Rempe's Snooker Efforts

him and Mizerak both tried, both failed

smashmouth said:

him and Mizerak both tried, both failed

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That's right, neither was successful.

Remarkably, Mizerak played snooker using a pool cue, with a tip size of 13 mm when a snooker cue tends to have a tip size closer to 10mm. A top snooker player I spoke to many years ago expressed the opinion that top level snooker cannot be played with a tip that is way too large relative to the size of the cue ball. For those that don't play snooker, the cue ball is quite a bit smaller than the cue ball used in pool.

i'm in Germany right now and there is a big tournment in the UK that is running for 17 days so i'm watching it on TV(they have that down cold too, Mitch Laurance/ESPN needs to come here and take notes), and wow those guys stand with this odd stance but they can fire the balls hard with an open bridge, get huge english on the cueball, and pocket balls better than you can imagine, there is some great sooker on youtube in the snooker forum here there is alot of links to some great frames(racks),

their cues are made fron ash and have no taper, they weigh what a normal cue weighs and the length is 57" to about 60", their ferrels are brass and usually 9mm and only 3/8ths to 1/2 inches long, they use Elk Master tips that mushroom over the ferrel the chalk before every shot, with I cant think of the brand its the one in the yellow wrapper its a fine chalk very powdery. I have hit balls with a snooker cue and its much better than any American cue stick.

Its amazing how far they can draw the ball of follow with such stiff cues with super soft mushroomed tips(that look like they are about to come off), but they have it down cold. some of those guys pot(make) balls and push around the red balls Efren might not like it, its alot different than a GC with simonis on it. different world.

They hardly ever miscue, and those guys shoot off a bridge just like its their hand, I saw shot yeaterday, it wasnt wired but almost it was a 3 ball combo into the corner and he shot it off a bridge with a tempoary extension on his cue, he made the shot like it was nothing, it wasnt like a trick shot that is wired and all you do is just hit it he had to throw the first ball a bit into the second ball.

Fatboy said:

their cues are made fron ash and have no taper

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A small nit to pick here. They do have a taper, it is just a linear/straight/uniform taper.

Kelly

It's a bigger transition than most people think, a couple months practice even for talented players like Mierak and Rempe is not going to be enough to compete with guys that have trained there whole lives. The only North Americans that have made any impact overseas have come from Canada (most noticably Cliff Thorburn) but they grew up playing snooker. IMO most pool players would have enough trouble with top Canadian snooker players let alone the best in the U.K.

So far it's easy to see, that the transition from pool to snooker is much harder than from snooker to pool. Several snooker pros play great pool but hardly any pool pro plays great snooker.

"EuroSport`s" snooker is great.I live in Europe and in my country we don`t have pool on tv.I think the only pool this year was a few Mosconi Cup matches.But we have Eurosport which is covering around five snooker tournaments per year(China, Wales, London, Malta, Sheffield...) and this is absolutly amazing.There are two commentators and one of them is a fromer player who is kind of reading the table in advance.Commentating is great, nobody is shouting like on espn, they have funny comments,they are giving remarks about the players technique, everything is on a certain level.It is just a joy to watch.You should send your espn commentators on vacation here

the transition from pro pool to pro snooker is so daunting that none of the top pool guys even try anymore

Cliff is funny, he couldn't make the transition to pool, but this was past his prime and after years of substance abuse

unless of course you wanna play him some 5k sets of nine ball......

I saw Rempe play in the Sky World Masters in Birmingham back in '92 or '93. He didn't do very well at all. I remember being quite surprised to see him there as we were walking around checking all the games out!

Speaking of snooker coverage in Europe... Is there any way to buy the matches on DVD format?

Russ

I have about 5000 hrs worth of Acu Stats snooker footage, give me a good host site and I'll post it

smashmouth said:

I have about 5000 hrs worth of Acu Stats snooker footage, give me a good host site and I'll post it

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I didn't think Accu-Stats covered snooker events..

Plus, if they did, wouldn't it be illegal to post their videos without permission?

Russ

they won't mind I'm sure

get me that host

mjantti said:

So far it's easy to see, that the transition from pool to snooker is much harder than from snooker to pool. Several snooker pros play great pool but hardly any pool pro plays great snooker.

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In all fairness, snooker players are making a transition to 9 ball, which is a game where anybody can beat anyone on any given day. On the other hand you won't see a number 100 ranked player beat Ronnie very often in snooker.

I am fairly certain that if the main game on tour was 14.1 or one pocket, snooker players would probably have similar results to Rempe and Mizerak, unless they spent a lot of time studying the games. I definitely wouldn't bet on Stephen Hendry to beat John Schmidt in a 150 point game of 14.1.

Kelly_Guy said:

A small nit to pick here. They do have a taper, it is just a linear/straight/uniform taper.

Kelly

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i misspoke they have a conical taper they start getting fat right at the ferrel

Cameron Smith said:

In all fairness, snooker players are making a transition to 9 ball, which is a game where anybody can beat anyone on any given day. On the other hand you won't see a number 100 ranked player beat Ronnie very often in snooker.

I am fairly certain that if the main game on tour was 14.1 or one pocket, snooker players would probably have similar results to Rempe and Mizerak, unless they spent a lot of time studying the games. I definitely wouldn't bet on Stephen Hendry to beat John Schmidt in a 150 point game of 14.1.

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i'd bet on hendry if we could bet on snooker too, didnt they do that about 15 years ago, theytook Miz and steve davis and they played 8ball, snooker and straight pool. anyways i barely remember it but miz-i think it was him won the 2 games played on a 9' table and got smoked on the 12' table,


paul brienza tired it too in the earily 80's for 6 months or something-he came bac to sacramento.

Cameron Smith said:

In all fairness, snooker players are making a transition to 9 ball, which is a game where anybody can beat anyone on any given day. On the other hand you won't see a number 100 ranked player beat Ronnie very often in snooker.

I am fairly certain that if the main game on tour was 14.1 or one pocket, snooker players would probably have similar results to Rempe and Mizerak, unless they spent a lot of time studying the games. I definitely wouldn't bet on Stephen Hendry to beat John Schmidt in a 150 point game of 14.1.

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Very good point.
Back ion the 70s someone promoted a tour in the UK
with Mosconi vs IIRC, John Spencer

after 2 or 3 matches, Willie smoked him the rest of the tour,
this at 20 or so years past his prime

Dale

StraightPoolIU got close to the analogy...in the world of cue sports, american pool is to NASCAR as snooker is to F1.

We play a short-rack game on 7' bar tables with 4-3/4" pockets and they play a long rack game on expansive 12' tables with 3-1/2" pockets.