Snooker vs Pool

Not near as dirty as it used it, what a shame.

jackpot said:

Not near as dirty as it used it, what a shame.

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as it used to be.

There aren't snooker players in pubs, or at least I've never seen one. There aren't many pool tables in pubs these days, either.

What there are, are players. Bad luck America!

Learn to play, ffs.

Pathetic Shark said:

There aren't snooker players in pubs, or at least I've never seen one. There aren't many pool tables in pubs these days, either.

What there are, are players. Bad luck America!

Learn to play, ffs.

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Which pubs are you referring to?

ru4au2 said:

Why is it that snooker has a clean perception by the general public overseas and can generate prize money fitting of the talent...but is seems pool has a dirty perception...I am guessing there are snooker tables in pubs and people gamale on them as well....a lot of wealthy homes have pool tables....how do we change this perception?

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How do you know what it is like?
Seriously...what is your exposure?

I can't speak for the culture over there, they gamble for sure, but competition through tournaments and leagues seem to be the primary route for development. They have a few Acadamies like the SouthWest Snooker Centre, Star Snooker Academy and a few others that are designed to promote the Amateur game.

But traditionally the professional game has been very concerned about it's image, much like pool (specifically Brunswick I think) was in the early 20th century. Joe Davis more or less controlled pro snooker, even after his retirement. You could not become a professional and compete with the pros without his say so. As a result, reportedly many excellent players never really got a chance since they were seen as undesirable.

We still got Alex Higgins in 70's who was the antithesis of the image snooker had tried to present, but he put bums in seats. In the last 35 years as snooker has become more popular, they still try to present the game as family friendly entertainment. Players are kept on a tight leash with respect to comments and behaviour. Any illicit gambling comes with heavy consequences. Not necessarily gambling amongst each other in challenge matches (I can't comment on that), but betting on snooker, their own matches and throwing matches.

Alfie Burden just incurred a heavy fine for betting something 25,000 on snooker, including his own matches. He even bet on himself, so it's not as though he was deliberately throwing matches. In addition to the 2,500 he lost betting, he was also fined 5000 pounds. Ouch.

In short, Snooker has worked hard to foster a family friendly image and punishes players who damage that facade. Pool for better or worse has at times embraced it's gambling history.

ru4au2 said:

Why is it that snooker has a clean perception by the general public overseas and can generate prize money fitting of the talent...but is seems pool has a dirty perception...I am guessing there are snooker tables in pubs and people gamale on them as well....a lot of wealthy homes have pool tables....how do we change this perception?

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Let me tell you right now without a single doubt, the perception is the money. If golfers had no money and were forced into playing every month for 500 dollar pots they would be low life's in the public eye too, believe me. It's just that there's no money in pool. There is absolutely no difference whatsoever in class, intelligence or anything between pool and snooker, but snooker has money and the players are thereby incentivized to behave accordingly.

People, young and old, come home from playing snooker and golf and they see Selby or Mcllroy on the news and are motivated to go back and play some more. "I wanna be like them one day (they've got money and they're important). In pool, nobody is coming home saying that. Svb could win 10 us opens in a row and nobody would know his name. Nobody cares because there's no money, and they shouldn't care when there's no money is the truth.

Most if not all of the sponsorship money for snooker, darts and the Mosconi cup comes from paramutual betting businesses such as Betways and Dafabet.


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ru4au2 said:

Why is it that snooker has a clean perception by the general public overseas <snip>?

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Because it takes at least 43 strokes to play a frame.

"I say, Jeves, do the Yanks every pocket their chalk?"

When pool players learn not to chalk their cues over the table and not to place the chalk on the rail, THEN you can ask that question without your tongue in your cheek!

