A List of the Greatest Pool Players of All-Time

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Thomas Martin

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I would be very glad to see another list of the greatest pool players of all-time. There was one a long time ago, maybe about 20 years ago. Also, it might have been in the Billiards Digest. There was a list of about 100 players ranked in order of the best to the worst. Some of the ranking order was: 1. Willie Mosconi, 2. Ralph Greenleaf, 3. Alfred De Oro, 4. Mike Sigel, 5. not sure, 6. Steve Mizerak, etc. to 100.

I believe having an updated list developed by some of the most knowledgable people in pool would be very interesting. They could be from the BCA, BCA Hall of Fame, WPA, the Billiards Digest, Pool and Billiard Magazine, and others. Would Willie Mosconi still be the greatest pool player of all-time? Who would be the greatest all-around player of all-time?
 
Many people who dig deep into the actual historic results and historic word of mouth testimonials rank Harold Worst as perhaps the greatest pool TALENT of all time . This is just conjecture but it is out there and has been for over 50 years. Based on what I have listened to by eye witnesses- I don’t doubt it!
 
Thomas Martin said:
I would be very glad to see another list of the greatest pool players of all-time. There was one a long time ago, maybe about 20 years ago. Also, it might have been in the Billiards Digest. There was a list of about 100 players ranked in order of the best to the worst. Some of the ranking order was: 1. Willie Mosconi, 2. Ralph Greenleaf, 3. Alfred De Oro, 4. Mike Sigel, 5. not sure, 6. Steve Mizerak, etc. to 100.

I believe having an updated list developed by some of the most knowledgable people in pool would be very interesting. They could be from the BCA, BCA Hall of Fame, WPA, the Billiards Digest, Pool and Billiard Magazine, and others. Would Willie Mosconi still be the greatest pool player of all-time? Who would be the greatest all-around player of all-time?
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The Billiard Digest had a three or four part series in consecutive issues on this subject - I own it somewhere in my storage unit- it was done very well!
 
Of the earlier era Greenleaf was considered the best ever by his peers, over Mosconi who was second. In the modern era Harold Worst was the greatest player I ever saw, then there are a whole slew of seconds starting with Efren and Parica. Sigel, Strickland, Hall and Mizerak are right there as well. We can make it my top ten all time by adding Caras and Crane to the early generation list. Oops, looks like it was eleven players on my list. Wouldn't leave any one of them out though.
 
Without ranking them, my ten (like Jay, I had eleven players in my top ten):

Mosconi
Greenleaf
Sigel
Mizerak
Lassiter
Filler
Van Boening
Reyes
Strickland
Pagulayan
Souquet

For me, greatness is measured in titles, and some of those I omitted were awesome players whose resumes do not nearly stack up to that of these listed. Of course, if we include carom, Worst might come out number one on the list, but this is the main forum, not the carom forum, but the argument for inclusion would be clear.
 
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sjm said:
Without ranking them, my ten (like Jay, I had eleven players in my top ten):

Mosconi
Greenleaf
Sigel
Mizerak
Lassiter
Filler
Van Boening
Reyes
Strickland
Pagulayan
Souquet

For me, greatness is measured in titles, and some of those I omitted were awesome players whose resumes do not nearly stack up to that of these ten. Of course, if we include carom, Worst might come out number one on the list, but this is the main forum, not the carom forum, but the argument for inclusion
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If we count carom and titles Blomdahl would be up there... If i remember right, he won world cup of 3c cushion 45 times and 7 times world champs...
 
I'd have to have Harold Worst atop the list because of his total cue sports skills namely snooker, 3C and pool. Greenleaf second for the same reasons and the rest too tough to round out the field.
 
Baby Huey said:
I'd have to have Harold Worst atop the list because of his total cue sports skills namely snooker, 3C and pool. Greenleaf second for the same reasons and the rest too tough to round out the field.
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Read the thread title. It asks for the list of the greatest pool players, not carom players or snooker players.
 
sjm said:
How about spot shot Kenny? He showed the world how to make a spot shot 50 times in a row.
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Actually 1250 spot shots, spot to spot. I don't think I've seen a report on whether he could play pool, though.
 
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Thomas Martin said:
I would be very glad to see another list of the greatest pool players of all-time.
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This is hard precisely because we have no recorded history of 17th century pool/billiards.

It is also hard because there are 4×10**9 years left before our sun burns out.

Many of the more ancient players did not play in tournaments but went from city to city giving pool its seedy nature.
 
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