St. Louis Louie vs. Archer 1990

lfigueroa said:
Well, no, not exactly.

In Louie's case it was a gun shot through the roof of his mouth. But, just a few hours before he had called in to his home PR in St. Louis and those he talked too said he sounded fine, straight, and upbeat. Two hours later his BA level was way high, there were bruise marks on his wrists (as if restrained), and there was a suicide note that, seemingly, did not match his handwriting.

Lou Figueroa
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K. Liston had lethal injection to his back..
He was illiterate and had needle phobia.


That sounds really suspicious. Sad to hear that for Louie..
 
LowRight said:
Here's my take. First off, there were way less players back then. The world was just starting to wake up to pool. The sheer number of players means a lot. That fact partially accounts for the fact that there is only one woman in the top 100 Fargo rankings—Siming Chen. In general, women are just not as interested in pool as men are. Secondly, the equipment was inferior. The cloth had a nap and was slow and the cues were spindly with lots of deflection. Today's modern low-deflection cues and fast, non-nap cloth allows smaller pockets. Just like golf, there is really no comparison between 35 years ago and now.

In a game like straight pool, with slow, napped cloth and needing to go into the rack multiple times per rack, Mosconi's high run is much more impressive than Jayson Shaw's. Sorry Jayson. You're one of my all-time favorite players, but that's the truth.

Here's an approximate analogy. I remember a Golf Digest article from the beginning of Tiger's career. Not to take anything away from Tiger, who I consider to be the greatest golfer of all time, but the article underscores the extreme difficulty of comparing athletes from different eras. In the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, with a final-round 3-shot lead, Nicklaus played safe off the tee with a 1-iron that plugged in the rough. He then chopped out with an 8-iron back to the fairway, leaving about 237 yards uphill into a stiff breeze. He then unleashed a famous 238-yard 1-iron, carrying the ball onto the putting surface, leaving a 22-foot birdie putt—one he rolled home to finish at 275, breaking Ben Hogan’s 72-hole U.S. Open record by one stroke. Golf Digest later recounted just how unforgiving that shot was: they brought Baltusrol’s reigning club champion, John Norton (no slouch by any means!!), out to hit Jack’s original 1-iron (and the same type of balata ball), and after 50 tries, he only managed one on-the-green. That single successful attempt underscores why Jack’s 1-iron that day is still talked about as one of the game’s all-time great approaches. Afterwards, Norton said the sweet spot on that 1-iron was the width of a dime. A dime! Today's golf clubs have a sweet spot an inch or more in width!

I submit that today's pool equipment is equivalent. Technology changes rapidly in a free market, which makes comparing different eras very difficult.
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I remember that article and agree.. it’s just hard to compare when equipment has such a big effect on the game.
 
Matt_24 said:
Wow, I loved this!

Grady said a lady he was dating was anatomically vague, LOL....the early days of Accu-stats!
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You should watch the Accu-stats match, Keith McCready versus AZB's very own (RIP) Gary "Bushwhacker" Nolan. Gary was a MONSTER player and the 9 ball match between he and a prime-time Keith went to the hill. The commentary was extraordinary, LOL...with Grady, et al, in rare form. A must see.
 
Matt_24 said:
You should watch the Accu-stats match, Keith McCready versus AZB's very own (RIP) Gary "Bushwhacker" Nolan. Gary was a MONSTER player and the 9 ball match between he and a prime-time Keith went to the hill. The commentary was extraordinary, LOL...with Grady, et al, in rare form. A must see.
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Got any links to this match? I want to watch.
 
LowRight said:
Here's my take. First off, there were way less players back then. The world was just starting to wake up to pool. The sheer number of players means a lot. That fact partially accounts for the fact that there is only one woman in the top 100 Fargo rankings—Siming Chen. In general, women are just not as interested in pool as men are. Secondly, the equipment was inferior. The cloth had a nap and was slow and the cues were spindly with lots of deflection. Today's modern low-deflection cues and fast, non-nap cloth allows smaller pockets. Just like golf, there is really no comparison between 35 years ago and now.

In a game like straight pool, with slow, napped cloth and needing to go into the rack multiple times per rack, Mosconi's high run is much more impressive than Jayson Shaw's. Sorry Jayson. You're one of my all-time favorite players, but that's the truth.

