you'd lose some $$$ doing that.
GOAT Hunt
- Thread starter Badpenguin
- Start date
I do not share this opinion. Not enough 8-ball was showcased in the 80’s. The best 8-ball player I’ve seen has to be Shane.
I could write so much more from a logical comparison standpoint, but it would go unread who have recency bias. But yes, Efren’s logevity and mastery of all games rightfully puts him on the top of GOAT discussions. But prime vs prime, I personally only have him on the 1-pocket top. Not enough people played full rack rotation, and he is not the best 8-ball player I’ve had the pleasure to watch in person.
Consider you said this:
“I would take prime Efren over prime Sigel in a race to 100 in any game. The only game Efren would probably lose is 14.1”
This opinion is already wrong, opinionated as it is.
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Ain't this fun??
now efren is a snooker champion too?
i see why the internet makes people so mean and angry
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8intheside
Well-known member
That’s debatabl, but I think
Who said he was a snooker champion? Stop being so sensitive
You said he mastered snooker. That would imply champion level play would it not?
Mastery of snooker
8intheside
Well-known member
Shane can be considered, but it’s popular opinion by most that Efren is. My opinion is wrong? Maybe yours is.
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8intheside
Well-known member
He plays or has played snooker at a high level at one point. I’ve never heard mention of sigel doing so. That’s my point.
i doubt he did, especially not comparative to top snooker level. when it comes to 8-ball, the game is too easy for the best players, reyes included, so it's kind of pointless to speculate who is the best. there is a bunch in that group. but reyes won when it mattered the most, that's for sure.
Efren played snooker in Thailand, and he ran centuries in the tournament, for which he received a watch as a prize. Then teen sensation Ronnie O’Sullivan was in the same tournament. Ronnie also won a watch.
In the back rooms, Efren beat Ronnie in snooker action Efren getting a 25 point spot. I think anyone would have considered Efren a decided underdog. The two then played 7-ball on the snooker table, and Efren also won the set. They were playing something in the order of 1000 Thailand “dollars,”
So, Efren showed he could run hundreds in snooker tournament with his pool cue, and that he could compete enough with a then young superstar. The 25 point spot I think confuses the situation. It’s pretty impressive.
8intheside
Well-known member
Reyes claims to have a high break of 132. thats not too shabby. You don’t think nine ball is easy in today’s game? Most times they’re playing 7 ball with a shot after the break, and don’t forget about the use of jump cues
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8intheside
Well-known member
and There you have it folks.
i've heard that story, he told it once in a TAR interview, and i don't doubt it (although there were some chronological issues regarding ronnie's age at the time iirc). but it's not really mastering snooker. poolmanis on here ran a maximum with a pool cue. incredibly impressive, but in the end snooker like 9-ball or one pocket is a competition and you have to master the competition to master snooker.
8intheside
Well-known member
Once again, he plays at a high level. That’s the point I was trying to get across
One could assume all the top pool players could play snooker at a high level
8intheside
Well-known member
theres no mention That sigel has. That I’m aware of
You think he couldn't?
8intheside
Well-known member
Maybe
Hence the problem. You and manyothers are basing their opinion on popular opinion. I’m basing my opinion on seeing Efren and other play live, and I was the lead commentator for a couple US Open 8-ball tournaments.
I’ll try to use facts and logic. You can base your opinion on that.
9-ball - Sigel ruled the roost until Strickland upped his game. Still, from that Efren overlap, Sigel and Strickland each won 15 major tournaments that included all the top players. Efren won 5, with 3 of them in his first year in 1985z. His influence on one foul ball-in-hand cannot be overstressed. But the top player quickly figured it out, and Efren was relegated to the ~5th or so top 9-balller. 9-ball required great shotmaking, great pattern play, excellent safety play, and a world class break. Sigel was considered the best.
14.1 - a game the rewards pattern play and finesse with excellent combination and multiple ball movement in small spaces. When he retired, Sigel was still considered the best, and it would have been.a toss up in my lifetime between him and Mizerak.
8-ball - take a look at what’s required for 9-ball and 14.1 and try to tell me how the guy that was considered the best at both those discipline couldn’t have been considered the best at 8-ball. What skill do you think Sigel didn’t have as the arguably the best player in both that would have made him anything other than the #1 or #2 8-ball player of his time?
The truth is that 8-ball wasn’t played much at the pro level. So I can’t say that Sigel was the best 8-ball player, but logic would say that the skills needed in 8-ball were the skills Sigel already demonstrated to have that brought him to be considered the “best in the world” in the only two major disciplines at the time. The realty is, Sigel has a World 8-ball title to his name plus some other pro 8-ball event, even if there were hardly any
Here’s some information that I’m sure you haven’t considered:
Although there weren’t many one pocket tournaments in his day, Sigel won two one pocket pro tourney, one of which was Legends of One Pocket event, which Gray Matthews started to revitalize One Pocket. If one were to dismiss these wins, you’d have to dismiss a whole lot of great one pocket players that were in that event. At the time, Efren hadn’t figured out the game either. One pocket hadn’t taken a foothold yet.
Snooker on a 6x12 wasn’t seen much in the USA except for in Northeast due to its proximity to Canada’s. My home room had a 6x12. The west coast had tricked up 6x12’. The southeast had American Snooker tables usually 9 or 10’. Sigel claims a single frame match victory of Steve Davis in 1981 on a 6x12. We’ve seen Mizerak play on a 6x12, and he claimed having a century run. Efren has had centuries, and Sigel was alway a better shotmaker. I never saw Sigel play on a snooker table, but I can’t see how he couldn’t at least play it better than most players. He had one of the straightest stroke of all time.
I’m not here to change anyone’s mind. But a lot of minds are made up when they never saw it live or didn’t know the history.
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