Snooker vs Pool players - More fuel for the fire

if you think about all this,,,it comes down to snooker players pocketing better. well,,,,,,,,,,,,,,that is negated when they play on big pool pockets. on THOSE tables,,,ALL the pros pocket great.

All the elite pool players rarely miss on a pool table anyways. From what I've seen from Mark Williams, Steve Davis, and other snooker players is that they tend to miss more on the pool table than they do on the snooker table. I think it has to do with the fact that they probably aren't as comfortable with applying english on pool balls. Pocketing skills aren't as important on a pool table, so the fact that snooker players might have a pocketing advantage is negated somewhat.

I play both snooker and pool, and to tell you the truth, after playing snooker for a while, I find myself back at a pool table thinking to myself "damn these pockets are so huge, I can't possibly miss!!" But it's never that easy. I know that when I play snooker, I don't go anywhere near the kind of 'juice' I put on a ball when playing pool, so based on my own personal experience, although I think that snooker players have greater pocketing skills, snooker players are just not familiar with putting the kind of juice on the ball that pool players do. Also, another observation. There are certain angles, and ball on rail shots that are second nature types of shots in pool, but are considered very low percentage shots on a snooker table. I think that most snooker players would cringe at the idea of a table length shot where both the CB and OB are on the same rail, but in pool, this would be almost a given for higher level players.
JMHO
dave

Bottom line:
Snooker player playing for the first time on 9 foot tables: No problem.He can pocket the ball blind folded
Pool player playing for the first time on 12 foot snooker tables: After every shot he will be looking around to see whether anybody is watching him missing by 9 inches from the pocket
Cue Ball contorl: what do u think snooker game is?They have to have better control of cue on such a fast table.
Snooker guys prevail.
vagabond

vagabond said:

Bottom line:
Snooker player playing for the first time on 9 foot tables: No problem.He can pocket the ball blind folded
Pool player playing for the first time on 12 foot snooker tables: After every shot he will be looking around to see whether anybody is watching him missing by 9 inches from the pocket
Cue Ball contorl: what do u think snooker game is?They have to have better control of cue on such a fast table.
Snooker guys prevail.
vagabond

Click to expand...

I don't think your post resembles any of the remarks in the first three posts. Why do you think that is?

I think you need to re-evaluate your bottom line. I have entirely too much footage of snooker players missing easy shots playing pool. The reasons have been spelled out quite clearly in every post above yours.

Fred

Another note ...

That hasn't been brought up is that sometimes Pool players
do slide in shots on a Pool table because of what they have
to do with the cue ball, i.e. extreme angle on object ball and
have to hold/kill cue ball movement. I do this on bar tables
all the time when cue ball control is critical for the next
object ball, depending on how they are laying, of course.
Sometimes, it happens by accident, but I don't tell anyone ... lol

Obviously I haven't played the worlds best, but I haven't lost a game of 9-ball to a snooker player yet. Boldly stating that 'Snooker players prevail' is pretty far fetched. I think that it may be easier for a snooker player to adapt to pool than it would be for a pool player to try to play snooker. But while playing pool, the pool players will prevail, and while playing snooker, the snooker players will prevail. There are also several players that can play both on the pro level.

Lets look at it another way.

If a top snooker player (lets think of 6 times world champ, Steve Davis) grew up playing 9ball and not snooker, then how much better would he be, than he is?
IMO I would think that he has the talent to have won at least one WC, and would almost certainly be one of the best players in the world.

If my reasoning is correct then growing up playing snooker must be somewhat detrimental to being a great pool player.

And even if he dedicated himself to pool from now on, would he ever get as good as he would have been, playing from birth.
I doubt it.

Maybe someone younger can, but maybe not!

I think the one thing most people on this and the other snooker vs pool threads are missing is the size of the balls. If anyone actually has alot of experiance moving about from different tables between bar box pool, 9-foot pool, 2 shot 8-ball pool, and snooker they would notice the biggest problem adjusting from each game is not the size of the pockets, it is the size of the balls going from 2 1/8 to 2 1/4 which is a huge difference in the feel of every shot on the table. This is the main reason you see snooker players miss more shots on a pool table then you think they should.

Aiming is not honestly harder on a table with snooker cut pockets. The pockets are smaller and cut round so there is no horn, this take adjustement in the way you aim. I went to Australia and found out fast that the old boston cut 9-ball tables I was so used to were virtually non-existent and instead I was left with 2-shot 8-ball tables, 3 1/2 X 7 but with tight snooker cut pockets. I sucked at the start shooting on those. A month later I was in a league and beating everyone on my team for cash. Some of the top people in the city of 1 million people and I could go with any of them, putting 3 and 4 packs out there on those tight pocket tables shooting with a 12 1/4 9-ball cue despite the 2 1/8th balls. I am a pool player first, but I adjusted to the tighter snooker cut pockets and still took my place at near the top of the pack in that game.

Now I have played a fair bit of snooker as well. I am by no means great, but I have a 56 high run on a tight 6 X 12 and countless 30-45 runs. I have a friend who played in the Alberta snooker championships against Tom Finstad and in the race to 7 Tom had 4 centuries and my buddy had 2. My buddy has also played a ton of 9-ball and is very good, he is not the best in the city though despite being by far the best snooker player in Calgary. Tom Finstad has played in the SML event and despite being a pretty near pro level snooker player (I think he is the current Canadian champ actually) he gets drilled. The game is totally different due to the size of the balls.

