Currently, who are the top 5 cueists in the world?

justinb386 said:
I really liked your post. Very interesting. The OP stated the best all around cueist though, right? Does that not mean the players who play all of the different games the best? Yeah, the guys you mentioned are some of the best snooker players ever, but how good is their rotation game, Bank pool game, or 1 pocket game? They may lose to any of the great pool players of today, if playing any of the pool games. And how would they do against the Carom players, playing 3 cushion billiards? Was the OP's question, the best snookers players ever, or the best all around players ever? I am confused.
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To be good at some of those games such as 14-1 or 9ball doesn't necessarily require the very highest level of cueing. Instead they require a certain standard of cueing and a lot of knowledge. The pockets, cloths and table conditions on pool tables for example allow for a much wider degree of inaccuracy when cueing the ball. Therefore, knowledge, experience and shot selection are the main keys to excelling in these types of games, not necessarily perfect cueing.

In light of this snooker requires higher accuracy, cue power and timing in comparison to all of the other games. Accordingly, the top snooker players must be listed as the best cueists because they are playing a harder sport which relies heavily on having a perfect cueing action..

It is similar to asking who is a better boxer, a professional boxer or an mixed martial arts fighter? Boxing is not the primary weapon for an MMA fighter where it is for a boxer. Thus, boxers will will be better boxers :-) Accordingly, the question should be who is the best boxer in MMA?

In saying this, perfect cueing is the main weapon of a snooker player whereas it is not for pool games. At the end of the day the question has to be asked who is the best cueist at each discipline because the snooker players are miles in front when it come down to being a 'cueist'.
 
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O'SulliReyes said:
Without a doubt the top 5 cueists today would all be snooker players. If you compare the cue actions of pool players vs snooker players over the years you would see a more noticeable evolution in the technique of the latter. The emergence of Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry in the 80s and 90s respectively ushered in a new school of thought with regards to proper cueing, and fast forward to now most snooker players have modeled their game after these two. In contrast, you can still see a wide spectrum of cue actions amongst pool players even today. Heck, the fact that Ismael Paez managed to get to the 2000 World Pool Championship Finals shows you that sometimes table knowledge can make up for horrendous fundamentals in the game of pool--but we all knew how that match turned out. Granted, we now have proper cueists today in players like Ko Pin Yi, Jason Shaw and Darren Appleton, but I'd still put their fundamentals in a separate league to that of snooker's top 16.

If you were to ask me that same question in the 90s, I'd be able to put in a couple of pool players in the top 5. First two that would come to my mind would be Efren Reyes and Buddy Hall.

My top 5 cueists today would be:

1. Ronnie O'Sullivan - gets the most action out of the cueball due to his perfect timing, which results in a wide variety of shots available to him. When he's in the right frame of mind, he is almost unplayable.
2. Shaun Murphy - straightest cue action I've ever seen. Repeatable, graceful and pleasing to the eye. After Jimmy White, the best rest player I've ever seen.
3. Judd Trump - in the words of Steve Davis, he has a Ferrari cue action. Tremendous acceleration of the cue, giving him immense cue power. He can pull off table length power shots with such ease and accuracy, and the most amazing thing is that he hardly drops his elbow at all.
4. Neil Robertson - another player who can get a lot of work from the cue ball with minimal effort. Beautiful snooker stance, everything perfectly aligned. It's no wonder he was able to make 100 centuries in one season (2013/2014)--the only person who has ever done so.
5. Ding Junhui - no-frills cue action. Not particularly known for long-potting nor for power shots, but his positional play is as good as anyone's. If you're a beginner in snooker, he's the first player I'd try to emulate.
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Good list and I agree. Efren isn't even close to being top 5 currently. Lots of his fans are living in the past. He's lost a gear or two with age.
 
justinb386 said:
I really liked your post. Very interesting. The OP stated the best all around cueist though, right?
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Wrong! The question was, "Taking in all disciplines/games, which are your top 5 players right now?"
Does that not mean the players who play all of the different games the best?
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No, that means considering all disciplines.
snip........ Was the OP's question, the best snookers players ever, or the best all around players ever? I am confused.
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It was neither.
The Original post consisted of one title:
Currently, who are the top 5 cueists in the world?
and one question:
Taking in all disciplines/games, which are your top 5 players right now?
Pretty easy to get confused by that.:scratchhead:
 
You have to put a few top 3c players on the list

Dick jaspers
Frederic caudron
Those 2 because they both play small games and 3c at the highest level, the small games and 3c are world's apart in difference of play and Dynamics

Mark Selby
Ronnie o
Those 2 because it's snooker, snooker 12ft tables
Small pockets with rounded facings made to spit balls

Can probably add another snooker player to the list
But I don't know enough of them or the game all that well
Maybe that one Young snooker player that dress's woth alot of flair like Connor McGregor, also has alot of tats
 
HaroldWilson said:
In saying this, perfect cueing is the main weapon of a snooker player whereas it is not for pool games. At the end of the day the question has to be asked who is the best cueist at each discipline because the snooker players are miles in front when it come down to being a 'cueist'.
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I think you're interpreting "cueist" in a very narrow way that was probably not intended by the OP. I suspect the OP was simply asking who the five best all-around players are today.

