Why don't pool's best and brightest try to break into the snooker scene in the UK?

S

snarzberry

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These threads I've read about professional pool players struggling makes me wonder, if the money in pro pool is spread so thin, why don't the top players try to make a dent in the snooker world?

I've seen the 14.1 world championships being happy, rightly so, about a US$70,000 total prize fund. The 9 ball world champion can expect to take home about US$40,000.

The 2011 World Snooker Championships prize fund was just shy of US$2,000,000 with over $400,000 to the winner. There are also numerous other tournaments each year with total prize funds in the US$500,000 - $1,000,000 range.

I love pool. I love playing pool and I love watching the top players in action. They are so gifted with cue in hand it just makes me wonder why they don't just gravitate towards where the money is.

Snooker also provides massive t.v. audiences and sponsorship money (the Chinese market contributes heavily). I've read that Ding Junhui, China's top snooker player, is the 3rd most famous person in all of China and over 140 million people watched a recent world championship semi-final match he was involved in live. It was the second most watched live sporting event in all of China for the year to date.

I'm sure this has been brought up many times before but I'd really appreciate any insight that those in the know about the US pool scene in particular can offer. Is snooker just not even on their radar? It seems like too much money to pass up on.

It would take practice and dedication to make the transition between cue sports sure, but would you put it past the likes of the US's top pool players to be able to succeed in that discipline?
 
JoeyInCali said:
Because they have no chance.
Efren told me that when I asked him.
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Exactly. And Efren's is probably the best at snooker among pool players.
If he couldn't hack it, the rest certainly can't. Mizerak and Rempe tried a couple of times in the 80's to get through the qualifying rounds for the World Championship and didn't fare well...If I remember correctly they were eliminated at least 2 or 3 rounds before the main draw...and they lost to players who themselves had no chance of finishing well in the event.

The only pool player I know of who made a good try was Leonardo Andam, he actually made it to the finals of the World Amateur Snooker Championship several years ago and lost badly, something like 11-2, and bear in mind that The amateur event is nothing like the pro events as far as skill.
 
Also, snooker is really not much different than pool when it comes to payouts. Certainly the top 10-16 players in snooker are making a significant amount more than their pool counterparts. But, any player below that is struggling to get by, just like pool.

I had a friend go to England about 15 years ago and try it out. He was a past Canadian Snooker Champion and at the time, no U.S. player would have been able to beat him. End result, he sunk a tonne of his own money into financing it and never got off the lowest challenger circuits.

Reality is, unless you have committed to the game from a very young age. And also been included in the coaching programs, and put up against top competition that developing snooker players go through, your never going to compete.
 
Cashman said:
Also, snooker is really not much different than pool when it comes to payouts. Certainly the top 10-16 players in snooker are making a significant amount more than their pool counterparts. But, any player below that is struggling to get by, just like pool.

I had a friend go to England about 15 years ago and try it out. He was a past Canadian Snooker Champion and at the time, no U.S. player would have been able to beat him. End result, he sunk a tonne of his own money into financing it and never got off the lowest challenger circuits.

Reality is, unless you have committed to the game from a very young age. And also been included in the coaching programs, and put up against top competition that developing snooker players go through, your never going to compete.
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/agree. There are many largely unknown faceless travelers doing in tough in the snooker world also but there does seem to be a larger base of comfortable pro players. The fact that snooker went through it's boom period in the 80's when it was literally the number one sport in Britain, actually one of the main forms of mass entertainment, has resulted in all sorts of junior coaching academies and plenty of players dedicating their lives to snooker from a very young age indeed.

It's like golf and tiger woods. You're just not going to be able to compete with him if you take the game up at 17 or 18 years old, no matter how much natural talent you've got. The odds are exceedingly low anyway.
 
I dont have much experience with this but...

I would think there are two different skill sets that have been mastered here. In pool, esp. rotation games I think players naturally spin the ball more and in snooker they dont try to as much. I think the stroke, the stance, the strategy and mind set are all different. We are comparing apples to oranges here and wondering why a top pool player cant just transfer over and win. It seems to me they would have to relearn alot of what they have already done.
 