Dave

The perception that snooker is "cleaner" may be a false one.
I remember reading about a prominent snooker player, one who had been at the peak in the
'70s and '80s. His ex-wife had said that snooker players make pool players, and footballers, look like amateurs when it came to drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Women were always introducing themselves to her ex-husband at parties and tournaments, and he often would go missing for a few days until right before a tournament; he was not alone in this, she said most of them are (or were) that way.
It has been five or six months since I read this, if I remember who it was or where I read it, I will post.

Why Snooker has a better image than Pool?....ok...where to start?

Many people think of Snooker as an "European" game, but thats not really true. Actually Pool and 3-cushion are the traditional games here. Snooker started to spread 10-15 years ago with Eurosport broadcasting it on free TV and they introduced it as a ....british game.
This is important, because people have very positive associations with "british" things...bit posh, bit accurate, bit reserved...add some suits and ties and you create the fairy world of Snooker. People always bring up Alex Higgins and Jimmy White and the early Ronnie to point out, that Snooker isn`t hat shiny at all, but as I mentioned Snooker hasn`t been in the focus of the people outside the UK for that long and when the whole Snooker hype started, it was more about the game than the history or the backstories.
I thought the same till I played a PTC in Germany a few years ago and had the chance to talk to some of the guys and even though they are all very friendly and it was great fun to hang out with them, I realised, that the shiny image doesn`t really fit to them, because they don`t fit the stereotype of the british lord, but the stereotype of the average athlete. Being good in a sport, starting at a young age, not having the best education, being away from home most of the time, surrounded by the boys, money and a lot of time to discover the bars near the venue.
Still they all are very professional when it comes to the game itself. They know they all are part of this image and they need to maintain it if they want to earn money with their sport.


Pool is a totally different story. I was playing with one of the veterans in my club just a few days ago and I discussing the same topic with him and he had some interesting opinions on this.
With 3 cushion being the traditional and pure form of Billiardsport, Pool had to sneak in through the backdoor. Not through the backdoor of the Viennese coffehouse, where the gentlemen were playing their 3cushion, but the backdoor of these bars and dirty taverns where the said gentlemen wouldn`t have even set a foot in. Coming from America didn`t really help, because compared to the good associations people have with British stuff, well... let´s say the feelings about America are mixed.
That`s what you call a bad start I guess.

Anyway, Pool had his foot in the door and a bad image is better than no image at all I guess. But there was another issue that stopped the progress of the game significantly- coin operated tables. First of all it degraded Pool tables from sports equipment to an arcade machine. With the white ball being heavier than the other balls it made the game much less controlable and raising the element of luck. Second, it added even more gambling, since everybody had their wallets out anyway.
Still some people thought about Pool as a sport and had the desire to found clubs, play tournaments, get better equipment etc.. The catch behind that story is, that these people where the best local players most of the time. And why? Because they were the people hanging around in the bars, gambling, drinking...
So eventhough they wanted to bring Pool to the next level, bringing attention to it as a sport, they took the bad image with them.
In fact the public at large starts to take Pool seriously just right now....

jamnut said:

The perception that snooker is "cleaner" may be a false one.
I remember reading about a prominent snooker player, one who had been at the peak in the
'70s and '80s. His ex-wife had said that snooker players make pool players, and footballers, look like amateurs when it came to drinking, gambling, and womanizing. Women were always introducing themselves to her ex-husband at parties and tournaments, and he often would go missing for a few days until right before a tournament; he was not alone in this, she said most of them are (or were) that way.
It has been five or six months since I read this, if I remember who it was or where I read it, I will post.

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That sounds very much like Jimmy White...his autobiography is well worth a read if anyone gets the chance, it makes you realise how high profile snooker players were in the 1980's, hanging out with Ronnie Wood (from the Rolling Stones) etc...and Steve Davis (also worth reading his autobiography if you read Jimmy's, if only to see the contrasting lifestyles) was the highest paid British sports star back then...can you imagine that now???

All that said, snooker is now probably very different these days, there are random drug tests, very strict rules on betting and multi-million sponsorship deals, so the players have no choice but to stay in line (not to say that some don't slip up from time to time of course).