Efren Officially is out of WPC

Efren is THE MAN ! He stated in a newpaper article, that was , I believe, posted on this site, and published in 1976 that he was past his prime! We didn't even get to see him until the mid eighties.
 
Gerald said:
Efren is THE MAN ! He stated in a newpaper article, that was , I believe, posted on this site, and published in 1976 that he was past his prime! We didn't even get to see him until the mid eighties.

Don't mean to doubt you, but this is a little hard to believe. Efren claimed he was past his prime when he was in his early twenties? Do you have the article? I'm very interested.
 
I think I read that somewhere in the internet... when Efren was in his late teens and early twenties... (18 - 24 I believe)... he claimed that was his prime years.. and some knowledgeable folks who see him play claimed he is almost unbeatable at that time... in any game of pool... the article also claimed that Efren was already past his best years when he came to America... of course this could just be hearsay.. I'll try to find the article..
 
BallBuster said:
I think I read that somewhere in the internet... when Efren was in his late teens and early twenties... (18 - 24 I believe)... he claimed that was his prime years.. and some knowledgeable folks who see him play claimed he is almost unbeatable at that time... in any game of pool... the article also claimed that Efren was already past his best years when he came to America... of course this could just be hearsay.. I'll try to find the article..

Thanks. I'm very appreciative.
 
BallBuster said:
I think I read that somewhere in the internet... when Efren was in his late teens and early twenties... (18 - 24 I believe)... he claimed that was his prime years.. and some knowledgeable folks who see him play claimed he is almost unbeatable at that time... in any game of pool... the article also claimed that Efren was already past his best years when he came to America... of course this could just be hearsay.. I'll try to find the article..
No need to find that article.
Efren's road manager here told me Efren played his best in the early 80's.
He played rotation mostly then ( after retiring from Karambola ).
Some of his backers are here now. Stories of Efren running a 15-ball rack when he had an open shot at the 1-ball is abundant.
Mark Wilson wrote Efren's high run on 15-ball was 5 racks.
The reason the run was stopped?
He lost the coin flip. The flipped for the break on every game.
By the time Efren was 19, he beat Parica on rotation (( he got a 71-49 spot ) at Jose's father's pool hall near Manila Bay.
Efren was so good at straight-rail, they finally banned him from entering the Karambola King tournament in the Philippines.
 
Efren is the best all around player to ever pick up a cue.

He is also the best 9-ball player ever, and I will explain. First, I would like to point out that although Sigel and Hall were two of the all-time greats, Earl Strickland plays better 9-ball than Buddy and Mike ever did. Earl was the stronger shotmaker, no doubt about it. Earl is in a league of his own, and right below him you have Sigel and Hall. Above Earl is Efren, who is at the very top. The reason why is Efren is almost as great a shotmaker as Earl but not quite, but Efren excels far above ANYONE in the department of kicking, safeties, and cueball control (he holds the world record for racks run in rotation). This is where I base my opinion on, makes sense right?
 
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sjm said:
Don't mean to doubt you, but this is a little hard to believe. Efren claimed he was past his prime when he was in his early twenties? Do you have the article? I'm very interested.

SJM, sorry I did not print out the article. It was difficult to read as the paper was aged and the print was hard to read. It might have been posted by someone on the CCB, but someone who frequents these forums has the article and hopefully they will repost it.
 
Cynion said:
For someone who never really proved himself in majors......hasn't he won 4 world 8ball titles? Efren may not be a Tiger Woods.......but Tiger Woods is no Jack Nicklaus. Iverson is no Jordan, etc etc. I don't think Efren is the best 9-ball player in the world. However i think Earl might be one of the best 9-ball players ever and for him to call Efren the best, thats good enough for me.

At the end of the day when Tiger and Iverson are retired or nearing the end of their career you can tell me how good they truely are. In Tennis or Golf or Basketball or any other sport the players are judged by their accompishments, not how well they played but how often they won. Great Hockey players that never get their name on the Stanley Cup are never going to be as heralded as those that led their team to the championship. Tennis pro's are basically ranked by how many of the 4 majors they are actually able to win during the course of their career. Golf pro's are ranked by how many majors they are able to win when all the big boys show up to compete for the real prize tournament trophy. Phil Mikkelsen is not going to go down in history as one of the greats, he will go down in history as one of the guys who seemed to have a ton of potential yet failed to capture enough majors to be remembered 50 years from now.