I would have to agree with the post above. I love playing all types of games and Snooker is one that, if you are not schooled it is a very hard game to master.

I am wondering if it is the same for a snooker player coming and playing 8 or 9 or 10-ball ?
 
Spantiznik said:
I would have to agree with the post above. I love playing all types of games and Snooker is one that, if you are not schooled it is a very hard game to master.

I am wondering if it is the same for a snooker player coming and playing 8 or 9 or 10-ball ?
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It seems its easier for a snooker player to play pool. No pool player has ever played anywhere near good enough to compete with the top snooker players but a few snooker players have done well or at least okay in pool. Tony Drago won the World Pool Masters a few years ago, Ronnie O'Sullivan finished second in that same a event twice, once a few years ago and once back in the 90's. Steve Davis has beaten several great pool champions.
 
The larger reason is that snooker is no where near as available in the USA. The majority of the tables that remain are 10' or less and most of them are sparsely spread about. It's very hard to develop snooker skills on a bar box. :embarrassed2:

The virtual disappearance of snooker in this country - on tables of any size is a trend that doesn't seem likely to reverse itself unless some major organization/donor can offer substantial assistance to those that would like to add snooker tables to either existing or new rooms.

For my own part, I would love to see snooker gain huge popularity here.
 
Mr441 said:
Exactly. And Efren's is probably the best at snooker among pool players.
If he couldn't hack it, the rest certainly can't. Mizerak and Rempe tried a couple of times in the 80's to get through the qualifying rounds for the World Championship and didn't fare well...If I remember correctly they were eliminated at least 2 or 3 rounds before the main draw...and they lost to players who themselves had no chance of finishing well in the event.

The only pool player I know of who made a good try was Leonardo Andam, he actually made it to the finals of the World Amateur Snooker Championship several years ago and lost badly, something like 11-2, and bear in mind that The amateur event is nothing like the pro events as far as skill.
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Many of the British players are pretty handy on the big table, there are few that Efren would have zero chance against.
 
I don't see why this should not be possible. But it would be quite a commitment with no guarantees of success. And the player would need to be bankrolled by someone with deep pockets.

For a pool player to compete in pro snooker, he would need to have to have a lot of natural talent - not necessarily a problem. But he would also need to completely re-engineer his technique / fundamentals. A player's pool stroke has evolved and been honed to play pool; it is not optimised for snooker.

A complete overhaul of the type needed is probably possible with the right guidance. But it would take time - maybe a year (I am guessing.) And in order to break existing habits and to form new ones, during much of this time it will probably be necessary to stop playing pool altogether.

The type of guidance necessary is probably best supplied by someone with a lot of experience working with pro's. And while I would not rule out Canada, this probably points to the UK. If a player has access to a 12' table and video equipment near home, it would not be necessary to go and live in the UK; but it would need fairly frequent visits.

So here you have the difficulty: A talented pool player with a proven track record of success in competition might be tempted for financial reasons try pro snooker. But it would be a major career change that could not be done without significant retraining. This would involve both an immediate drop in income and significant extra expense. And there is no guarantee of a job at the end of it.

The only way that I could see it happening is if someone with deep pockets agreed to put up the necessary funding, perhaps in return for a cut of any future snooker earnings. Might be quite an interesting proposition for someone! :thumbup: Quite a gamble though, since (afaik) it has not been tried before.
 
Mr441 said:
It seems its easier for a snooker player to play pool. No pool player has ever played anywhere near good enough to compete with the top snooker players but a few snooker players have done well or at least okay in pool. Tony Drago won the World Pool Masters a few years ago, Ronnie O'Sullivan finished second in that same a event twice, once a few years ago and once back in the 90's. Steve Davis has beaten several great pool champions.
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To give pool players their due.....
...snooker players always have a better chance at 9-ball than pool players
would have at snooker....because of the length of the matches.
To win the world snooker title, the finals alone is race to 18.....
..that is about the equivalent to a TAR match race to 100.

