How did Steve Davis do when he tried to come over to pool? Ronnie? If the top dogs in snooker are so superior to "pool players" then why haven't snooker players dominated the world chinese events? Good shootin.
I'll take Shane over any snooker player in a race to 100, 10 ball. No one is denying that snooker players are great cueman or that they are incredible at what they do, but to say that the top snooker players are stealing playing the top pool players is just ignorant.
Snooker, 10 ball, one pocket, 9 ball, banks, 8 ball. Pick a snooker player to play Alex Pagulayan lol. Sure Alex probably won't come out on top player snooker but I'll bet whatever you want that he'll win over all.
Ronnie did about as well in pool as Alex did in snooker. If there were a qualification process for the pro tour, then Ronnie probably doesn't make the cut.
And I always love the excuse making for Ronnie. "He didn't even practice! Just took it up for a piss."
Wrong. I was just watching the 2006 World Pool masters match between Ronnie and Wu Chia, and Jim Wych said Ronnie told him he's going to give 9 ball a serious go and enter all the major events. There's also interviews with Ronnie from that time period where he said the same thing. Yeah, what happened? Not much. Ronnie quickly went back to his comfort zone.
That said, I completely admit that it's easier to transition to pool from snooker than vice versa. But that has nothing to do with snooker supposed "difficulty" better preparing a snooker player for the so called easier game of pool with "bucket" pockets. Nor does it have to do with the supposed god-like cueing prowess of snooker players.
The reason the transition is easier is because snooker players don't have to "unlearn" any bad habits during the transition. They can easily add the use of English to their already solid game built around using the center axis of the cue ball, while unlearning English after a lifetime of using it on virtually every shot is a mammoth task for a pool player to do coming over to snooker. The implications go further than just cueing and affect how one normally plays position, as well. Snooker players use natural angles. Pool players are required to create angles a great deal of the time. Then they go try to create angles in snooker, and get humbled.
Someone will definitely say, "Well, doesn't that mean snooker players are better cueists then?"
No.
If the challenge were now changed to transition to 3 cushion (I'd wager that if we polled the site, the majority of posters would vote that 3 cushion has the highest learning curve of ALL the cue sports), then the pool player would make a much easier transition. Now he can use English, stroke the cue ball like he's used to, and create angles and spin the cue ball around multiple rails. Take Earl, take Ronnie, give them a year at 3 cushion, and I'd bet my house that Earl would average at least 50% more points per inning than Ronnie. Same thing if you took Shane and Judd Trump. Selby and Ko, etc, etc.
And that is why the transition argument of, "Well, what proves that pool is an easier game than snooker is that snooker players seem to make the transition easier." is flawed. It's totally arbitrary depending on which and what games you're transitioning to and from, and doesn't prove anything about game difficulty or cueing ability.
