prime pool age

If you’re not a world beater by 18, you never will be. However if you are, you have a shot at a long career. The challenge is whether happenstance and genetics support you. And then can you manage to sustain a no-life attitude about pool as you get older. Eventually you just can’t stomach 8-10 hours of pool every day.


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Matt...That's just not completely true. Spanish Mike Lebron became a champion player after age 50, and I have personally coached many players (men and women) who won national championships in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even older. My mentor and partner, Randyg, is playing the best pool of his life...at age 72! Another fellow master instructor, Lance Cowles, only started playing at all about 10 years ago (he's past 50 now), and he's one of the best players in MI, and one of the best instructors in the USA! Age is just a number. :thumbup:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

MattPoland said:

If you’re not a world beater by 18, you never will be. However if you are, you have a shot at a long career. The challenge is whether happenstance and genetics support you. And then can you manage to sustain a no-life attitude about pool as you get older. Eventually you just can’t stomach 8-10 hours of pool every day.


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Pool is like the piano, children and the elderly can be good at it.

DecentShot said:

Pool is like the piano, children and the elderly can be good at it.

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Pool is also like masturbation.

When you are young, everything is new, and exciting. As you get older, you get jaded, and its difficult to 'get it up' for a game sometimes. :thumbup:

IMO Tennis is lacking new talent, so we get too many years of Williams. Nadal, Djokovich and the true master, Federer.

To answer your question, every player hits their prime at different ages and it also depends on the discipline. Generally I think 32 years old may be plugged in for 8/9/10 ball.

RiverCity said:

Pool is also like masturbation.

When you are young, everything is new, and exciting. As you get older, you get jaded, and its difficult to 'get it up' for a game sometimes. :thumbup:

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Its always more fun playing with a lady.

RiverCity said:

Pool is also like masturbation.

When you are young, everything is new, and exciting. As you get older, you get jaded, and its difficult to 'get it up' for a game sometimes. :thumbup:

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What *he* said.

Also, when you're young ( 16 to say, 25, pool-wise ), you're too ignorant to know when the deck is stacked against you. You're fearless. Which certainly goes a long way toward "winning ways". It's not a co-incidence the average age of war dead in any given modern war is 23 or so. Governments know the younger, the more aggressive and confidant. At that age you don't CARE how many enemy are in the field or how many racks your opponent strung in the last tournament.

Now, this is said within reason, of course. But, basically, young = stupid many times and in pool, especially gambling, a lot of times stupid = cheese when it comes to heart. And heart goes a long, long way in this game.

I think 30-35 is the perfect blend of experience and ability assuming you were a good player by 20.

Scott Lee said:

Matt...That's just not completely true. Spanish Mike Lebron became a champion player after age 50, and I have personally coached many players (men and women) who won national championships in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even older. My mentor and partner, Randyg, is playing the best pool of his life...at age 72! Another fellow master instructor, Lance Cowles, only started playing at all about 10 years ago (he's past 50 now), and he's one of the best players in MI, and one of the best instructors in the USA! Age is just a number. :thumbup:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

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i’m playing the best pool of my life and turned 50 last week.

us820 said:

I think 30-35 is the perfect blend of experience and ability assuming you were a good player by 20.

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Many players when I was a kid felt their prime was mid thirties....
...still had physical ability and understanding one-self and the game had matured.
...the training wheels had been shed...like how to aim and how to stand,

Because of knowledge more freely available in these times, I feel that prime has been
extended.....from 25 to late 40s.

RichSchultz said:

i’m playing the best pool of my life and turned 50 last week.

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Very cool. I’m 72 and playing good enough to have fun. Constantly learning and improving. Feel real good mentally. I hope to be playing better this upcoming year. I still have a few hiccups but playing slightly better and smarter.

Scott Lee said:

Matt...That's just not completely true. Spanish Mike Lebron became a champion player after age 50, and I have personally coached many players (men and women) who won national championships in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even older. My mentor and partner, Randyg, is playing the best pool of his life...at age 72! Another fellow master instructor, Lance Cowles, only started playing at all about 10 years ago (he's past 50 now), and he's one of the best players in MI, and one of the best instructors in the USA! Age is just a number. :thumbup:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

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Tap tap tap


There have always been and will always be a few (very few...but, nonetheles, they exist) "would be" really, really strong a55 players lurking in their basements, garages etc...etc that knew they had the "stuff" to make a low to mid tier pro but since some of them were smarter than most, they never pursued it simply because they had other things( college then a career, then a wife, then children, then worrying about investments for the future etc...etc ) that were FAR, FAR more important to them and they would have NEVER put them at risk by not securing a stable life for their families which is impossible to do as a pro pool player unless you are one of the top players. Even then, being a top player is not much guarantee that your family's lifestyle will be secure in the long haul.

I know several current pros that wish they had not stayed with pool. Most pro players weren't exactly in line for great futures and careers but, there have been and are a few pros that have a lot of regrets about quitting jobs etc...etc to play pool.

