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Wow, Sigel is in the conversation for best player of all time. Mike is probably the only player that can be counted as a Top 5 player of all time at both nine ball and straight pool. I am not sure Earl was better than Mike at any game, though nine ball was very close. Of course, Mike’s...

I agree. Alex, at least until Fedor came along, was the second best ever at one pocket. Dennis was, however, a slightly better bank pool player than Alex. I have always marveled at how the Filipino players seemed to pick up the fringe disciplines so easily.

Might be. It was the first US Open 9ball event in Atlantic City, but definitely a Matchroom event. Shannon, daughter of the late Barry Behrman, memorably participated in the awards ceremony.

Great lists. I would probably add Jeff DeLuna, Fortunski and Konrad J to your over 30 but still capable list. Pagulayan does not play much WNT pool anymore, but was runner up to Filler in the 2025 DCC 9ball, so still some gas left in the tank.

D Didn’t Biado also win the US Open 9ball? I think he beat Yapp in the final that year. It was the year that Emily Frazier renamed the US open 9ball Trophy, now called the “Barry Behrman Trophy.” Carlo cried when Emily presented the trophy.

They were offered but sold out very quickly.

See post #96

Yeah, I kind of left out the 1990s, where Efren, Strickland, Archer were the dominant players. It is arguable whether any of them dominated in the way that those named in my post did. Interestingly enough, both Efren and Earl offered that Mike Sigel was the best pool player they had ever seen...

Agreed. We do it because we enjoy it, but comparison across generations is a very inexact science, arguably even a pointless pursuit. Ultimately, when we look for the greatest, we look for who succeeded against their contemporaries most consistently. While, as you note, it's about more than...

Not the best player, but he was, at times, along with Alex, the guy to beat for the DCC all-around, so I can see where you are coming from. His skills were legendary, and nobody questions that. Of course, that was not the contention of the poster that raised this topic, who claimed that...

Josh was 3rd at the first WNT major this year, the European Open. He won the next WNT major in May at the UK Open. Yes, he was 9th at the last two WNT majors (Florida and Arizona), but is that your idea of a slump? He has outperformed every other WNT player in 2026. He's also the only player...

Obviously you do, but Dennis's tournament resume in no way justifies such an assessment, nor does his record in action. His relative lack of major titles is, in large part, because SVB wore him our for the length of his career, and SVB wore Dennis out in action matches, too, especially in...

That would make all of us very happy. It would be nice to see Justin have a magical run to post his first good finish in a WNT rankings event.

No, he wasn't ever the best. Shane dominated Dennis for the length of his career and Dennis was approached by JL Chang and his stake-horse umpteen times to gamble and wisely turned him down virtually every time. Pagulayan was slightly the better of the two as far as all-around play. Dennis...

A reasonable take for sure but the setup of the arena over the first five days makes the fanfare less of a factor than it will be on day six, when the arena will be set up around the one table that will remain and the crowd will get loud. SVB's day six performance at the Florida Open reminded...

Considered him, Grabe and Zielinski, too, but backed down from all three. A bit under the radar, but Wiktor won two WNT ranking events this year at Super Billiards Expo and at the Prague Open. He also showed some strong play in St Louis as he and Seo Seoa won the mixed doubles, so his year...

Yeah, I guess eyeballing the Fargo rates would have saved me time relative to just going through the draw. My picks are pretty chalky. Cinderella stories were not so uncommon in the early days of the US Open 9ball, most notably Tommy Kennedy, Mike Lebron and Reed Pierce. In the last twenty US...

Wow, the event is just hours away. As always, handicapping the US Open 9ball is near impossible, but I suspect that we'll get a champion with a Fargo of at least 830. Pretty good chance the winner will be someone who has won the event fairly recently (SVB, FSR, Gorst, Filler, Shaw, Yapp...

Warren Kiamco won the Derby City 9ball at 45. Francisco Bustamante was 54 when he was Derby City Master of the Table and over 60 when he won the Jay Swanson Memorial.

A reasonable argument here, but the one bad match and you're out part of your argument is nearly as applicable to the new format at WNT majors, which is 128 qualifiers. Failures by the 50 best players in the field to reach the round of 128 are so far and few between that there's little...