Meh...
He had his chance. Give it to someone else, someone who would consider it a privilege.
It's not like it'll make any difference anyway.
Dechaine just chopped up Busty, but he's not even considered for MC.
- Thread starter iusedtoberich
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Meh...
He had his chance. Give it to someone else, someone who would consider it a privilege.
It's not like it'll make any difference anyway.
Racking/gaps, is simply knowledge. Has 0 to do with physical skill. You could teach it to a 10 yr old. I'm a huge SVB fan, but does he have more physical ability than Buddy in his prime, or simply more knowledge??
Someone mentioned football players, lol, really? I guess Dennis O must be a fluke, because he should be 6'5" and pushing 320lbs to stand a chance against today's top players, who have genetically outpaced him, and can all bench 375, and run the 100 in 4 sec :grin:
Today's equipment, who cares imo. In your opinion, your saying Buddy, Lassiter, Mosconi, couldn't adapt to today's tables?? Laughable at best.
So your scenario only works for the first week or so. After the old guys adapt to the table, learn about the rack, and this new ****ed off gizmo, called a template, we're right back at even.
So if you wanna compare em, at least give me a logical argument...
And I'm pretty sure Harold Worst could give Shaw all he wanted. That is unless being alive in 60's , meant you hadn't yet acquired evolutions newest gene, which allows you to adapt to tables, and learn racking secrets, like today's players.
Any comment on Mr. Dechaine?
Well there is the issue, can't bring people from the past to the future and vice versa so everything is guessing. There are 10,000 people for and 10,000 people against, with no way to prove anything or even have a good comparison. Max number of racks run, equipment is different. Most titles won? Playing against who? I can tell you that I have seen modern players make shots that I never have seen in the older AccuStats videos, especially considering some of the shots done on 4.5" and smaller pockets.
Lots of conversation with no results. No one will be changed to the other side, welcome to religion and politics. Once you have your way set, no amount of debate is likely to change things.
Plus there was the comment from a player that actually played in the 80s and 90s at top form, wish I could remember who but it was someone at the status of Archer, Buddy and such. May have been Nick Varner.
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Danny DiLiberto has addressed this subject a number of times. His opinion is that the top players of yesterday and the top players of today are pretty much equally skilled but that more such top players exist today. That sounds reasonable to me.
Yes I heard Danny talk about that, but I think it was someone aside from him. I still think if you took the top 5 current rated players (say out of Fargo) and had them do a round robin of 9 ball, 8 ball and straight pool for a week vs the top 5 players of any other decade, the modern top 5 would win. Maybe the modern players would need to have a few months of straight pool practice and lessons before the match since it's likely they would be behind old timers in that game knowledge.
And if you did the women players, the current Euro and Asian women players are so far ahead of anything before the 2000s would not even be a comparison.
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" Great players, of ANY era, would have adapted to whatever equipment was used. You think that Bobby Jones wouldn't have kicked ass today with modern golf equipment? Would Rod Laver have adapted and probably dominated with today's goofy-ass big rackets? Of course he would. I just don't get the thought process that arrives with "Those older era players would have gotten their asses handed to them by today's players". Its ridiculous. "
The above words are exactly what came out of your mouth. You used other examples other than pool insinuating that other sports fall under your reasoning. So I'm going to assume that your statement about older era players only apply to certain sports, right?
Next time, be more specific.
Maniac
Efren Reyes is currently 783 on fargo at 64 years old.
Bustamante is 784 at 55 years old
Strickland 775 at 57 years old
Archer 772 at 49 years old.
I am fairly certain all of their ratings were higher several years ago. I know Efren was 790+ in his early sixties. I do not think it is a stretch to say they would have been at least 800 rated players 20 years ago. We all know player's games decline as they get older. By comparison, guys like Hall, Mizerak, Sigel, Varner, Davenport played close to even with them 20 years ago.
A few months is a two-way street...the old timers, in their prime, get to practise in modern
conditions also.
My take on it is an individual sport is much different than a team sport. Are bowlers significantly better today? Darts? Tennis? Etc.
There have been some advances in equipment but the most highly skilled players would still be the best.
Well, only if you are opposed to facts. Facts don't lie.
1. As a species, our hand eye coordination is no better than the 60's, or anytime previous. (No athlete has ever surpassed Babe Ruth's hand eye coordination imo).
2. Our brains are no more skilled today than the 60's. (Einstein is still holding his own, as is Galileo, DaVinci, and Socrates).
3. These are the only 2 points that can be argued in regards to players of the past. Everything else is semantics. Period, end of story.
Your scenario says players of the past couldn't get there today, yet everything you base your opinion on, is simply some form of acquired knowledge, not skill. Your opinion also says players of the past, don't posses the mental faculties, to acquire knowledge or learn new things. (Wonder how they learned in the first place. My opinion is based on physical skill, which is what we are arguing about. You and all your ilk, argue knowledge, then deflect and call it skill
So are today's players more knowledgeable, yes, skilled, show me how.
Lassiter, Buddy, Etc...had it, end of story. They rose as high as was possible during THEIR time, with what was available, at the time. Were they alive today, they would do it again. They are the .0001% of the world, that would stand at the top, no matter what time, age or conditions.
