A List of the Greatest Pool Players of All-Time

jay helfert said:
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.
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Wow u saw Worst play in person ??
 
Not sure he was the Greatest, but the book about his like calling Red, "Cornbread Red: Pool's Greatest Money Player" was a wonderful read.

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Bob Jewett said:
I was told that Lassiter used to send the cue ball off the side rail back through the rack area to move the nine ball. I imagine he only did that if the nine wasn't moving. He may have known a thing or two about breaking that some are just now discovering.
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Thanks, Bob. While I saw Lassiter play numerous times, it was never in his prime.
 
Baby Huey said:
Sun - Don’t forget Parica. In his prime and when Varner, Buddy, Siegel and Efren all in their prime he was not an underdog for the money. He also was maybe the most clean living player of all time. No smoking, drinking or bad eating habits. He just had a great game of nine ball.
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And even today at age 76 he still plays pretty sporty.
 
sjm said:
Lassiter, who had a big break, came before Wade Crane, whose break was certainly no better than that of Johnny Archer. Johnny Irish, whose speed was well below that of Lassiter, had a well-known 12-pack vs Irving Crane in the 1950s, too. In truth, the players all the way up to 1995 had yet to figure out the break, but there were packages aplenty even before that. One reason is that the pockets were much looser, so the chance of navigating a difficult layout was greater for the straightest shooters. Remember, pockets tighter than 4 1/2" were not common until about 2018. Back in Lassiter's prime, they were usually 4 3/4".

Not sure where you are coming from here. I consider it believable. Varner and Hall revered Lassiter. I'll admit that my sweating pool only goes back to the late 1960's and if you were watching pool before me, I'll defer on how they broke the balls in the 1950s, but the statement that players back then couldn't break the balls effectively is not consistent with what I saw in the late 1960s.

If you'd like to argue that Feijen's 15-pack in 2003 (which was reported by AZB in case you were going to attack its credibility) on tighter equipment is a greater achievement than Lassiter's 21-pack in the 1950s on looser equipment, that's certainly within reason.
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I was quoting Incardona who said Crane had the best break of the players before Earl, if he excluded Lassiter from the old school shooters
that had a hard break, I would not know why he did...is there footage of Lassiter breaking?
 
hello said:
I was quoting Incardona who said Crane had the best break of the players before Earl, if he excluded Lassiter from the old school shooters
that had a hard break, I would not know why he did...is there footage of Lassiter breaking?
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Wade Crane had a huge break which I got to see up close. It's a safe bet that it was better than that of Lassiter, but there is almost no footage of any 9ball from the days before the 9ball era began, which is estimated at 1976. Our loss.
 
sjm said:
Wade Crane had a huge break which I got to see up close. It's a safe bet that it was better than that of Lassiter, but there is almost no footage of any 9ball from the days before the 9ball era began, which is estimated at 1976. Our loss.
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Are you referring to a younger Crane?The break he flaunts here is good but not great...

 
jay helfert said:
Interesting post. I knew both players quite well, gambling with and against Jack Cooney and backing Parica in tournaments and watching him play so many times. First the latter, Jose Parica was the dominant rotation player of his era without question. ALL deferred to him in 9-Ball or Ten Ball. After he crushed Earl at Ten Ball, no one ever tried playing Jose even at either game. Buddy conveniently avoided him. Jose was to put it simply a better player than all the rest of the game's greats at that time. Not Sigel, not Varner, not Archer, not anybody was a match for him. Jose shot straighter, never missing a ball for hours on end and his cue ball control was something to marvel at. I could just sit and watch him roll that cue ball all day long. Yes, better even than the great Efren!

As for Jack he was the greatest money player the game had ever seen, and it was not even close. That he was a stone cold hustler, there is no doubt. But the fact that he was so successful at it set him apart. When all the other top hustlers were looking for four figure scores, Jack was making high five figure and six figure wins, and doing it a few times every year. Underneath all his hustling was a great pool player, perhaps the second best One Pocket player after Ronnie Allen. Jack was way too smart to match up with the other big guns of One Pocket like Shorty, Taylor, Bugs and Ervolino. It would only kill his action and he knew it. He did play one $100,000 set with James Walden at DCC some years back. That was Jack's swan song in pool and he went out on top.

I saw Jack's real speed when he had to show it, and he could come with any shot under pressure. His 9-Ball game was also top speed and he hid that fact well. A few very good players found out that it was not a good idea to challenge Jack at 9-Ball for big money.
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JRB has been in the biggest $$$$$$$$ action for years, making fair games and taking the good and the bad.

Has anybody played for more?

How much time did you spend at Griffs?


I found an all new respect for JRB watching him I'm action and adjusting in his opponents direction very early in the match. Class act
 
jay helfert said:
Interesting post. I knew both players quite well, gambling with and against Jack Cooney and backing Parica in tournaments and watching him play so many times. First the latter, Jose Parica was the dominant rotation player of his era without question. ALL deferred to him in 9-Ball or Ten Ball. After he crushed Earl at Ten Ball, no one ever tried playing Jose even at either game. Buddy conveniently avoided him. Jose was to put it simply a better player than all the rest of the game's greats at that time. Not Sigel, not Varner, not Archer, not anybody was a match for him. Jose shot straighter, never missing a ball for hours on end and his cue ball control was something to marvel at. I could just sit and watch him roll that cue ball all day long. Yes, better even than the great Efren!

As for Jack he was the greatest money player the game had ever seen, and it was not even close. That he was a stone cold hustler, there is no doubt. But the fact that he was so successful at it set him apart. When all the other top hustlers were looking for four figure scores, Jack was making high five figure and six figure wins, and doing it a few times every year. Underneath all his hustling was a great pool player, perhaps the second best One Pocket player after Ronnie Allen. Jack was way too smart to match up with the other big guns of One Pocket like Shorty, Taylor, Bugs and Ervolino. It would only kill his action and he knew it. He did play one $100,000 set with James Walden at DCC some years back. That was Jack's swan song in pool and he went out on top.

I saw Jack's real speed when he had to show it, and he could come with any shot under pressure. His 9-Ball game was also top speed and he hid that fact well. A few very good players found out that it was not a good idea to challenge Jack at 9-Ball for big money.
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Walden is/was a huge fan favorite.
 
sjm said:
You did not read my post. I said, specifically, that I was not ranking them.
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Given his consecutive ball record, I'd probably have to throw Shaw in there somewhere.
 
hello said:
I was quoting Incardona who said Crane had the best break of the players before Earl, if he excluded Lassiter from the old school shooters
that had a hard break, I would not know why he did...is there footage of Lassiter breaking?
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There is no recent footage of Lassiter breaking hard in nine ball. Only the seniors in 1981 through 1983. However, even Irving Crane said Lassiter had the best break in his era.
 
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