Here's an approximate analogy. I remember a Golf Digest article from the beginning of Tiger's career. Not to take anything away from Tiger, who I consider to be the greatest golfer of all time, but the article underscores the extreme difficulty of comparing athletes from different eras. In the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, with a final-round 3-shot lead, Nicklaus played safe off the tee with a 1-iron that plugged in the rough. He then chopped out with an 8-iron back to the fairway, leaving about 237 yards uphill into a stiff breeze. He then unleashed a famous 238-yard 1-iron, carrying the ball onto the putting surface, leaving a 22-foot birdie putt—one he rolled home to finish at 275, breaking Ben Hogan’s 72-hole U.S. Open record by one stroke. Golf Digest later recounted just how unforgiving that shot was: they brought Baltusrol’s reigning club champion, John Norton (no slouch by any means!!), out to hit Jack’s original 1-iron (and the same type of balata ball), and after 50 tries, he only managed one on-the-green. That single successful attempt underscores why Jack’s 1-iron that day is still talked about as one of the game’s all-time great approaches. Afterwards, Norton said the sweet spot on that 1-iron was the width of a dime. A dime! Today's golf clubs have a sweet spot an inch or more in width!

I submit that today's pool equipment is equivalent. Technology changes rapidly in a free market, which makes comparing different eras very difficult.
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This is certainly a thoughtful and well-presented post, but I'd suggest that the level of play was raised more from 2015-25 than from 1980-2015, and advances in equipment has almost
nothing to do with it. The cues and tables were just as good ten years ago as today.

As you've rightly pointed out, the biggest change is how many more players there are. The globalization of the game over the past ten years has given rise to a Fargo Top 50 that includes at least one player from each of Iraq, Spain, Singapore, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bosnia, Hungary, Hong Kong, and Lithuania. Today's top players shoot at a much higher level than their counterparts of ten years ago.

When the IPT came along in 2006, all living hall of famers, many of whom still played at a very high level, were invited to the first full-field event, the IPT Las Vegas tournament. Mike Sigel predicted that the hall of famers, because of their high comfort level with the nappy cloth that was being used by the IPT, would thrive. This must go down as one of the worst predictions in the history of our sport, as the younger players easily adjusted to the conditions of yesteryear and not even one old-timer made a deep run. I am not buying any suggestion that this generation would have had any trouble with the old nappy conditions.

Just ten years ago, 4 1/2" pockets were the norm in top pro competition. The pockets are much tighter now because the standard of play has risen to a level most of us never imagined possible. One reason is that today's players have training resources available to them that were unavailable to the last generation.

Still, where you are undeniably right is in suggesting that one cannot fairly compare players across generations. Each player must be measured against his/her contemporaries. There is no way to fairly compare a Lassiter to a Mizerak to a Sigel to a Van Boening to a Filler. All we can say of each is that their performance against their contemporaries was phenomenal.

In short, we agree but we also disagree.
 
More international players means more dead weight. Most not deserving to be in a "World Champion" tournament.

The 2015-2025 era was just started 10 years ago. Assuming someone started becoming professional at 18 then it would make them 33 years of age.

There aren't many today that are considered GOATS at 33 years of age.

Varner, Archer, Strickland and Efren were all considered GOATs in their prime.
 
sjm said:
This is certainly a thoughtful and well-presented post, but I'd suggest that the level of play was raised more from 2015-25 than from 1980-2015, and advances in equipment has almost
nothing to do with it. The cues and tables were just as good ten years ago as today.

As you've rightly pointed out, the biggest change is how many more players there are. The globalization of the game over the past ten years has given rise to a Fargo Top 50 that includes at least one player from each of Iraq, Spain, Singapore, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bosnia, Hungary, Hong Kong, and Lithuania. Today's top players shoot at a much higher level than their counterparts of ten years ago.

When the IPT came along in 2006, all living hall of famers, many of whom still played at a very high level, were invited to the first full-field event, the IPT Las Vegas tournament. Mike Sigel predicted that the hall of famers, because of their high comfort level with the nappy cloth that was being used by the IPT, would thrive. This must go down as one of the worst predictions in the history of our sport, as the younger players easily adjusted to the conditions of yesteryear and not even one old-timer made a deep run. I am not buying any suggestion that this generation would have had any trouble with the old nappy conditions.

Just ten years ago, 4 1/2" pockets were the norm in top pro competition. The pockets are much tighter now because the standard of play has risen to a level most of us never imagined possible. One reason is that today's players have training resources available to them that were unavailable to the last generation.

Still, where you are undeniably right is in suggesting that one cannot fairly compare players across generations. Each player must be measured against his/her contemporaries. There is no way to fairly compare a Lassiter to a Mizerak to a Sigel to a Van Boening to a Filler. All we can say of each is that their performance against their contemporaries was phenomenal.

