wayne said:
Colin Colenso was explaining on another thread how there are 10,000 snooker players who pocket balls better than Efren. He got me all pumped up and when I played Efren in the tournament today I figured I could win since he isn't much of a ball pocketer. Unfortunately, he ran out from everywhere just like he did a couple of weeks ago when I played him (he must have had two lucky days pocketing balls).
Seriously, I have played a lot of great ball pocketers including Archer, Parica, Luat, Santos, Chamat, Tang, Eberle, Ernesto, Morro, Schmidt, Stalev, etc., but I have never played anyone I felt pocketed balls better than Efren.
If the best ball pocketing player (snooker or pool) in the world played Efren a game which heavily emphasized pocketing skills who do you think would win??
For example, a straight pool challenge the way it was mentioned on here where the balls are racked, then you get to place the front object ball where you want and have cue ball in hand and just run as many balls (racks) as you can. Maybe something similar could be set up on a snooker table.
Do you think there are players in the world who pocket balls better than Efren? (if there are 10,000 I'm retiring)
Wayne
Let me qualify.
1st: 10,000 seems a bit wild. I think I exagerated out of excitement trying to stress a point. You can still quote me at currently believeing at least 1,000 but with some qualifications.
I have stated that this would be for full to 1/4 ball potting angles not requiring more than 1/2 tip of side english.
If your were to ask me if Efren can make such and such ball and get to position X on a pool table the he begins to show his dominance.
But if an actual potting challenge, say on an intermediate 10' table using 2"1/8 balls with 4 inch pockets from 20 tough pot positions with 5 attempts each. Score would be based on no.of pots from 100 attempts. If Ronnie O'Sullivan made 90/100, I guess Efren might make about 70. The average APA7 player from 30-50. Steve Davis about 80. Steve's potting ranking is probably close to pro-snooker no.300+ I guess. He is mainly a strategy player these days with a strong safety and mental game.
This is purely an aiming accuracy, delivery accuracy test for near centre cue ball hits. In this, I'm confident a high percentage of snooker players around the 1,000 rankings would beat Efren and the top 50 snooker players should be significantly better.
This was not intended to degrade Efren. It think he has almost the perfect combination of skills for the games he plays. He makes outs look extremely easy due to his great positional skills combined with making a lot of pots with all types of english and speeds with ease.
The whole point of bringing it up, was to point out that when it comes to center cue ball aiming for pots, it would make sense to study what the snooker players have to say on the subject. Will anyone directly argue that they are not better at potting these types of shots? That would be a pretty brave claim.
I just picked Efren as a typical example and would interchange that statement for other pool players in the top 10.
As for the numbers who would be better than Efren in this particular regard, it is difficult to guess. I'm sure it's more than 300, and it could be as high as 10,000 or more. We may never know unless pure pocketing challenges becomes a widely played separate event. Perhaps some other snooker players can give some insights into this type of comparison.
Remember, I am a great fan of Efren. I think he symbolizes almost the perfect combination of player skills for pool. I could have used the names Souquet, Ortmann, Pagulayan, Earl, Busta or many others to make the same statement.
However, I think the future of games will see more players with a more typically snooker style. We are seeing this already with some of the Taiwanese players. They may combine near pro level snooker potting accuracy, with the wide range of other skills needed for 9-ball. Especially with the WPC moving to tighter pockets. It seemed to favor the most accurate potters.
