Higher skill pocket billiards players - 9 ball or snooker players?

[JPB2]

While I respect the abilities of snooker players the fact still remains that this is an apples and oranges comparison. Could an elite snooker player win a 9 ball major? Yes if they took years of training to develop an adequate break, jump shot abilities and safety play. Ronnie once did a tv show where he went around America playing all the top American pool players. He lost every match if memory serves. Could filler or Shane win a snooker tournament? No…. Again they would have to devote years of training to even compete. In conclusion you win what you practice. To me the snooker and British 8 ball trolling of American pool suggests some sort of weird insecurity.

I think in that show, from what I remember that was posted here, Ronnie was going to play one pocket. But that didn’t happen. I think it ended up being 8 ball with Bob Jewett. Now Bob is an excellent player, but I’m not sure Ronnie wanted to play one pocket against some of the OP players. Maybe someone can search for that or Bob can comment. I did like seeing Ronnie play 3C and he seemed to like and respect the game.

 

[Bob Jewett]

I think in that show, from what I remember that was posted here, Ronnie was going to play one pocket. But that didn’t happen. I think it ended up being 8 ball with Bob Jewett. Now Bob is an excellent player, but I’m not sure Ronnie wanted to play one pocket against some of the OP players. Maybe someone can search for that or Bob can comment. I did like seeing Ronnie play 3C and he seemed to like and respect the game.

I was cast as a clueless league player who had no idea who Ronnie was. We played eight ball and part of the spot was I chose which hand he shot with.

Ronnie expressed some interest in one pocket and there were one pocket players there, but they went with the eight ball hustle.

I think he would make some great outs at one pocket, but to really compete he would need work on banking and safeties. Some one pocket safes are forbidden at English games. And then there are the frozen ball shots.

 

[garczar]

Didn't World Snooker #1 Judd Trump play in a WNT major a couple years ago and matched up with Jayson Shaw? If I recall correctly, Shaw skunked him. IMO, they are two different disciplines with slightly different skill sets required to play at a world class level. IMO, it's like asking who's better: The #1 Cricket batter or the #1 Baseball batter?

Yep, and who wins the lion's share of big buck Heyball events? Heyball specialists. Every game is different.

 

[mnorwood]

All the chirping about American pool also includes criticism of the pockets. Most Brit players don’t understand that elite American players aim for a portion of the pocket. They aren’t slop shot makers. This is the part of the game snooker players haven’t developed.

As I recall when Shane was emerging as a great player there was a bunch of trash talk about him versus snooker/brit 8 ball players. I remember Shane’s backers offering 50k for anyone in the world to play him on an American bar box at 8 ball. As far as I remember nobody bit on that offer.

 

[lakeman77]

It would be fun to hear Earl Strickland talk about this.

it's fun to hear the Pearl talk about anything

 

[Lowell]

All the chirping about American pool also includes criticism of the pockets. Most Brit players don’t understand that elite American players aim for a portion of the pocket. They aren’t slop shot makers. This is the part of the game snooker players haven’t developed.

As I recall when Shane was emerging as a great player there was a bunch of trash talk about him versus snooker/brit 8 ball players. I remember Shane’s backers offering 50k for anyone in the world to play him on an American bar box at 8 ball. As far as I remember nobody bit on that offer.

Modern pro pool pockets aren't exactly buckets anyway. Seems like a common complaint among old time pool fans is that the 4 inch pockets of modern elite pool allow for significantly less pocket cheating.

 

[straightline]

All the chirping about American pool also includes criticism of the pockets. Most Brit players don’t understand that elite American players aim for a portion of the pocket. They aren’t slop shot makers. This is the part of the game snooker players haven’t developed.

As I recall when Shane was emerging as a great player there was a bunch of trash talk about him versus snooker/brit 8 ball players. I remember Shane’s backers offering 50k for anyone in the world to play him on an American bar box at 8 ball. As far as I remember nobody bit on that offer.

This is a half baked sell; not you bringing it up per se but the concept itself.
Fact is, this micro aim is mostly for ducks and chest beating about ease and "mastery" of position and ball control. Fact is, most would ignore shots that don't present high degrees of those principles - and do snooker moves. lol Buckets don't hurt either.

 

[jasonlaus]

Sick of these comparisons, even if this one is ai Yes, a great snooker player can shift to 9 ball relatively well. They play rotation at the end of a snooker game and the snooker players are very good. But how do they do in one pocket or banks? How do they do in 3 cushion? What? They don’t play English billiards anymore?

Yesterday something came up on Facebook. John Schmidt got sick of the “ snooker snobs.”He offered to play Ronnie straight pool for healthy 6 figures. He’s not the greatest pool player, not young, and doesn’t compete much. Won’t happen. And JS even though he said he has a 146 and other centuries knows he can’t beat the snooker guys at snooker. He said it himself. I think his point was to respect the respective games.

Snooker is a good game but it isn’t the be-all, end- all of cue sports. I respect it. Even though they call making balls “ potting” which I find hideous. Spreading that terminology to pool is worse still, but the game is still something to respect. But the people who tout snooker the most make me not want to respect it.

So how many snooker players come close on defense and strategy in one pocket? How bad is the beat down in a round robin between the top 12 snooker players and the top12 one pocket players?

So yes, you can pick the discipline- 9 ball- that has the easiest transition and say how well the snooker guys would do. And?

Snooker players are far more skilled than pool players PERIOD

 

[jasonlaus]

AI sucks. Aside from it hallucinating Davis winning the World Championship in pool, I note the following:

Perhaps the greatest safety player in snooker is Selby, who began his career as a professional English Pool player, not snooker. IMO no top pool player would struggle greatly with the safety play, once they adjusted to the tables and the directional cloth.

