Efren on Snooker

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Agnir
  • Start date Start date
Just to let you all know, Tony Drago has been playing 9-ball for 8 years now, practicing 6 hours a day up to his win in the World Pool Masters. When he won that event, he had been playing for 6 years.

Do any of you believe that a top pool player, with solid fundamentals could be a top snooker player with enough practice? Take Thorsten Hohmann for example. If he was to practice snooker hours and hours each day for 5-6 years, there is absoloutely no doubt in my mind that he could be a top snooker player. He can already run 400 balls in straight pool. What would be your arguments against that?

And like I said before, I do believe that the transition from snooker to 9-ball would be easier, that's not what I'm arguing about. I just don't see any snooker players becoming a threat after a short period of time. It took Drago 6 years of some heavy 9-ball practicing to become known. Mark Tadd was a worldbeater when he had only been playing pool for 5 years. There's something to ponder....
 
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wayne said:
Talk about apples and oranges. How is this fair? You are comparing races in snooker where it probably takes 5 to 10 years minimum for a great potential player to become great. In 9 ball it may take a year for a great potential player to become great. So the 9 ball players who could potentially be great snooker players need 5 to 10 years to develop, whereas, the snooker players with great pool potential could become great in 1 year. It's like a comparison of backgammon and chess, the best backgammon player would have no chance in chess unless he took many years to master it but the great chess player could probably master backgammon in short order. Different disciplines with different learning curves.

Now if you go to the more complex games like Rotation, 1-pocket or banks and you would have a much different comparison. I would stake some money on the best pool bankers challenging the best snooker bankers on both tables, I know who would win this. Or let some snooker players take a year to learn 1-pocket or Rotation and let them challenge Efren and see how they do.

9-ball is just too easy to learn to think of it as a comparable challenge. There are probably 1000 9 ball players in the U.S. that could beat the best poolplayers in England on any given day.

Wayne
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Exactly.

unkownpro
 
Efren never claimed to be a snooker player, but I'm willing to bet if he spent enough time at it and adjusted his already known pool skills to the game he'd fit right into it. I've never personally played the game, but I'd like to, it seems more challenging than traditional pool.
 
wayne said:
There are probably 1000 9 ball players in the U.S. that could beat the best poolplayers in England on any given day.

Wayne
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In your dreams, Wayne.

If you take UK based players
Darren Appleton
Daryl Peach
Chris Melling
Karl Boyes
Mark Gray
Imran Majid
Jayson Shaw
Raj Hundal
Phil Burford
Ronnie O'Sullivan

The I doubt whether you could muster half a dozen who would stand a chance in a series of head to heads.

Moving down slightly to
Craig Osborne, Richard Jones, Tommy Donlon, Pat Holtz and probably 30 more.
Then you may be able to come up with 200 who would be in with a chance but only because of your bigger overall population.
 
pro9dg said:
In your dreams, Wayne.

If you take UK based players
Darren Appleton
Daryl Peach
Chris Melling
Karl Boyes
Mark Gray
Imran Majid
Jayson Shaw
Raj Hundal
Phil Burford
Ronnie O'Sullivan

The I doubt whether you could muster half a dozen who would stand a chance in a series of head to heads.

Moving down slightly to
Craig Osborne, Richard Jones, Tommy Donlon, Pat Holtz and probably 30 more.
Then you may be able to come up with 200 who would be in with a chance but only because of your bigger overall population.
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Given recent achievements, you'd have to add UK 8ballers Mick Hill & Gareth Potts to that list, too. In fact, if you added our top snooker & marbles players and made them play 9 ball, it'd be a massacre when comparing the top 1000 - irrespective of relative population size.
 
Pathetic Shark said:
Good point. Much poorer, for sure. But where will we be in 8 years time - and where will you? :eek:
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'Merica will remainthe 'go-to' destination for $pool...the UK will keep playing for fish and chips, or whatever you play for over there, fags?:eek:
gawdam, that was something.

We got bunus ball, whatchyou got?!
 
that fact is pool and snooker are 2 completely different games. Ronnie O, tried to play pool and did not fare all that well. Pool players have tried snooker and had the same problem.
Why cant people just realize they are not one in the same?
It does not mean a snooker player is better them a pool player or the other way around. The games are just different.
It's like comparing cricket and baseball, they are both played with a bat and ball, but they are completely different games.
 
