Greatest 3-Cushion Player of All Time?

Sang Lee was phenomenal and had a style no one can duplicate but its not even remotely close if you compare records.

Ceulemens dominated billiards like Mosconi dominated 14.1- maybe even more so. I've heard that Raymond considers Blomdahl the greatest player he's seen, though. Blomdahl had a tough time beating Raymond at first, but later went on to have a dominating record against him.

Sanchez, Jaspers, Sayginer, and Caudron are all fantastic players but have a way to go to match Blomdahls records. No one will ever match Raymond at this point; the competition is too tough.

The Sang Lee vs Sayginer match from Las Vegas (five sets) is a great one to buy. I think Blomdahl does commentary. Look in accu-stats catalog or call them at 1-800-828-0397. Any match with either Blomdahl, Marco Zanetti, or other European players doing commentary is a good tape to buy. Allen Gilbert also does commentary on some tapes and does an excellent job.

99% of the people I know can't stand Mike Shamos's commentary on the tapes so you might want to avoid tapes with his commentary. He's on some of the record setting matches and the Sayginer/Rojas trick shot tape though.

I'm not trying to be mean, its just BAD commentary. Who wants a five minute speech on how the refs got trained or a math lesson during a Blomdahl match? It gets worse the more you watch them- one friend ended up watching the tapes with no sound. Only way he could watch without yelling "Shut up, Shamos".
 
Bob Jewett said:
Ceulemans. I would say that he elevated the whole level of play. I saw him set the record at the Las Vegas tournament in 1978. He beat Boston Shorty like a rented mule -- 60-10 -- after Shorty bragged that Ceulemans would never average over 1.0 against American safety play. The Ceulemans scoresheets from that tournament are available at the bottom of http://www.sfbilliards.com/3c/ and the Shorty match is http://www.sfbilliards.com/3c/Ceul02m.gif

Note that Shorty got to shoot after Ceulemans reached 60. That's because in those matches, the non-breaker gets to shoot an equalizing inning at the end if the breaker wins. The score was 60-8 when Shorty got up for his equalizing break shot needing a run of 52 to tie. Ceulemans averaged 2.3 and Shorty averaged 0.4. So much for safety play.

Blomdahl and others have achieved a higher average of play since then, but I think without Ceulemans leading the way they wouldn't have gone as far. Standing on the shoulders of giants.... I also saw the record for a 60-point game which was set by Blomdahl over Ceulemans 60-31 in 15/14 innings (no equalizing inning). Ceulemans averaged 2.2 and played the part of the mule. That match is still available from Accu-stats (1996 Sang Lee Open).

Another point for Ceulemans is that he won the World Championship in 2001 against all the players that he had helped elevate.
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Cuelemans is the pick for me. Bob said it best above. As far as the guys like Hoppe, Worst, Welker - These arguments are for all sports and fun to speculate but as Bob said above Ceulemans elevated the game and without him the current stars would have never achieved the level they enjoy. If the earlier greats played in the Ceulemans era their games would have probably improved as well and who knows. Without playing someone better on a regular basis it's very difficult to improve and reach new plateus. This is Ceulemans gift to the world of Billiards. I'm positive that if Ceulemans had the opportunity to consistantly play better players his game would have improved. I say possitively because his game did improve when faced with stiffer competition. Take a look at his historic averages in World Competition. I've read here about who's the best all round player, again Ceulemans gets my nod. After all he has been World Champion at every Carom game that this title is given. That's well rounded if you ask me. He is a Grand Master with well OVER 100 MAJOR WORLD TITLES. Maybe in time some of these new guys will achieve such consistant greatness. We'll all have to wait and see then argue it out again.

In short. Ceulemans raised the game, then raised his game to meet the challenge, then became World Champion one last time. Few get greater than that in any sport.
 
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Absolutely no doubt about it...

R A Y M O N D CU E L E M A N S
This is a no brainer...can't believe anyone would vote for anyone else. His domination of the sport was unprecedented...and even though he is well in the twilight of his career he still has game.
ruk
 
sjm said:
I reckon it comes down to Blomdahl vs Ceulemans, and I think it's a bit like comparing Tiger to Nicklaus. Tiger has equalled, if not exceeded, the level reached by Nicklaus, but has not sustained that level of excellence for the same period of time that Jack did. So, for now, Jack remains the best ever. I believe that, for very similar, Blomdahl cannot be considered better than Ceulemans, at least not yet.
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Definitely on the same page. The comparisons go beyond the normal "who dominated his era the most" answer, which is a pretty good way to compare. Guys like Nicklaus dominated his era and shaped the future. Tiger is dominating his era. Is he shaping the future? The future will tell.

Ceulemans dominated his era and clearly shaped the 3C game to what it is today. Blomdahl is a monster player whose stats are better than anyone that played the game, but even today, his name is starting to lose luster.

Fred
 
Ceulemans, of course. But it's too bad American 3C died along with Willie Hoppe's passing in the 50's. Without the younger guys picking it up, there has been no pool of players from which a gifted player could emerge. Today I doubt if there are more than 10-15 rooms in the country where 3C is played seriously. It's a beautiful game-- one that a person can continuously learn over a lifetime.

Doc
 
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