I don't think any snooker player can win a TAR match without a few years
of dedication...just like pool players would need to win a snooker match.

I think Buddy Hall's stroke could handle snooker...I think it is equal to
Steve Davis' technique...but Buddy, in his prime, would have had to
change his cue and learn thick directional nap cloth.

On North American conditions, there were a few players who had a
chance with UK players...Sam Bluementhal, Dick Huntzinger, Freddy
Salem, and Denny Searcy.
Ronny Allen won at payball on a 6x12 with a #8 seed...and gave him
a little weight on a 5x10.
 
the U.K. snooker pros have started in the sport by rising to the top through a vast field of players, in their teen years, obtaining a sponsor to help with training and practice expenses, then rising to the elite pro level by being in the top percentile in that group. i am sure many of our U.K. AZ'ers will confirm the arduous task it truly is, to become a snooker pro capable of world competition.[the top 168].as well as our players in the U.S. that have actually been in pro snooker in the U.K.

on another note, the lion, who held all snooker/pool titles in Canada at once, is one pool player i believe who was capable, with the right discipline to join that circle in his early years.

i would love to see the magician playing on U.K. snooker equipment, as would a great many others. it would be a rare glimpse of genius at work, and fascinating to observe such a revered player negotiate a foreign discipline with his great talent.

you may remember the invitational with steve davis and steve mizerak. steve showed the utmost respect for mizeraks cue ball talents although his snooker accomplishments were supelative. if i am not mistaken, davis said he thought that is was harder for a snooker player to run 100 in 14.1 than a pool player to compile a break of 100 in snooker.





i don't want to open a big P#####ing match about U.S. pool players, i just offered a little more depth to the subject.
 
stunshotDAVE said:
you may remember the invitational with steve davis and steve mizerak. steve showed the utmost respect for mizeraks cue ball talents although his snooker accomplishments were supelative. if i am not mistaken, davis said he thought that is was harder for a snooker player to run 100 in 14.1 than a pool player to compile a break of 100 in snooker.
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I'm not aware of Davis ever directly comparing the challenge of running 100 at either game, but he did seem to rate straight pool above 9 ball for the professional game. A few of these snooker/pool challenges took place in the late 1980s up to 1990 as far as I know. I have a good few hours of the footage on DVD of Mizerak playing Davis, Hendry, Jimmy White and Joe Johnson (1987 World Snooker Champion). Here's a break Mizerak made in a doubles match with Ewa Mataya, against Stephen Hendry and Allison Fisher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgWLYxeua2A

As he's making his break the commentators talk about how Mizerak might have fared had he made the switch to snooker earlier in his career.
 
DangerousDave said:
I'm not aware of Davis ever directly comparing the challenge of running 100 at either game, but he did seem to rate straight pool above 9 ball for the professional game. A few of these snooker/pool challenges took place in the late 1980s up to 1990 as far as I know. I have a good few hours of the footage on DVD of Mizerak playing Davis, Hendry, Jimmy White and Joe Johnson (1987 World Snooker Champion). Here's a break Mizerak made in a doubles match with Ewa Mataya, against Stephen Hendry and Allison Fisher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgWLYxeua2A

As he's making his break the commentators talk about how Mizerak might have fared had he made the switch to snooker earlier in his career.
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I remember watching that match. As for making the transition one way or the other, I would think Allison's transition from snooker to pool was at least moderately successful. ;)
 
I wonder if the people in power in the UK would allow foreignersw to come and work in their country. Playing Snooker is working, and you would need a work permit.
 
gpeezy said:
Unreal how any champion would say they can't. Kinda nitty really.
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You gotta elaborate on that...I see absolutely nothing 'nitty' about the truth.

I ASSume you are saying:
Unreal how any champion(pool player) would say they (couldn't make it as a snooker pro) can't..
 
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