Beating Earl in a race to 121 by 4 games does not prove much to me as far as giving Efren the "best player ever" title, I never claimed Efren was not a phenomenal player, I am just being realistic looking at his accompishments and stating that he has not had a dominating career like a Mosconi or a Greeleaf or a Hoppe. He is not even the most accompished player of his era as Strickland's record in the big events far outweighs Efren's and Mike Sigel was a FAR more dominant player then Efren was when both were in their prime.

Take a honest look at his career, not his abilities but strictly the numbers because in any sport that is what we look at. Noone cares how good Tiger plays in a tourney, they care if he wins or looses. You can break the record in a US Open for the lowest score ever but if on the same year a guy beats that by 1 and gets the title noone is going to remember the second best. Pool has far too many people who are legends, 500+ ball straight pool runners who never won anything of note. For all their skills we cannot exactly say they are it, because they never proved it in the arena of competition. Efren played a ton of tournaments, he won alot, I just dont think he did enough to be considered this era's Mosconi when Mosconi was so much more dominant and owned the World championship for ages.

Golf has people who have won dozens of majors, Tennis does as well. Old pool players in the straight pool era have huge amounts of world championships when they are dominant. Efren is a one time World 9-ball champion, his 8-ball results dont really concern me and they are largely unknown because 8-ball is not the pro game. He is a great player with some huge wins but he is not a dynasty type of figure who is far and away the best in the world and never has been. Noone could debate Nicholas was the greatest golfer in his age. Noone could really argue against Tiger being the best atm either. You cannot argue that Federra is not the greatest tennis player in the game today. Efren has never been that guy, this sport has not seen that guy, probably since Mosconi, although Sigel came close.
 
BallBuster said:
I think I read that somewhere in the internet... when Efren was in his late teens and early twenties... (18 - 24 I believe)... he claimed that was his prime years.. and some knowledgeable folks who see him play claimed he is almost unbeatable at that time... in any game of pool... the article also claimed that Efren was already past his best years when he came to America... of course this could just be hearsay.. I'll try to find the article..

I too have come across a similar article which was published sometime late 80's... things is, it's the american pool analysts and pros who consider Efren to be the best ever... who am I to argue with Earl, Deuel etc. when they say Efren to be the best?! I just nod in agreement.
 
The genuis of efren is being lost in the deabte. He is not the best 9baller or one pocket player, or even str8 pool player of all time. Never has been, never will be. But he has the ability to achieve results with the cue ball more effectivly and with less effort then anyone ever has. He has the ability to make certain shots, or see certain shots that others can not. Hence his nickname. A prefect runout from efren looks a lot prettier then a run out from others. Although, sometimes earls runouts look petty damm sexy.
 
Someone brought it up already, Efren will gamble all night and then play the tournament all day. I have not seen any other player that is in the hunt to win the tournament do that. I doubt that you will see Earl gambling at 2 in the morning during a tournament. I read an article one time a long time ago. Evidently, Don Mackey told Efren that gambling would be forbidden for tournament players and Efren simply told him to take him off the tournament list then because he could make more money gambling than he could from tournaments.

When you talk about greatest ever and you try to use the standard of tournaments won, that's pretty difficult to do in pool where the tournament money is so paltry. If you're talking tennis or golf or basketball, that's a different story because the money that could be made by winning in those sports is astronomical. In pool, the money a player could make playing tournaments in a year wouldn't pay for Michael Jordan's green fees.
 
