[Tony_Iommi]

Back to the initial topic. It's interesting how European TT is being perceived here in the States. There's the overall assumption, that in Europe you can find perfect training conditions anywhere. Which is, by the way, not a suprise, considering the situation here. The clubs' facilities by far do not meet any average European standard. So far, I didn't come across with any showers, for instance. Often the clubs are located in rather run down buildings.

Anyway, there is this underlying assumption that players from Europe are by default great players. Our club hosts a monthly tournament which mainly gathers players from the Tri-State area, but every once in a while we have guests signing up from Germany. I always get contacted by Larry (who runs and facilitates the tournaments), asking me for advice as to how he should rate those players. Well, given my rating (around 2150 which translates to Landes-Verbandsliga in Germany), I estimated a rating for our guests (Oberliga) of 2300. So the guys showed up for the tournament and came across a little arrogant, to say the least. Anway, they got ripped and killed by almost everybody and were never ever seen since. My mates at the club were fairly suprised, obviously. I think you can draw all different kinds of conclusions from that. Oberliga isn't Oberliga all the same across Germany. And secondly, don't you ever underestimate the US boys! They will never upset the world's elite players, but on an advanced level up till Regionalliga (a few exeptions, e.g., David Zhuang can play 2. Liga, no doubt about that), they do keep up doubtlessly.

Cheers

Tony