Black-Balled said:
'Merica will remainthe 'go-to' destination for $pool...the UK will keep playing for fish and chips, or whatever you play for over there, fags?:eek:
gawdam, that was something.

We got bunus ball, whatchyou got?!
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Au contraire. Our tour is probably the best national tour in the world, with plenty of the big boys from Europe coming over, including the entire MC team.

Players go to the states for the weather and standard of living over pool.
 
The top poolplayers move between various table sizes (bar boxes, 9 and 10 foot tables) with tight pockets becoming popular with the pro's to separate the them from the next level. Many of these top pro's are proficient in 8, 9 and 10 ball plus one pocket, banks, 14.1 etc. However, I would think that it is clear to most that the move from pool to snooker, at a world class level, would take the most effort.

I respect that the best of those who specialize in either pool or snooker would be able to have some success when moving between the two disciplines. Again, in my opinion, the most difficult would be to move from pool to snooker.

Alex Pagulayan, is an example of a poolplayer that has been able to do this with some success, having won the Canadian Snooker championship twice (2011, 2012)and he did it in style both times. At those same championships in 2012 he also won the 8 ball title and the 9 ball title).
 
Pathetic Shark said:
Au contraire. Our tour is probably the best national tour in the world, with plenty of the big boys from Europe coming over, including the entire MC team.

Players go to the states for the weather and standard of living over pool.
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Well...if you are going to require organization as a factor, we are out.
 
Interesting thread....this started before I was even a lurker.

Jim Rempe won matches in the UK....his first match he beat the current Scottish pro champ...third round he lost to a young Hendry.
He cashed a few times but felt he had started too late in life to equal his
success at pool.....I was there

Jose Parica beat Jimmy Wych on a 5x10 when Jim was still an active pro (top 32)....Jimmy told me this

Efren Reyes beat Kirk Stevens on a 5x10 at Hardtimes...I was there

Ronnie Allen beat Bill Werbeniuk ( pro ranked 8) three times at payball on a
6x12 Gold Crown...he gave him 3 with 3 reds on a 5x10 and won.
Bill told me this

I think Alex could make it to top 32 in three years...but probably shouldn't
dedicate that time. Many pool players would have to change their style to
play snooker, Alex doesn't have to (Rempe and Sigel looked good at a snooker table also)
 
pt109 said:
I think Alex could make it to top 32 in three years...but probably shouldn't
dedicate that time. Many pool players would have to change their style to
play snooker, Alex doesn't have to (Rempe and Sigel looked good at a snooker table also)
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I doubt he would make the top 100 in 30 years.

I really feel our transatlantic cousins don't understand this one at all...
 
If these are silly questions I'll plead guilty. The only snooker I've ever watched is on You Tube; nevertheless, Let's put pool sized balls on a twelve foot table with pool sized pockets and play snooker. Does the pool player win? Let's then put snooker sized balls and snooker sized pockets on a nine foot table and play nine ball, eight ball, straight pool, or one pocket. Does the snooker player win?
 
Celtic said:
Except when playing snooker players dont tend to use the whole table to nearly the same degree as a pool player. The average shot length a snooker player makes is probably not alot different then the aveage shot length a 9-ball player makes. Snooker players rarely go past the blue spot when playing well until the reds are done.
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This is definitely one of the dumbest things I've ever read when on a billiards forum.
 
Two completely different games. Nt even comparable. That said, cue sports are related in that someone good with a cue has a huge leg up learning the other game.


Earl went and played Russian pyramid and did ok with hardly any practice, so anyone who thinks pool players have "no chance" is insane. It's like saying an arena football player could never play pro nfl....cough Kurt Warner cough.


I've played putt putt with a scratch golfer and kicked his butt (at putt putt) every tme we've played, and yet at real golf I am horrific. Not sure how that enters the equation but if my buddy played putt putt as often as he plays real golf he would probably destroy me at that too. :D
 
this whole thread :rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1:

No pool player has any chance in hell of making it pro snooker they can all have ten years practice starting now.
 
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