Its just not a path that most "should" take, regardless of how good they are.

Scott Lee said:

Matt...That's just not completely true. Spanish Mike Lebron became a champion player after age 50, and I have personally coached many players (men and women) who won national championships in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even older. My mentor and partner, Randyg, is playing the best pool of his life...at age 72! Another fellow master instructor, Lance Cowles, only started playing at all about 10 years ago (he's past 50 now), and he's one of the best players in MI, and one of the best instructors in the USA! Age is just a number. :thumbup:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

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adding to that...….I don't think it means that you "peak" in your 50's.....if you reach greatness in your 50's it means you could have been even better in your 20's and 30's.....IMHO

Scott Lee said:

Matt...That's just not completely true. Spanish Mike Lebron became a champion player after age 50, and I have personally coached many players (men and women) who won national championships in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even older. My mentor and partner, Randyg, is playing the best pool of his life...at age 72! Another fellow master instructor, Lance Cowles, only started playing at all about 10 years ago (he's past 50 now), and he's one of the best players in MI, and one of the best instructors in the USA! Age is just a number. :thumbup:



Scott Lee

http://poolknowledge.com

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Perhaps. But I’m not seeing many living hall of fame players winning world championships. So perhaps if a player failed to reach their potential early in life then they have a chance to achieve a pale reflection of it later. And for them, that’s a very meaningful experience.


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My eyes shit the bed at 40.I’m playing the best pool of my life but I know if I had my 25 year old body and eyes I would destroy myself.I was too busy working like a dog building a life 18-40 to put any serious time in.Starting serious at 40 is too late.You can for sure be a really solid player 40-70 though in good health.

Mike Lebron is a common example, but it is incorrect. He was a world beater in his 20's in Puerto Rico, and then took a couple of decades off. There was an interview of him in one of the mags years ago where he stated as such. (I might have some of the time lapse details off, but the main point is he started young, and reached a pro speed level very quickly, just like every single other pro).

IMO, a pool player's peak is about age 25. This is young enough to still be physically in tip top shape, still hungry and want to kill every opponent. Yet 25 is old enough to have played for 10 years (assuming they started around age 15), which means they have seen every shot under the sun in those 10 years and have a TON of experience.

evergruven said:

... at what age might a player see their best results? ...

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Here's another thread on this subject, including a poll, from a couple years ago. It was asking specifically about pros. See post #12 for the ages of World 9-Ball and US Open 9-Ball champions.

https://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=457803.

Here's that list I mentioned in the last post -- WPA 9-Ball and US Open 9-Ball champions by age -- from the 2017 thread. I have updated it to include the winners since that thread -- Biado (2017) and Filler (2018) for the WPA 9-Ball event and Shaw (2017) and Filler (2019) for the US Open 9-Ball.

WPA World 9-Ball Championship

15-20 -- 1 (Wu)
21-25 -- 3 (Archer, Filler, Hohmann)
26-30 -- 11 (Strickland, Strickland, Chao, Ortmann, Souquet, Archer, Takahashi, Immonen, Pagulayan, Ko, Ouschan)
31-35 -- 5 (Chao, Alcano, Peach, Hohmann, Biado)
36-40 -- 3 ( Akagariyama, Appleton, Feijen)
41-45 -- 3 (Okumura, Reyes, Strickland)
46-50 -- 1 (Bustamante)
51-55 -- 1 (Varner)
Total -- 28

US Open 9-Ball Championship

15-20 -- 0
21-25 -- 5 (Sigel, Strickland, Deuel, Van Boening, Filler)
26-30 -- 14 (Hopkins, Roberts*, Sigel, Hopkins, Howard, Strickland, Kennedy, Morris, Owen, Pagulayan, Van Boening, Van Boening, Cheng, Shaw)
31-35 -- 13 (Mizerak, Sigel, Howard, Strickland, Pierce, Archer, Souquet, Jones, Schmidt, Appleton, Appleton, Van Boening, Van Boening)
36-40 -- 6 (Reid, Reyes, Strickland, Strickland, Immonen, Immonen)
41-45 -- 2 (Varner, Varner)
46-50 -- 1 (Hall)
51-55 -- 2 (Lebron, Hall)
Total -- 43

Distribution for the two events combined

15-20 -- 1 (1%)
21-25 -- 8 (11%)
26-30 -- 25 (35%)
31-35 -- 18 (25%)
36-40 -- 9 (13%)
41-45 -- 5 (7%)
46-50 -- 2 (3%)
51-55 -- 3 (4%)
Total -- 71

Note -- The age used here is year of event minus year of birth. For any players whose birthday occurred between the date of the event and the end of that calendar year, their actual age last birthday on the date of the event was 1 year less than I used.

*The age used for Louie Roberts (29 in 1979) is an estimate, as I have not yet found a reliable source for his year of birth.