Are the best pool players also the most intelligent?

[Matt90]

LMAO !! Seriously !!!

You gotta be kidding me , to even start a thread like this . There are highly intellegent and players who have trouble crossing the street at every level. Deal is there are so many different types of intellegence out there it's hard to say who really is intellegent and in what way ? Intellectually,emotionally, physically , and even spiritually.I have always had a gift for technical things , it comes natural to me to set down and fix a problem in a electronic circuit or about any mechanical issue.My pool talent comes and goes but I don't use that part of my brain as much as I do the troubleshooting skills I have . On the same tip I am not as financially intellegent as some of my friends but I do and can ask them for advice .Think about it , if Earl had of coupled himself with someone as good with money as he is at the table and invested his winnings over the years ??? Not busting on Earl , I'm just saying. Very few people are strong in more than two of those areas .I will leave with this story . It took me over an hour once to show one of the greatest baseball players of all time how to use a remote for his home theater.Did this make him slow ? NO !!! It made him a great baseball player and me a very patient tv technician . Oh, I forgot , Joey A. says I can't spell :rotflmao:

 

[Fatboy]

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[Fatboy]

I think an accurate description would be that great pool players..... are obsessive and wake up wanting to crush the opposition. Some of them are smarter than average, but the defining characteristic is a single minded desire for greatness bordering on personality disorder.

Wait, what was the question? Oh crap, I was talking about myself....description of a shortstop that is!

well said. very well said.

 

[Fatboy]

I will say that JA is one of the most determined people I have ever met. He has a will to win that is beyond my brains ability to compute. He is a "genious at gemoetry". That is what he has needed to be successful and led him to the HOF.

Now he is becoming a biz man, its taking him longer than it took me, but I still cant play like he does, duh?? We all have talent for something. The great players-Alex, JA, SVB, are in a different world and they keep their focus one one thing only-being the best. They have all told me that or I wouldnt have mentioned their names. When you focus that hard on something narrow as pool you dont become a rocket scient <----i cant even spell it right LOL.

So my point is no the greaat players arnt the sharpest guys because they stay focused on one thing pool. Now when pool is done and they get older then they get educated in other areas of life.

But this is kinda over generalizing, Corey Deuel is very smart on lots of topics. so its not how sharp they are as much as it is how they choose to spend their time. I think thats the right answer.

I have talked to the best of the best and they all knew within a few months or less they could play, I mean really play. I knew I couldnt. If I knew I could have played and had a chance to be a world champion-I guarantee you I wouldnt be half an smart/experienced as I am now because I would have used my time getting the most out of my talent. Thats the right ansewer.

 

[peteypooldude]

Most of the top players that I know are not considered intelligent,
But they are good with numbers. Mainly counting money won
from intelligent people with jobs. I do think the word INTELLIGENT
covers a wider range of people than some think. It comes in
many forms other than typing or spelling ability

 

[Fatboy]

I will say that JA is one of the most determined people I have ever met. He has a will to win that is beyond my brains ability to compute. He is a "genious at gemoetry". That is what he has needed to be successful and led him to the HOF.

Now he is becoming a biz man, its taking him longer than it took me, but I still cant play like he does, duh?? We all have talent for something. The great players-Alex, JA, SVB, are in a different world and they keep their focus one one thing only-being the best. They have all told me that or I wouldnt have mentioned their names. When you focus that hard on something narrow as pool you dont become a rocket scient <----i cant even spell it right LOL.

So my point is no the greaat players arnt the sharpest guys because they stay focused on one thing pool. Now when pool is done and they get older then they get educated in other areas of life.

But this is kinda over generalizing, Corey Deuel is very smart on lots of topics. so its not how sharp they are as much as it is how they choose to spend their time. I think thats the right answer.

I have talked to the best of the best and they all knew within a few months or less they could play, I mean really play. I knew I couldnt. If I knew I could have played and had a chance to be a world champion-I guarantee you I wouldnt be half an smart/experienced as I am now because I would have used my time getting the most out of my talent. Thats the right ansewer.

Just to verify this I called JA and read it to him, he said "oh shit yes, thats exactly right." I dont talk much pool with him, but I wanted to get this right,

 

[peteypooldude]

Just to verify this I called JA and read it to him, he said "oh shit yes, thats exactly right." I dont talk much pool with him, but I wanted to get this right,

I too think you hit the nail on the head
Good post Fatboy

 

[mr5994]

Seriously? Look at Phil Mickelson vs Dustin Johnson. Dustin is CLEARLY the superior athlete, yet Phil places higher on a consistent basis. Tom Watson, at age 59, placed 2nd in the British Open in 2009. Athletic ability?

OK, maybe athletic ability was the wrong term. Guys like Phil Mickelson and Tom Watson have the god-given ability to hit a golf ball - a combination of athleticism, hand eye coordination, motor control etc.

 

[mr5994]

As a player of both games, I am intrigued by the inner game in pool, but golf is MUCH more demanding, physically and mentally, when played at the highest level. I'm on a quest to break into the 70s, and that is taking years, and incredible mental discipline. You MUST make the right decision, from shot to shot, in golf. Pool doesn't punish you the same way for mistakes.

I think you are forgetting the topic of the thread. Mental discipline is not the same thing as intelligence. Do you fell you could break into the 70's if you were more intelligent?

 

[Shawn Armstrong]

I think you are forgetting the topic of the thread. Mental discipline is not the same thing as intelligence. Do you fell you could break into the 70's if you were more intelligent?

Here was your original statement:

Seems like pool takes more intelligence than other single player sports like bowling, darts, golf, etc. The process of visualizing a runout or contemplating options at the table requires some intelligence.

You're the one that put pool players on a pedestal above bowlers, golfers, etc.. Mental toughness is mental toughness. It's the same, but different. To say that pool takes more intelligence than a sport like golf is absolutely ludicrous.

