Players of the past and their Fargo...

B

billb

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This thread was derived with a conversation I had recently with a buddy. We had slightly differing views and I am just curious as to everyone's thoughts.

The question is this.....what would the estimated Fargo ratings be for players of yesteryear (80's and 90's) at the top of their game? Our discussion was whether a specific pro I watched on Youtube from back in the day would be an 800 Fargo by today's standards. I said he would be pushing 800 for sure.

Specifically, in no particular order, players like:
Strickland
Archer
Varner
Hall
Pierce
McCready
Sigel
Rempe
Ginky
Reyes (at his peak)
Bustamante
Parica
Hatch
Coltrain
Mizerak
Hopkins
Anyone else you can think of

Just thought it might be an interesting discussion for the board.

Thanks.
 
As much as I hate to say this, my memory of many of those players you mentioned has them better than they really were. When you watch old videos of those guys now, I don't think many of them would hold their own against a Filler or Gorst. Maybe two or three...on good days.
 
Interesting thought exercise, but you'd have to adjust for the far smaller number of tournaments back then, when road play made up much or most of a pool player's life.
 
fjk said:
As much as I hate to say this, my memory of many of those players you mentioned has them better than they really were. When you watch old videos of those guys now, I don't think many of them would hold their own against a Filler or Gorst. Maybe two or three...on good days.
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That was exactly part of our discussion. I know it was a different time, different equipment and all of the other stuff that gets talked about.

That being said, I personally feel like Strickland in his highest gear could hang with anyone ever at nine ball. Same with Archer. I would personally think that either of those two at their peak was an 840 type Fargo....give or take a few digits.
 
Taxi said:
Interesting thought exercise, but you'd have to adjust for the far smaller number of tournaments back then, when road play made up much or most of a pool player's life.
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True....I know the question is subjective. I am simply curious that if you took any of those players and bottled up what you might consider their highest level, would it reach today's Gorst or Filler or SVB or whoever you consider top dog?

Case in point and this isnt a knock, but McCready offered "the world the 8". Is his absolutely highest gear going to get it done against the Josh Filler of today. Probably not though I think it makes sense to acknowledge that both of them would simply run out over and over and over and over. So the spot is somewhat moot. Speaking solely on Keith's highest gear.

Its certainly a debatable subject that is similar to who is better....Jordan or Lebron. To me, that answer is easy. But then again, my son sees it the exact opposite because we see it through a different lens.
 
800 Fargo is #52 in the world today. Pagulayan is tied for #27 at 813. Does anyone think that Reyes at his peak is worse than Alex right now? I am not knocking Alex at all. Great player, great all around. Hall beat plenty of top players. At his peak do you think he’d be sub 800 - say at Justin Bergman level? Not knocking anyone. Yes old videos on different equipment will look different. But if you time machined today’s players to then, or yesterday’s players to now and gave them 90 days of adjustment to equipment, I would think many of those guys would be higher than #52. Yes, today’s players are great and all and the game has advanced.

So yeah, I agree some of the old guys would be over 800. Remember too, Fargo is relative. So if you took today’s players and dropped them at Red’s in the ‘80’s and they played all those guys…. They wouldn’t win them all.
 
fjk said:
As much as I hate to say this, my memory of many of those players you mentioned has them better than they really were. When you watch old videos of those guys now, I don't think many of them would hold their own against a Filler or Gorst. Maybe two or three...on good days.
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I agree completely. If you time machined Gorst and Filler to the Roanoke One Pocket Open, Akron Open, or Sands Regency tournaments, Gorst and Filler would obliterate everyone.

Just my 0.02

kollegedave
 
billb said:
This thread was derived with a conversation I had recently with a buddy. We had slightly differing views and I am just curious as to everyone's thoughts.

The question is this.....what would the estimated Fargo ratings be for players of yesteryear (80's and 90's) at the top of their game? Our discussion was whether a specific pro I watched on Youtube from back in the day would be an 800 Fargo by today's standards. I said he would be pushing 800 for sure.

Specifically, in no particular order, players like:
Strickland
Archer
Varner
Hall
Pierce
McCready
Sigel
Rempe
Ginky
Reyes (at his peak)
Bustamante
Parica
Hatch
Coltrain
Mizerak
Hopkins
Anyone else you can think of

Just thought it might be an interesting discussion for the board.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
i'll do what no one else will do and get this debate going. gonna lump these guys at their best and height of their powers into 826 plus, 800-825, 775-799. this is based off of me watching many of today's players and then watching old videos of the guys on the list you provided. just my gut. feel free to tell me i'm wrong. obviously, not alot of evidence. when i was a kid, it was johnny archer's world. so anything pre-archer, i can only go by hearsay and old videos that are low quality and table that look like they were covered in carhart overalls.