Look up the Flynn Effect: people are definitely smarter today, even in just a few decades. Most IQ tests involve some hand-eye coordination tests, and with the amount of video-game playing, I would bet a lot of money that hand-eye coordination is higher today, but I don’t know of any proof of that like there is for intelligence. Combine that with the fact that people 50 years ago were just swimming in a neurotoxin (lead), and you have clearly superior brains and intelligence today, despite us wanting them off our lawn.
(That’s not the most important reason that people improve in things like pool anyway...)
Like many -- De420MadHatter just doesn't get how progress works.
Nobody doubts that if Earl, Buddy, Varner, or any of them in their primes were transported to today that they would certainly still be great players and probably even rise to the top. However, they would be BETTER than their historically accurate selves. That's just how things work. The bar is constantly being raised ever so slightly over time provided there's an equal amount of participation (or greater).
I just heard today that there was a marathoner that averaged around 4:25 minute miles for the whole thing. That's just crazy. Something happens within all of us when we see things that we previously thought were impossible and the bar just keeps getting raised. The exceptional becomes the norm.
Nobody doubts that if Earl, Buddy, Varner, or any of them in their primes were transported to today that they would certainly still be great players and probably even rise to the top. However, they would be BETTER than their historically accurate selves. That's just how things work. The bar is constantly being raised ever so slightly over time provided there's an equal amount of participation (or greater).
I just heard today that there was a marathoner that averaged around 4:25 minute miles for the whole thing. That's just crazy. Something happens within all of us when we see things that we previously thought were impossible and the bar just keeps getting raised. The exceptional becomes the norm.
[sarcasm mode on]Wow, yep, I can see a lot of that in the world today. Politicians are a great example of people becoming smarter every day. [/sarcasm mode off]
BTW, the Flynn effect is one of those many theories which can be debated all day long. I remember many great theories that were accepted over times and have now been debunked, entirely. It is always nice to believe you are now living in the smartest generation, the most powerful athletes are living in our times, the best writers, singers and actors and what not. This BS theory was supported by every single generation - even the people in Hitler's Germany believed that. History will tell how really dumb we were approaching 2020.
Here is something someone posted on AZB a while ago - way better than the unsupported assumptions in this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8COaMKbNrX0
It is a discussion about the evolution of sports. The narrator has put some real arguments behind his own findings.
That was a good link, thanks! I read Epsteins book "The Sports Gene". This video was a great summary.
To think that we as humans are better today than 50 years ago, 500 years ago, or even 50,000 years ago, is ridiculous. The improvements in modern sports are due to a specialization in that sport, pre-selection of the best people in the "entire" world for that sport, equipment improvements, and performance enhancing drugs.
Wow. Well put.Well, only if you are opposed to facts. Facts don't lie.
1. As a species, our hand eye coordination is no better than the 60's, or anytime previous. (No athlete has ever surpassed Babe Ruth's hand eye coordination imo).
2. Our brains are no more skilled today than the 60's. (Einstein is still holding his own, as is Galileo, DaVinci, and Socrates).
3. These are the only 2 points that can be argued in regards to players of the past. Everything else is semantics. Period, end of story.
Your scenario says players of the past couldn't get there today, yet everything you base your opinion on, is simply some form of acquired knowledge, not skill. Your opinion also says players of the past, don't posses the mental faculties, to acquire knowledge or learn new things. (Wonder how they learned in the first place. My opinion is based on physical skill, which is what we are arguing about. You and all your ilk, argue knowledge, then deflect and call it skill
So are today's players more knowledgeable, yes, skilled, show me how.
Lassiter, Buddy, Etc...had it, end of story. They rose as high as was possible during THEIR time, with what was available, at the time. Were they alive today, they would do it again. They are the .0001% of the world, that would stand at the top, no matter what time, age or conditions.
This thread has become far too intellectual for a bunch of pool players. Can we please get back to making fun of the size of someone's head or talking about how old and washed up one of the greatest players in the world is now? Or how about a good gambling with air barrels story. Let's liven this back up ASAP.
Exactly. I was lucky to see Buddy play a lot during his prime. Not only was he the best 9ball player but he also banked, played one-pocket and yes even 14.1 at world-class levels. And he played at this level for over 30yrs. The current crop is awesome for sure but to say that pool has made some quantum leap isn't true. In 40yrs the single biggest change that i've seen is the adoption of fast worsted-wool cloth. All the greats from Greenleaf onward would have adjusted to the switch.
OK. Let's prove that people did not get any smarter. And let's start again with Dechaine
The Flynn Effect is not a theory, it’s a fact that IQ scores have been rising. The causes of it are debated, not the fact.
Maybe there is a bias to think we’re the best today, but the bias that I see is thinking things were better in the past than they are today. In fact, crime is about half what it was compared to 50 years ago, teen pregnancy is way down, drug use is down, smoking is down, and on and on. And yet many people believe those things are worse and not better.
It’s also a fact n sports that, whenever there are objective measures like times, we see improvement. The only time there’s any debate is when there aren’t objective measures.