Alex Pagulayan is probably the “American Pool” player who plays the best snooker. He’s won the Canadian Snooker Championships more than once and regularly runs centuries. He tried to win a place on the professional tour via Q school and did okay but didn’t win a spot. He might have had a chance if he’d tried earlier in his career.

To me one of the biggest issues is stroke - the elaborate strokes of many pool players will not work on the snooker table. The pockets are just too tight.

Snooker players have had more success crossing over for sure. But they have to actually learn the game to beat good players. The break. Proper patterns and positioning (too often they play across the position zone and not into it). Jumping. Davis did have some notable wins. Tony Drago was a good player. Gary Wilson has an established Fargo of 789 and is probably closest to being competitive, and yet he’s not in the top 100 of Fargo.

No, but he'd be top 10 in the USA

 

[jasonlaus]

for what its worth an AI generated search on ronnie o'sullivan pool record and comments on his pool game
....................................
Ronnie O'Sullivan has played American pool (specifically 9-ball and 8-ball) on a limited basis, but he has not competed professionally in pool events. His record in pool is based on occasional appearances in amateur or exhibition settings.

• Mosconi Cup (9-Ball): Played in 1996 and 1997 at ages 21 and 22. His record was 2 wins and 3 losses in singles, and 2 wins and 2 losses in doubles.
• IPT 8-Ball (North American Open, Las Vegas, 2006): At age 30, he won 5 of 13 matches and had a 50% game win rate with a break-and-run percentage of about 14%—indicating limited consistency at the professional level.

While O'Sullivan is widely regarded as one of the greatest cueists in history due to his snooker mastery, pool players and experts agree he is not a top-tier professional pool player. His strengths in snooker—precision, cue ball control, and long-distance potting—are less dominant in pool, where break-building, safety play, and tactical shot selection are more critical.

As noted in discussions:

• "He plays pool well, to put it simply... but he has been mediocre."
• "He would get killed playing rotations against any top 10 caliber American guy."
• "There is nothing he does better than the top pool players already do."

In short, O'Sullivan has no official professional pool match record, and his appearances suggest he would be competitive only against lower-tier players—not the elite in American pool.

Why would he play for peanuts? It would be like SVB playing league pool - stupid

 

[jasonlaus]

All the chirping about American pool also includes criticism of the pockets. Most Brit players don’t understand that elite American players aim for a portion of the pocket. They aren’t slop shot makers. This is the part of the game snooker players haven’t developed.

As I recall when Shane was emerging as a great player there was a bunch of trash talk about him versus snooker/brit 8 ball players. I remember Shane’s backers offering 50k for anyone in the world to play him on an American bar box at 8 ball. As far as I remember nobody bit on that offer.

Would have been fun to see Corey play him, Bergman would be good too

 

[Cleveland_Rocks]

It appears that there are very limited examples of snooker players competing in American pool games, specifically in 8 ball and 9 ball, and performing at a top 20 level, but not at the world class champion level. These instances are maybe 10-20 tournaments. It seems that is a small sample size, and is limited to the top of the top snooker players extremely rarely performing at the top 20 level in American 8 ball and 9 ball.

That said, the question for me becomes - are there any examples of an American 8 or 9 ball player playing at the top 20 level in a world class snooker competition? I'm guessing that the answer is no, there are zero credible such examples.

If so, what does this prove? Something or nothing. It would be nice to see someone who plays pool to play at a high level in snooker.

 

[straightline]

It appears that there are very limited examples of snooker players competing in American pool games, specifically in 8 ball and 9 ball, and performing at a top 20 level, but not at the world class champion level. These instances are maybe 10-20 tournaments. It seems that is a small sample size, and is limited to the top of the top snooker players extremely rarely performing at the top 20 level in American 8 ball and 9 ball.

That said, the question for me becomes - are there any examples of an American 8 or 9 ball player playing at the top 20 level in a world class snooker competition? I'm guessing that the answer is no, there are zero credible such examples.

If so, what does this prove? Something or nothing. It would be nice to see someone who plays pool to play at a high level in snooker.

The pool you can learn. Getting the all access pass? How's your British empire?

 

[Bob Jewett]

It appears that there are very limited examples of snooker players competing in American pool games, specifically in 8 ball and 9 ball, and performing at a top 20 level, but not at the world class champion level....

Allison Fisher and Karen Corr. A detail is why they chose to switch to pool while the male snooker players have (mostly) not.

 

[GideonF]

It appears that there are very limited examples of snooker players competing in American pool games, specifically in 8 ball and 9 ball, and performing at a top 20 level, but not at the world class champion level. These instances are maybe 10-20 tournaments. It seems that is a small sample size, and is limited to the top of the top snooker players extremely rarely performing at the top 20 level in American 8 ball and 9 ball.

That said, the question for me becomes - are there any examples of an American 8 or 9 ball player playing at the top 20 level in a world class snooker competition? I'm guessing that the answer is no, there are zero credible such examples.

If so, what does this prove? Something or nothing. It would be nice to see someone who plays pool to play at a high level in snooker.

Aside from the women (Karen and the two Fishers), the male snooker player who made the switch was Tony Drago, who, as wiki says: “won the 2003 World Pool Masters beating Hsia Hui-kai 8–6 and the 2008 Predator International 10-ball Championship beating Francisco Bustamante 13–10.” Drago was not a top 20 snooker player (except briefly) and wasn’t really able to compete on the snooker circuit when he switched to pool. As I mentioned before, Steve Davis played pretty well after he learned the game.

The good snooker players who have dabbled in pool aren’t competitive with top pro players, but they certainly could be if they put the time in to learn the game. It’s just not worth it to them to do so. The one current player who seems to like pool is Gary Wilson, with over 600 games in Fargo - so he’s obviously doing more than just playing a few WNT show appearances.