nicksaint26 said:

Best match I’ve seen live was when Filler beat Wu 13-10 in the 2019 US Open at Mandalay Bay in Vegas. High level play and some drama at the end when Wu fouls due to his bridge hand slipping.

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SSDiver2112 said:

My latest uses a Prather curly maple forearm. 6 long/short points, Olive wood and Rosewood. Black mother of pearl inlays, imitation ivory collar and butt plate, with maple and Kielwood shafts.

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VarmintKong said:

Sometimes it’s good to have a guy you love to hate. Respect the game, but rubs you the wrong way. Capito fills that role.

Something about when he gets down on the shot.

I remember when the Bears D was lining up presnap. The camera would always zoom in on Mike Singletary’s eyes. A picture of extra intense focus.

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You can tell this dude has bad intentions.

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jbart65 said:

No, it wasn’t. I am doubtful there is such a thing. There’s been too many great pool matches over time. Sometimes in just one tournament.

I do think it’s on the shortlist for greatest matches ever, however. How so? I’ll list some criteria.


1) Importance of the event. It’s the U.S. Open. The biggest event in pool, with the biggest history, even bigger than the World Pool Championship.

2) Quality of the players. FSR is arguably HOF material. We don’t know what Capito will do with the rest of his career, but he’s clearly a top player now. This was not Gorst-Filler or Earl-Efren, though, and that has to be taken into account.

3) Quality of play. Both FSR and Capito played at a high level. Not the highest I’ve ever seen but high.

4) Clutch performances - and big mistakes. Capito came from behind to go up 10-8 and 12-10, only for FSR to win the last three racks in dramatic fashion. Robbie’s failed carom with the 6 turned out to be a decisive moment that won’t be forgotten.

5) High drama. Big and boisterous crowd. First time the event is on ESPN. Hill-hill final. Can’t get any better than that.

My pool watching career in real time is relatively at young six years. I’ve seen a lot of great matches in that time. Others would include:

• Biado beating Gorst 15-13 in the 2025 WPC.
• Fedor Gorst beating Eklent Kaci 15-14 in the 2024 WPC.
• Fedor Gorst beating Joshua Filler 13-12 in the 2024 World Pool Masters final.
• Jayson Shaw beating Albin Ouschan 13-12 in the 2024 Hanoi Open.
• David Alcaide beating Anton Raga in the 2023 European Open.
• Dang Jin Hu beating Marc Bijsterbosch 13–12 in the 2023 Spanish Open.

Of course, one has to mention Reyes’ 1995 victory over Earl Strickland, 13-12, in the Sands Regency 9 ball open, a big event in its day. The famous Z-shot took place in the last rack.


I’m sure there’s plenty of others that other longtime fans can remember. List them here and what made them special, if you’d like.

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Nick B said:

Youtube is your friend. Go watch some top flight snooker and then check out the best Euro's vs say even SVB or Buddy. Alignment, Body Stance, Feet Placement and proper piston stoke. Again Buddy was not bad. In fact probably of the best of that era. Just not picture perfect.

I have a ton of respect for Buddy's game. Big fan.

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Rocket354 said:

I started after that, learned by trial and error, and wasted literal decades of my life working 10X as hard for half the results.

The fundamentally sound players of today would trounce the top players of the 80s given a time machine. Earl, Sigel, Hall could hang, but pretty much all the others would get steamrolled by even the 50th best player today.

Thorpe is exactly what most top players of then would look like if magically transported to today's game. A talented player, fighting an uphill battle against poor mechanics, and ultimately just an also-ran.

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Lowell said:

Is he really that much better than Fedor Gorst, KPC, SVB, FSR of late, etc. though? I still think he's the best but the gap between him and the other top tier players is not enormous by any means IMO.

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skogstokig said:

asthma medicine sounds probable?

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Cornerman said:

Yes, a few times.

Brunswick doubles championship in the 80’s. No surprise, Sigel won with Ewa (Mataya) Laurance over Loreejon and Hopkins.

PBT Championship - Earl crushed Efren in the finals. Lots of empty air time, so fortunately they had Mike Massey doing trick shots. Earl had beaten George Breedlove in the west side finals earlier.

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JAM said:

Interestingly, a friend of Keith's on-site said Joe had bodyguards with him.

Here's the Joe Rogan interview with Natalie Pike and FSR, right after FSR beat Filler. The question Natalie asked at the end made me cringe a little I'm not sure if she was trying to be nice or if she really did not know much about who Joe Rogan was. I like her, though. She's a nice addition to the WNT team.

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WNT NATALIE: Joe, I know you're a huge, huge supporter of 9-ball, a big, big supporter of the sport as well. And I heard in your commentary. You were talking—you said it is one of the most underrated sports in North America. For anybody to watch that, how could they not be obsessed with this sport?

JOE ROGAN: I think the real problem with pool is you really only appreciate it if you play it. I think that's the problem. And then when you see guys who play as good as him, it almost looks easy. So it's good to have a game like this where there are some mistakes and you get a few "ooh," a few scratches and a few tense moments and a few bad safeties. And it's—you know, it is a beautiful game. It's an unforgiving game. It's a precise game. And when you watch it played beautifully, like that runout he you just did when you know it's on the line for the—you know, to get to 10 like that, it was just fantastic.

WNT NATALIE: Joe, are you sticking around? What's your plans?

JOE ROGAN: I'm here for two days.

WNT NATALIE: Amazing. Well, thank you. I hope we can get you back on the comms table because—

JOE ROGAN: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. It was fun.

WNT NATALIE: You could have a future in 9-ball commentary.

JOE ROGAN: I'm pretty busy, but every now and again, I would love to come by.

WNT NATALIE: Well, thank you. We really enjoyed your commentary.

JOE ROGAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

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