I also think there is more to being a great cueist than accuracy. You seem to be discounting all games but snooker because of that, but the other games also require a player to do things that snooker does not. If the top snooker players in the world were better at 9-Ball or 10-Ball than the top pool players in the world then I would agree with you, but they're not.
 
An interesting all-round match, to me, would be Selby and Blomdahl....
...Selby has eight-ball titles besides snooker...Blomdahl grew up play all the games.
It would probably come down to who played the best pool....
Blomdahl has a lock at 3-cushion...Selby a commanding favorite at snooker...
...Selby might be a small underdog...Blomdahl can run 100 at straight pool.

Blomdahl and Pagulayan could be interesting also.
 
There will always be your Ronnie O's, Efren Reyes, Alex Pagulayan's, etc. ..They will consistently rise to the top in any field..However, worldwide, there are probably a hundred players, who are within an eighth of a ball of those guys.

On a given day, any one of them could get their mixture right and bingo we have a new 'best player'! Thats the way it is in all sports. :cool:
 
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SJDinPHX said:
There will always be your Ronnie O's, Efren Reyes, Alex Pagulayan's, etc. ..They will consistently rise to the top in any field..However, worldwide, there are probably a hundred players, who are within an eighth of a ball of those guys.

On a given day, any one of them could get their mixture right and bingo we have a new 'best player'! Thats the way it is in all sports. :cool:
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Holy carp if you want to see an example of this you need to find POV pool live broadcast on YouTube Tony Chohan is laying it down and Compton's giving it right back welder the best of his ability. OMG three to nothing Chohan
 
gregcantrall said:
Best cueist would be controller of the cue ball regardless of the discipline.
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If cueball control is the deciding factor it's number one ranked dick jaspers

3 cushion is ALL cueball control with only the elite Being able to play position very well

But even when your dick jaspers
Sometimes, the greatest since ceulemans , caudron will pull this on you

https://youtu.be/2EEdwvMag_w
 
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PoolBum said:
I think you're interpreting "cueist" in a very narrow way that was probably not intended by the OP. I suspect the OP was simply asking who the five best all-around players are today.

I also think there is more to being a great cueist than accuracy. You seem to be discounting all games but snooker because of that, but the other games also require a player to do things that snooker does not. If the top snooker players in the world were better at 9-Ball or 10-Ball than the top pool players in the world then I would agree with you, but they're not.
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It is all subjective as the top snooker players have no incentive to quit snooker and play full time 9ball or 10ball which is the only way we would know if they could play shots that don't arise on snooker tables. Moreover it is the only way they could learn how to play the games properly in order to dominate pool.

But we do know that some of the top 9 & 10ball players in the world (now and previously) such as Tony Drago, Melling, Appleton, Peach, Imran Majid, Mark Gray, Jason Shaw and even Alex Pagulayan, Steve Mizerak, Jim Rempe and Corey Deuel to name a few... all failed to make the grade as top snooker players.

Most of them where either initially snooker professionals or tried to be or wanted to be and failed because their cueing wasn't good enough among other things. Thus, to have a large number of snooker dropouts among the best 9 and 10ball players in the world speaks volumes of the cueing abilities and talents of the elite snooker players who actually made the grade playing on the toughest of table conditions.

So in answer to your last statement - I agree with you that the top snooker players aren't some of the best 9 and 10 ball players in the world. Instead it is the failed snooker players who are. The ones that got crushed by the top pros. Players like Majid, Peach, Melling, Drago, Gray who started out as snooker pros and guys like Shaw and Appleton who wanted to be snooker players and got hammered. These snooker failures have all gone on and dominated world pool at different stages across all the dicplines, 9ball, 8 ball, 10 ball, straight pool etc etc.

Accordingly, if the top snooker players dropped down to play pool full-time and learnt the whole range of shots like these players did, it could be reasonable to estimate that their superior cueing, mental and technical abilities might put them in a good position to surpass the pool playing achievements of the drop outs of their sport and create a brand of flawless excellence which completely and utterly dominates pool.

In light of this, I would go as far to say that if Mark Selby quit snooker to concentrate full-time on pool then there is a high possibility that we would see a pool player reach a level of skill and proficiency unlike anyone in the history of the sport.

And that's saying something lol
 
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Mark Selby and Ronnie O'Sullivan would be at the very top in my view. The "torturer and the rocket". :smile:
 
Pocket Billiards- Efren
3 C- Jaspers
Snooker - Ronnie
Russian Pyramid- Stalev
English 8 Ball- Potts
 
HaroldWilson said:
It is all subjective as the top snooker players have no incentive to quit snooker and play full time 9ball or 10ball which is the only way we would know if they could play shots that don't arise on snooker tables. Moreover it is the only way they could learn how to play the games properly in order to dominate pool.