826+
strickland
reyes
archer
sigel
varner
bustamante

800-825
parica
hall
hatch

775-799
ginky
mizerak
hopkins
rempe
pierce
coltrain
mccready
 
hlymnstr14 said:
i'll do what no one else will do and get this debate going. gonna lump these guys at their best and height of their powers into 826 plus, 800-825, 775-799. this is based off of me watching many of today's players and then watching old videos of the guys on the list you provided. just my gut. feel free to tell me i'm wrong. obviously, not alot of evidence. when i was a kid, it was johnny archer's world. so anything pre-archer, i can only go by hearsay and old videos that are low quality and table that look like they were covered in carhart overalls.

826+
strickland
reyes
archer
sigel
varner
bustamante

800-825
parica
hall
hatch

775-799
ginky
mizerak
hopkins
rempe
pierce
coltrain
mccready
Click to expand...
Hard for me to argue any of these though I do think that if we are looking at their absolute best game, hall and parica have to be in the upper tier.
 
While I'll admit, Hatch had a high top gear, it's hard to put him over Miz, Hopkins, or Rempe. Even with those guys would be generous.
 
fjk said:
While I'll admit, Hatch had a high top gear, it's hard to put him over Miz, Hopkins, or Rempe. Even with those guys would be generous.
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I'm learning something here. I just never saw their top games. Hatch was a confident beast in the 90s.

my first group was based on, could one of these guys beat Filler, Gorst, SVB, Shaw? not only their games but their swagger. you gotta have some swagger and game to beat Filler and Shaw.
 
hlymnstr14 said:
I'm learning something here. I just never saw their top games. Hatch was a confident beast in the 90s.

my first group was based on, could one of these guys beat Filler, Gorst, SVB, Shaw? not only their games but their swagger. you gotta have some swagger and game to beat Filler and Shaw.
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All depends on how you measure 'beat'.

Tournament pool wasn't the end all for very many players of yesteryear, it was who went home with the cash.
 
billb said:
Hard for me to argue any of these though I do think that if we are looking at their absolute best game, hall and parica have to be in the upper tier.
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I know they say Hall was the best 9 ball players in the world at that time but the world didn't extend much past the lower 48 at that time. And Parica to me just never seemed like he was on Bustamante's level.
 
billb said:
True....I know the question is subjective. I am simply curious that if you took any of those players and bottled up what you might consider their highest level, would it reach today's Gorst or Filler or SVB or whoever you consider top dog?

Case in point and this isnt a knock, but McCready offered "the world the 8". Is his absolutely highest gear going to get it done against the Josh Filler of today. Probably not though I think it makes sense to acknowledge that both of them would simply run out over and over and over and over. So the spot is somewhat moot. Speaking solely on Keith's highest gear.

Its certainly a debatable subject that is similar to who is better....Jordan or Lebron. To me, that answer is easy. But then again, my son sees it the exact opposite because we see it through a different lens.
Click to expand...
Jordan
 
easy-e said:
Agreed.
kollegedave said:
I agree completely. If you time machined Gorst and Filler to the Roanoke One Pocket Open, Akron Open, or Sands Regency tournaments, Gorst and Filler would obliterate everyone.

Just my 0.02

kollegedave
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While I agree they would "obliterate" most of the field, they wouldn't have obliterated Strickland and Varner. I think if they just fall out of the sky and have to play with those balls and table and cloth, Strickland and Varner are favorites. Now vice versa, Filler and Gorst are favorites.
 
The game has marched on and the level of play is higher, just like it is in almost all sports. So it's not a fair comparison. The only fair way to compare is to ASSUME yesterday's greats would adapt to today's competitive landscape and their games would be a little better. For many of them, I have little doubt they would have adapted.

This is a good starter list. I would move Parica and Hall up, based on reputation but not necessarily video. I would move Archer down as I'm not certain how heavily his break influenced his results. I really don’t think he had the overall game of someone like Varner.

McCready is such an outlier as he was just a good ole fashioned gambler.
hlymnstr14 said:
...
826+
strickland
reyes
archer
sigel
varner
bustamante

800-825
parica
hall
hatch

775-799
ginky
mizerak
hopkins
rempe
pierce
coltrain
mccready
Click to expand...

Fun to think about.
 
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