The amazing thing about Reyes is the ability to make impossible possible. Well, impossible for others but not him. If you look at top players, you will see identical pattern of play, just straight shooting, if covered they already have big problems. Pool is a sport, sport is entertainment, and if players are not entertaining then it's useless to watch (like Basavich, 4 min and 29 sec to shoot the 9 ball? DUH!), hence no big sponsors. If Reyes is entered in the tournament most often than not you will see more spectators (and big sponsors), not just to see Reyes wins but to see how he manipulate the table, very classic. And that to me makes him the greatest cue player. Maybe we should give the man a break, he is 51 yrs old, time to slow down. Hey Reyes, when will you write a book? Or make video?
 
prewarhero said:
The genuis of efren is being lost in the debate. He is not the best 9baller or one pocket player, or even str8 pool player of all time. ..... A perfect runout from efren looks a lot prettier then a run out from others. Although, sometimes earl's runouts look petty damm sexy.

I'm surprised how quickly people seem to want to write off Efren now. Was anybody talking like this 6 months ago when he dominating the field at DCC?

Not the best 9 baller, or even one-pocket player? Hardly anyone was saying that this winter. When he's on, has anybody played 9 ball better, forget about 1-hole? Maybe he's not always on ... but even at 50-51, when one's energy and concentration can't be what it was at 30-35, I wouldn't be surprised to see him yet pull off something comparable to Nolan Ryan's no-hitter at 44. Even in that epic Color of Money match, he wasn't truly on till the last 30 racks or so. I mean, this is a guy who at his best plays like an inspired artist. At other times, he's human, right?

Hell, he came up with a 1.000 match in the 2003 DCC (albeit only in a race to 7), following another near-perfect performance against Mika, and if he hadn't come up short against Souquet in the finals, that would've been another magical performance. In fact, I thought his game, in some ways, moved up a notch when he started using a jump-break cue ... it was effortless how he was making the 1 in the side at DCC and at last year's Open with it. And scary when he made a perfect jump to run out in a match with Daulton. I wouldn't want to count out a guy who's still adding shots to his game at the half-century mark.
 
Come on Celtic you talking about 9 ball, we keep talking about every discipline in pool. Like I said before 9 ball is Efren weakest game because of of his soft break but don't forget he was past his prime when he played outside the Philippines and most major tournaments are held in US. He would have won most of them too if it was on the Philippines. Plus I think you will see more of player when they money because they have more pressure with a lot to lose and everything to gain. In tournament you lose you go home where in money where Filipinos excelled, you lose you go home broke. All your argument is Efren playing 9 ball, anybody here knows that he is not as accomplished as Sigel and Strickland but all around, nobody is on the same breath with Efren. Efren would give anybody a ball in One packet and beat them and also no one would play even with Efren on 15 ball rotation. Like what Archer once said, anybody could beat anybody in 9 ball but all around Efren is the best.
 
As I said on the thread in the main forum, 9-ball is the game that the pros play. Saying Efren is the best 8-ball player means little when so few pros play or practice the game. With no 1-pocket tournaments other then a piece of the DCC that game is also very subjective as alot of pro's simply dont play it and dont care much since there are no tournaments in the game. I judge him based on the game that professional billiards uses to define the sport today, 9-ball. Just like Mosconi is judged by the game of his era, Straight pool. And Hoppe is judged on his game of his era, what was it balkline?

How can people honestly say that because Efren is the best player playing the more obscure games that most top pros never even invest time in that he is the best player of his era? All around? 99% of the events in the world that matter are 9-ball, so at least weigh that into the equation. If you give 8-ball the same weighting as 9-ball you are missing the point that 8-ball is a irrelevant skill.

Who is the better tennis player, the guy who wins the mixed doubles, gets second in the doubles, and ties for 8th in the main event? Or the guy who does not even play the mixed doubles or normal doubles and instead simply plays in the main event and wins it? I am gonna take the guy who wins the singles, he is the better tennis player as I judge the game based on the most important aspect, singles competition. Doubles players are a side show, and most of the games people use to prop Efren's game are side shows. Hell, I think it is disrespectful to the guy. He is a top 5 9-ball player in the last 20 years, I am not going to try and artificially raise his rankings based on how well he can do in the artisitic pool championships, I dont see sideshows as a very rewarding or impressive thing. 9-ball is THE professional game of pool in todays era. If it was 8-ball everyone would be playing it and mastering it and I dont think Efren would be any more dominant at that, it takes a great break as well after all. If it were 1-pocket would Efren have been more dominant? Maybe, but it is not 1-pocket. We have one true game to judge the players, 9-ball, and Efren is a 1 time world champ and as such just not that dominant as other players from other era's have been.
 