Going from a pool table to a snooker table is harder because pool players get the routine and feel of playing balls off the horns of the pocket to make a pot. On anything 2 feet or closer to the rails a pool player aims at the horn, not the pocket, because if you hit the closer tit it is going to bobble. On a snooker table you cannot do that because the horns are rounded, you need to actually aim at the pocket, and this is what makes alot of pool players miss. They shoot it like they shoot pool, and you CANNOT do that. Going from a snooker table to a pool table does not quitet give the same problem, you dont miss if you play a pool shot like snooker and hit the heart of the pocket. What burns them though is the size of the pool balls. After playing 2 shot 8-ball for a couple hours and then trying to play on the rare 9-ball table i could find it was amazing how you actually miss shots you would make on the tight snooker cut pockets, the aiming is all wonky due to the larger balls and it normally took me a good 15 minutes to get the feel back for shooting real pool. This is me, a person who has played alot more 9-ball on 9-foots then anything else. The difficulty for a true snooker player who never plays on those 9-foots with the larger balls though, they will miss shots that will shock you due to those larger balls and the unfamiliar angles they produce.

It is not something that you can explain that well. I think alot of people on these threads do not have alot of experiance on both tables to realize the true problems. They seem to me more like the person who once shot for a couple hours on a snooker table, bobbled all the shots because they never adjusted to the table and the true way to aim, and then they decided snooker players were gods and never played snooker again. If you actually have played alot on those tables, snooker or 2 shot 8-ball, you can get the hang of those tables ral fast if you know what you are doing and I was running alot of racks on suposedly tight pockets and at the same level of play relative to the other players within 2 months of playing that game.

Celtic said:

The difficulty for a true snooker player who never plays on those 9-foots with the larger balls though, they will miss shots that will shock you due to those larger balls and the unfamiliar angles they produce.

It is not something that you can explain that well. I think alot of people on these threads do not have alot of experiance on both tables to realize the true problems. .

Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel about it.

Celtic said:

They seem to me more like the person who once shot for a couple hours on a snooker table, bobbled all the shots because they never adjusted to the table and the true way to aim, and then they decided snooker players were gods

Click to expand...

And vice versa where there are some people who shoot very little on a pool table, see how easy it is to make balls because the pockets are so big, and don't have a full scope of what makes the game difficult, but post on their limited knowledge.

Because in pool, the balls are easier to pot, I think many people (pool players and snooker players) have no idea how poorly or well they're actually shooting.

Fred

Fred Agnir said:

This is exactly how I feel about it.

And vice versa where there are some people who shoot very little on a pool table, see how easy it is to make balls because the pockets are so big, and don't have a full scope of what makes the game difficult, but post on their limited knowledge.

Click to expand...

Spot on Fred.

The more limited the knowledge the more they go on!

So far I have yet to hear of ONE player who played both Pro snooker AND pro level pool that has said pool is more difficult to play than snooker? I would be interested to know the thoughts of Pro's who have played both at a high level? Personally even the Pro pool players I have spoken to seem to realize how much more difficult snooker is. If you can't pot balls it doesn't matter what English you can put on the cue ball!

But anyway from what I can tell it seems like we all kind of agreed that it would be easier for a snooker player to convert to pool than visa versa in the other thread.

As for the snooker player missing pots, Im not sure where this comes from. I don't know any pool or snooker player ever that hasn't agred that playing on a snooker table shortly before playing 9 ball helps your game? For example John Wimms the Irishman that was on the road with me and recenly moved to Australia recently won the Oceana 9 Ball Chmapionships. This means he gets a spot in next years WPC and the Challenge of Champions. Guess what, he practised snooker for a month before going to NZ.

Oh and I think Raj was also a snooker player before he took up 9 ball, he told me he had his first 100 break at 13 years old.

TheOne said:

So far I have yet to hear of ONE player who played both Pro snooker AND pro level pool that has said pool is more difficult to play than snooker?

Click to expand...

So far I have yet to hear of ONE person who is a dentist and environmentalist say that more CO2 in the environment improves cavity prevention?

I know a Doctor who smokes!

Snooker player's use a differnt type cue, to try and use that cue to play say 9 ball is going to be a disaster... The main problem is in my eyes is the equipment, if a snooker player can pick up a pool cue and shoot well with it, with time and practice they can become a good 9 ball player.. Its a lil easier on a snooker player to play eightball, they have a variety of shots they can choose from whitch slightly relates to snooker... and you may possibly get away with using your snooker cue, if the snooker player spends time learning to break...


CAN IT BE DONE? YES

Will it? Maybe....... I would look forward to the other players kicking it up a notch on him though, it would be a shame if he went down and out, whitch is highly possible..



2wld4u

I always found coming from snooker (and bar box uk pool) to American pool it was using side that caused me the major problems. i just find in snooker and uk pool potting accuracy far outweighed the need for tip accuracy.
i find in 9 ball the tiniest smidge i'm out from centre ball kills the shot, they feel much more sensitive than those piddly little snooker balls

Celtic said:

So far I have yet to hear of ONE person who is a dentist and environmentalist say that more CO2 in the environment improves cavity prevention?

Click to expand...

LOL!

But there seem to be a lot of part time Dentists and no-time tree huggers on here who swear its true!

i find in 9 ball the tiniest smidge i'm out from centre ball kills the shot, they feel much more sensitive than those piddly little snooker balls

Click to expand...

[/QUOTE]


I feel just the opposite, take this shot for example...START(
%Ak5T1%Ck7V3%Pi8W3%eC4a4

)END
(level cue and shooting straight at the one w/right hand spin& pocket speed. three is blocking the cut shot)

I was trying to show a inexperienced player the finer points of throwing a ball on the snooker table and was unable to keep the cue ball from cutting the 1 ball to the right instead of throwing it to the left(due to a crazy amount of deflection). had to move over to the pool table to prove that I was not full of #@%* those snooker balls do funny things....