom is the second most stacked team in PRO this season behind FTW. Stacked might be a unfair word, though, because most of the players have been playing for Freedom for a long time now. They have plenty of quality players, and best of all they have different types of players. They have Andy, who can annoy anybody into just slamming the eight ball in to end a game, and they also have Scotty who can run tables with ease. The key for Freedom, like always, is going to be staying relatively serious and not relying too much on their big guns. After all, they do have some terrible players like Dan that they let play often.

Key Players:

• Scotty
• Andy
• Ben

Sexy Poolerz -- I play for SP, so obviously they have the best player in PRO on their team. Just kidding, but SP does have a lot of pretty good (not great) players. Most of the Sexy Poolerz players do seem to be more suited to running than snooking, however, which can become a problem if the runs aren't working out perfectly. Either way, I think SP have enough pretty good players that the team will be great. I also think whether Kerry or Brice are captaining, the team is going to show up with 5 solid players every week.

Key Players:

• Roy
• Matt
• Mike (I haven't seen him in a long time?)

Straight Shots -- I'm not going to spend much time talking about Straight Shots. The league has been dying ever since Laura removed herself from Head Admin and the only decent interleague player they have is Pita. Although most people would disagree, I think Pita relies on bangs fairly often, and I think it'll prevent him from carrying through many teams. 

Key Player:

• Pita

Pacific Conference

Break N Run -- BnR had a ridiculous roster the last time I played PRO (2 years ago). Their lineup doesn't look quite as strong now, and I think they'll have to rely on Jordy quite a bit. While I think Jordan is a good player, I don't think he is good enough to lead them to first place. A playoff spot? Probably.

Key Player:

• Jordan

For the Win -- For the Win is the league that everyone loves to hate. If the word stacked ever had a place with an Yahoo! Pool team, it was 8br, but, well, this league is close. They can keep recruiting, but it'll come down to Dante and Ant pretty much every match. 

Key Players:

• Ant
• Dante

New Era -- New Era has a lot of good players. They might even deserve the title of "stacked." It doesn't matter, though, because they are extremely good at not showing up to matches, and not bringing enough people when they actually do show up. They won't make playoffs, but not for lack of talent.

Key Players:

• Mike
• Jon

Pool Hall Pros -- If any league recruited as hardcore as For the Win, it was PHP. Unfortunately, their recruiting class was not nearly as good. Sure, they have some decent players, and they have a fairly thriving league so eligibility shouldn't be an issue, but I just think they are going to underperform. Oh, yeah, and they let Trio play for them. That alone makes them deserve to lose.

Key Players:

• Irfan

Atlantic Conference

1. Freedom
2. Sexy Poolerz
3. Dead Strokes Luis
4. Straight Shots Pita

Pacific Conference

1. For the Win
2. Break & Run
3. New Era
4. Pool Hall Pros