It's like saying Earl Strickland is more intelligent than Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. MJ and Tiger are worth over $1B each. Earl will never have 1/10th of that. Nay, 1/100th of that. So, who's more intelligent? The pool player chasing the $10k payday, or the golfer chasing the $1M payday?

 

[Bob Callahan]

... ... ...

 

[Patrick Johnson]

book collector:
2 good pool players can last on the road for 3 to 5 months with an 11 dollar bankroll and a cardboard sign.

Hey, I see those two guys every morning on my way to work - but they're in the road. Probably hustlin' up a stake for that big match every evening...

pj
chgo

 

[SKJoss72]

I have been measured to have a high IQ and I suck at pool so I'd say no....

 

[david(tx)]

Maybe I'm flattering myself, or maybe not. But it seems to me that the best pool players I've known have shown more intellect than natural athletic ability. Those two combined, of course, make for a champion (along with discipline).

But getting back to my point, seems to me that the best players I've known were also shrewd debaters of any subject that involved odds or math problems. Or how to separate some tuna from his bankroll.

Even here at AZB, the members I'd guess are the best players also impress me as the most knowledgeable in their posts -- articulate in grammar and punctuation, history and tradition.

But like I said, maybe I'm flattering myself. Your thoughts?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rote



rote
1    /roʊt/ Show Spelled[roht] Show IPA
–noun
1.
routine; a fixed, habitual, or mechanical course of procedure: the rote of daily living.
—Idiom
2.
by rote, from memory, without thought of the meaning; in a mechanical way: to learn a language by rote.
Use rote in a Sentence
See images of rote
Search rote on the Web
Origin:
1275–1325; ME; of obscure orig.

 

[mr5994]

You're the one that put pool players on a pedestal above bowlers, golfers, etc.. Mental toughness is mental toughness. It's the same, but different. To say that pool takes more intelligence than a sport like golf is absolutely ludicrous.

It's like saying Earl Strickland is more intelligent than Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. MJ and Tiger are worth over $1B each. Earl will never have 1/10th of that. Nay, 1/100th of that. So, who's more intelligent? The pool player chasing the $10k payday, or the golfer chasing the $1M payday?

I didn't put anyone on a pedestal, my comment was that intelligence likely plays a larger role in success for pool than for many other sports. Chess takes intelligence....agree? Pool, in my opinion, is the sport that most closely resembles chess. With pool you need to plan many steps ahead, you need back-up plans, you need to know when to go with offensive vs. defensive strategies. There is no doubt that intelligence comes into play here.

Mental Toughness is the ability to perform under pressure it has nothing to do with intelligence.

 

[david(tx)]

Everything you do and everything you are has its basis in your brain. Intelligence, by the broadest definition, means effectiveness in the working of the brain. Therefore, anyone who does ANYTHING well is expressing "intelligence."

By that criteria, I agree with JoeW: If one's brain works well, and the machinery is well integrated, then "intelligence" is expressed in most everything that brain does.

For those interested, here is a link to a nice article about the scientist Albert Michelson--whose name is well known from the Michaelson-Morely experiment which prompted Einstein's ideas about relativity. Turns out he was a heck of a billiards player.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruđer_Bošković




His atomic theory, given as a clear, precisely-formulated system utilizing principles of Newtonian mechanics inspired Michael Faraday to develop field theory for electromagnetic interaction. Other nineteenth century physicists, such as William Rowan Hamilton, Lord Kelvin, and the elasticity theorist Saint Vernant stressed the theoretical advantages of the Boškovićian atom over rigid atoms.[8][9] Some even claim that Boškovićian atomism was a basis for Albert Einstein's attempts for a unified field theory[4] and that he was the first to envisage, seek, and propose a mathematical theory of all the forces of Nature; the first scientific theory of everything.[10]

The scientist Nikola Tesla, a critic of Einstein, claimed in an unpublished interview that Einstein's theory of Relativity was the creation of Bošković:
“ ...the relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious countryman Ruđer Bošković, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of excellent literature on a vast variety of subjects. Bošković dealt with relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum ...'.[11] ”

For his contributions to astronomy, the lunar crater Boscovich was named after him.

The largest multidisciplinary research center in Croatia was named the "Ruđer Bošković Institute" in his honour.

 

[david(tx)]

Maybe I'm flattering myself, or maybe not. But it seems to me that the best pool players I've known have shown more intellect than natural athletic ability. Those two combined, of course, make for a champion (along with discipline).

But getting back to my point, seems to me that the best players I've known were also shrewd debaters of any subject that involved odds or math problems. Or how to separate some tuna from his bankroll.

Even here at AZB, the members I'd guess are the best players also impress me as the most knowledgeable in their posts -- articulate in grammar and punctuation, history and tradition.

But like I said, maybe I'm flattering myself. Your thoughts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

A comment by one intelligent person about another , and in this comment a secondary comment on compulsiveness that causes a person to be successful in a particular discipline.



Tesla remained bitter in the aftermath of his dispute with Edison. The day after Edison died the New York Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla, who was quoted as saying:

He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene ... His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense.[9

 

[AtLarge]

Hey, I see those two guys every morning on my way to work ...

You work??? Where? I want to report you for time theft. Let's see -- over 8,400 posts in 42 months ...

 

[Spider1]

It's like saying Earl Strickland is more intelligent than Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. MJ and Tiger are worth over $1B each. Earl will never have 1/10th of that. Nay, 1/100th of that. So, who's more intelligent? The pool player chasing the $10k payday, or the golfer chasing the $1M payday?

So intelligence is indicated by income? Good to know.

 

[Matt_24]

I would say that the best players ARE intelligent. The "most" intelligent? No. You can't get to that level on intelligence alone.