In short, we agree but we also disagree.
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I think the players from years ago could play with today's players assuming they adapted to modern style of play. I don't think it is a matter of less talent. Old time players were mostly gamblers and played different because they didn't value any one game or set that much.

Tournament play is sudden death and you can't just throw away a game. Completely different mind set. Watch Ronnie Allen for example shoot some crazy one pocket shot and you think he was nuts. He is not nuts, no one is going anywhere. They are going to play till there is a winner and it may take all night or even multiple session over a few days.

People often say many money players were not good tournament players. It's just different and they probably had no desire to play that tournament style, "Going to the electric chair" if they miss a ball.
Every generation of players have tremendous talents governed by current circumstances.

I remember being at a tournament with Big Bob and he was playing a match and looked so nervous he could not get out from anywhere. When the match was over a little while later he is playing a guy in front of the same crowd who were still hanging around $500.00 nineball happy as a clam drilling the guy completely relaxed.
 
middleofnowhere said:
I think the players from years ago could play with today's players assuming they adapted to modern style of play. I don't think it is a matter of less talent. Old time players were mostly gamblers and played different because they didn't value any one game or set that much.
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Well, I've been around pro pool for 50 years, so I've watched them all.

I strongly disagree. They did not shoot as straight back then and, with a few exceptions, their fundamentals were not on a par with those of today's top cueists.

Agreed that it's not all about talent, but superior training and video resources are available to today's crop, and they play with far more technical elegance than all but a few of the last generation of players.

The current generation shoots straighter and has raised the level of decision making relative to the stars of the past. The next generation will exceed the performance of this one, and that's the normal progression of things.

For now, however, we are watching the most talented cueists that the game has ever seen, and as has been noted, it is chiefly because the number of players worldwide has skyrocketed.

Many of the old timers want to believe that the best of yesteryear were as skillful as the best of today, but it is simply not the case. The game has and will continue to evolve.
 
sjm said:
Well, I've been around pro pool for 50 years, so I've watched them all.

I strongly disagree. They did not shoot as straight back then and, with a few exceptions, their fundamentals were not on a par with those of today's top cueists.

Agreed that it's not all about talent, but superior training and video resources are available to today's crop, and they play with far more technical elegance than all but a few of the last generation of players.

The current generation shoots straighter and has raised the level of decision making relative to the stars of the past. The next generation will exceed the performance of this one, and that's the normal progression of things.

For now, however, we are watching the most talented cueists that the game has ever seen, and as has been noted, it is chiefly because the number of players worldwide has skyrocketed.

Many of the old timers want to believe that the best of yesteryear were as skillful as the best of today, but it is simply not the case. The game has and will continue to evolve.
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For the most part I won’t argue about the amount of players that can shoot as well as anyone ever has… and why. I tend to agree. But I’d argue overall that the past generation of players knew how to move around the table a little better because there were no jump cues and because of rule changes. Some of these young kids shoot so damn well though it’s hard to exploit this even if it is a weakness.
 
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LowRight said:
Secondly, the equipment was inferior. The cloth had a nap and was slow and the cues were spindly with lots of deflection. Today's modern low-deflection cues and fast, non-nap cloth allows smaller pockets. Just like golf, there is really no comparison between 35 years ago and now.
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i have yet to see an old accustat or ESPN video where the equipment or conditions look worse than in the philippine gambling rooms where guys like orcullo, biado and raga grew up. the pinoy rooms seems to be getting fancier now in some places, but there are still fairly recent youtube streams with wonky star tables, sluggish cloth and piles of talcum on the rails.

lee van corteza, ko pin yi, ko ping chung, mickey krause, alex pags all play with maple shafts. but i concede that the learning curve is shorter with LD shafts. and it is even much shorter with all the video material out there.
 
T411 said:
For the most part I won’t argue about the amount of players that can shoot as well as anyone ever has… and why. I tend to agree. But I’d argue overall that the past generation of players knew how to move around the table a little better because there were no jump cues and because of rule changes. Some of these young kids shoot so damn well though it’s hard to exploit this even if it is a weakness.
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On board with this to a point. I reckon that guys like Hall, Rempe, Appleton and Souquet had a cue ball that was comparable to today's best. Still, the general standard in pattern play has definitely risen quite a bit since the days of old.
 
billiards_watch said:
It's a great time to learn pool right now with all the resources at your disposal.

I had to pay to play. I had to gamble really good players for them to show me things.
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Best post on this subject. It was much harder to learn back in the day and many, like you, had to learn the "expensive" way.
 
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