But we do know that some of the top 9 & 10ball players in the world (now and previously) such as Tony Drago, Melling, Appleton, Peach, Imran Majid, Mark Gray, Jason Shaw and even Alex Pagulayan, Steve Mizerak, Jim Rempe and Corey Deuel to name a few... all failed to make the grade as top snooker players.

Most of them where either initially snooker professionals or tried to be or wanted to be and failed because their cueing wasn't good enough among other things. Thus, to have a large number of snooker dropouts among the best 9 and 10ball players in the world speaks volumes of the cueing abilities and talents of the elite snooker players who actually made the grade playing on the toughest of table conditions.

So in answer to your last statement - I agree with you that the top snooker players aren't some of the best 9 and 10 ball players in the world. Instead it is the failed snooker players who are. The ones that got crushed by the top pros. Players like Majid, Peach, Melling, Drago, Gray who started out as snooker pros and guys like Shaw and Appleton who wanted to be snooker players and got hammered. These snooker failures have all gone on and dominated world pool at different stages across all the dicplines, 9ball, 8 ball, 10 ball, straight pool etc etc.

Accordingly, if the top snooker players dropped down to play pool full-time and learnt the whole range of shots like these players did, it could be reasonable to estimate that their superior cueing, mental and technical abilities might put them in a good position to surpass the pool playing achievements of the drop outs of their sport and create a brand of flawless excellence which completely and utterly dominates pool.

In light of this, I would go as far to say that if Mark Selby quit snooker to concentrate full-time on pool then there is a high possibility that we would see a pool player reach a level of skill and proficiency unlike anyone in the history of the sport.

And that's saying something lol
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The snooker players you mentioned who competed at pool did not all "dominate world pool." The fact that Peach won a world 9-ball title doesn't show that snooker players are better cueists than pool players, it only shows that it may be easier to be competitive at the top level of pool coming from a snooker background than the other way around, and/or that Peach may have been a better at pool than snooker. I think that is due mainly to the difference in the nature of the games, rather than in the nature of the players. Ronnie O'Sullivan, perhaps the greatest snooker player ever, competed on the IPT and couldn't win.

There's no reason why players who take up snooker due to cultural and social reasons would turn out to be better cueists than players who take up pool for cultural and social reasons. To put it another way, there's no reason to think that a great pool player could not have been a snooker champion had he grown up in England and played snooker his whole life rather than pool.
 
beneath_the_sur said:
If cueball control is the deciding factor it's number one ranked dick jaspers

3 cushion is ALL cueball control with only the elite Being able to play position very well

But even when your dick jaspers
Sometimes, the greatest since ceulemans , caudron will pull this on you

https://youtu.be/2EEdwvMag_w
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I am going to play for the first time in a while today. This was a good mental warm up!!! (Back to work now...)

On the topic, I agree, Caudron is unbelievable. I saw a video of him playing some variation of balkline where you have to get to different quandrants after so many points. (14.2 I think?) Admittedly, I'd never seen the game before, but his control was like nothing I'd seen before. Straddling the line for many a points, jumping to different quadrants with ease. Then, when he'd get slowly out of position, would play an around the table shot with absolutely unbelievable precision to gather all three of them all back up and continue running. It was crazy.
 
puma122 said:
Thanks for that. I am going to play for the first time in a while today. This was a good mental warm up!!! (Back to work now...)

On the topic, I agree, Caudron is unbelievable. I saw a video of him playing some variation of balkline where you have to get to different quandrants after so many points. (14.2 I think?) Admittedly, I'd never seen the game before, but his control was like nothing I'd seen before. Straddling the line for many a points, jumping to different quadrants with ease. Then, when he'd get slowly out of position, would play an around the table shot with absolutely unbelievable precision to gather all three of them all back up and continue running. It was crazy.
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There are 3 balkline games

47.2
71.2
47.1

47 cm boxes
71cm boxes
Can only make 2 caroms then drive the ball away
On the second shot
The .1 game is the most difficult as you can only make one point and drive a ob ball out


This is 47.2

https://youtu.be/MZ5lwkVoNB8

This is 71.2

https://youtu.be/j0899rSzq54


Balkline is amazing to me
It's not only cueball control
But it's also object ball control and placement
At the same time
 
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PoolBum said:
I think you're interpreting "cueist" in a very narrow way that was probably not intended by the OP. I suspect the OP was simply asking who the five best all-around players are today.

I also think there is more to being a great cueist than accuracy. You seem to be discounting all games but snooker because of that, but the other games also require a player to do things that snooker does not. If the top snooker players in the world were better at 9-Ball or 10-Ball than the top pool players in the world then I would agree with you, but they're not.
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This is a great point.

Snooker players rarely spin the ball, esp. compared to a carom player.
 
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