What the hell In tennis do you see another type of game except what kinda surface they play. In tennis do you see a top 15 players getting beaten all on the same day by neverheard as in 9 ball, hell no. Sure evrybody play 9 ball because it's where the tournament and the TV but if you are talking about the greatest pool player you have to look at every angle and every discipline. I think all the top pros and billiards fans would not say whoever is the best in 9 ball is the best player because anybody can be on top. You gotta look at every angle. There's a reason why the majority of pros put Efren as the best player and their favorite player it's that is not that he is the best 9 ball player. It's because he play every game exceptionally well and he excelled both in money where only few of us see and tournament as well. Granted he is not the best 9 ball player but he is the best all around. All around and all around. I think Strickland is the most accomplished and best 9 ball player but in money, a lot of Filipinos would have like to knock his head off in any game he wants to play. But not with Efren, they feared him both in money and tournament in any game. And that is why he get a lot of respect and that is why most players put him as their favorite. From his cue ball control and knowledge of every angle and master in everygame to money and tourneys ,no none is on the same breath with him
 
Celtic... you know very well that 9-ball is 50% luck 50% talent... if you're on a roll(winner break) you can run 9-balls in any race... Efren does it, Earl, Archer, Yang, Soquet, Mika... every top-notch 9-baller does it... even with smaller pocket at WPC 05, guys are run-out all the time... recently Yang vs Hundal.. Hohmann, the Taiwanese qualifiers, new names from Europe..there is just too much luck factor in 9-ball... so it's very difficult to say who's the best pool player using 9-ball as gauge... even so, Elfren already all the major 9-ball tournaments in the World.... but the more difficult games like 8-ball, 1-Pocket and 15-ball rotation, I don't think anybody would dare to bet even with Efren...

anyways.. pretty good match at WPC... Most of the Big Guns are gone.. very interesting... :-)
 
I don't know for sure because I've never met Efren, Earl or Archer. But i would be willing to bet that Earl & Johnny spend a lot of time playing 9ball, I don't believe either play much 1hole and I highly doubt that either plays rotation. Efren however, I bet most of his time away from tournaments is spent playing rotation or 1hole. So if Efren didn't play any other games but 9ball where would he be skill-wise as a 9ball player? Probably the best 9ball player to go along with the title as the best all-around pool player ever. But for someone who hasn't proved themselves in majors, if I could trade pool knowledge and skill with any player ever it would be Efren.
 
BallBuster said:
Celtic... you know very well that 9-ball is 50% luck 50% talent... if you're on a roll(winner break) you can run 9-balls in any race... Efren does it, Earl, Archer, Yang, Soquet, Mika... every top-notch 9-baller does it... even with smaller pocket at WPC 05, guys are run-out all the time... recently Yang vs Hundal.. Hohmann, the Taiwanese qualifiers, new names from Europe..there is just too much luck factor in 9-ball... so it's very difficult to say who's the best pool player using 9-ball as gauge... even so, Elfren already all the major 9-ball tournaments in the World.... but the more difficult games like 8-ball, 1-Pocket and 15-ball rotation, I don't think anybody would dare to bet even with Efren...

I do indeed know that 9-ball is a shit game and should be replaced, I have been posting on that point for years and despite crap like the WPC showing that the cream most definately will NOT rise to the top even with the tighter tables it will still be the same way next year. 9-ball sucks as a pro game, no doubt about it. I have tried to get the word out there about a 15 ball rotation game that would be a point per a ball, that game would make the best players shine, people ignore it and laud 8-ball or straight pool which are just as bad as 9-ball in that one player can dominate a match. I dont take any blame on the game of 9-ball sucking and maybe you are right that it stopped Efren from being a true dominant player like those of the past but I can only do so much, and that is post and bitch on AZ Billiards to those people like Mike Janis and Grady who actually have some control over shit like this yet refuse to change things up and get this sport out of the doldrums that 9-ball has put it in.
 
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