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

[Cornerman]

Here is Anthropic Claude's answer for who would play better in high level competition between 9 ball players and snooker players. Do you have a reason to disagree? Also, is this effect another example of the usual "its easier to go from a 9 footer to a bar table than from a bar table to a 9 footer" argument? And what does this mean for our American, European, and Asian 9 top 9 ball players? Should we be watching more snooker?

"
can the best american, european, and filipino 9 ball players beat the best snooker players at snooker and vice versa
3:24 PM





Synthesized cross-discipline cue sports dynamics and skill transferability patterns

Synthesized cross-discipline cue sports dynamics and skill transferability patterns

This is a great cue sports question, and the short answer is: the crossover is very asymmetric. Snooker players have a much easier time competing at pool than pool players do at snooker. Here's why:

Snooker Players Playing 9-Ball​

Top snooker players can be genuinely competitive at 9-ball relatively quickly. The snooker table is 12 feet long with notoriously tight pockets and smaller balls, so snooker players already possess extreme cueing precision and positional awareness. Moving to a 9-foot pool table with larger pockets feels comparatively forgiving to them.

Notable examples: Steve Davis won multiple pool world championships after his snooker career peaked. Jimmy White was also competitive in pool. More recently, Judd Trump has shown interest in pool and clearly has the raw talent to compete. The potting and cue ball control skills transfer very well — the main adjustment is adapting to the faster, shorter game and different strategic patterns.

Could the best snooker players beat the best 9-ball players? Not consistently at the highest level — elite 9-ball specialists like Shane Van Boening (US), Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (Spain/Europe), or Carlo Biado (Philippines) have dedicated their lives to that specific discipline. But top snooker players could hang with them and win matches.

9-Ball Players Playing Snooker​

This is where it falls apart. The best American, European, and Filipino pool players would struggle enormously against elite snooker players on a full-size snooker table. The reasons stack up fast:

• Table size: The 12-foot table demands a completely different range of power and touch. Long pots that snooker players hit routinely feel almost impossible to a pool player at first.
• Pocket size: Snooker pockets are cut much tighter relative to ball size. The margin of error shrinks dramatically.
• Positional complexity: Snooker involves navigating 15 reds and 6 colors in sequences that require thinking many shots ahead with extremely precise cue ball placement.
• Safety play: Snooker's tactical game is far more intricate. Elite players like Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump, or Mark Selby would dominate the safety exchanges.

Even the legendary Efren Reyes — widely considered the greatest pool player ever — played some snooker but never came close to competing at the professional level. The same goes for other Filipino greats and American stars. The skill gap going in this direction is simply enormous.

The Bottom Line​

Think of it like tennis vs. table tennis. A world-class tennis player could become a decent table tennis player more easily than the reverse, because certain foundational skills transfer "downward" in scale more readily. Snooker's demands in precision, range, and tactical depth are so extreme that mastering it gives players a toolkit that adapts well to pool — but pool mastery, as impressive as it is, doesn't prepare you for the full-size snooker challenge. The best 9-ball players in the world would likely lose heavily to even mid-ranked professional snooker players on a snooker table.

"

I never wanna answer this freaking question again.

And I don’t wanna answer to all the excuses.

Efren beat Ronnie. Though Ronnie was a teenager, he was still one of the best snooker players on the planet at the time. They were on a snooker table in Bankok. Efren was using a pool cue. Earlier in that tournament, Efren had several century breaks. Small gambling outside of the tournament, Ronnie was giving Efren 25 points per frame, which sounds substantial against another snooker player, but the going word has always been that a top snooker player in full tournament mode should beat any nine ball player spot or no spot. Not only did Efren beat Ronnie that snooker set, but they continued by playing 7-ball on the snooker table. Efren won that set as well. This is a pretty well known story retold by Efren himself as well as Darryl Peach and Ronnie himself. Efren was record by Mark Wilson, and Efren told me the story himself.

Here’s the kicker… Efren has never been known to be the greatest pure shot maker in the pool world.

 

[gregcantrall]

different equipment, different discipline, different approach in the game, different skill prioritization. although it would benefit the player if they play multiple discipline.

Oh! Kinda like Efren being forced to play billiards in his homeland as he totally dominated rotation and couldn't get action.
The skills he brought to the 9 ball circuit changed the skills required of professional players .

 

[Cornerman]

The Bottom Line​

Think of it like tennis vs. table tennis. A world-class tennis player could become a decent table tennis player more easily than the reverse, because certain foundational skills transfer "downward" in scale more readily.

"

Horse hockey. That’s an even worse comparison, and as much as I love using AI, it might make me reconsider ever using Claude as a deep research tool. Any top Ping Pong player would laugh in Claude’s virtual face.

 

[uk_9_ball_convert]

I have not read all the posts, here is a video that provides insights into differences in the pool vs snooker comparison.
Edit: oops forgot the link.

Funnily enough Melling has just posted a video called 5 beginner mistakes, and two of the examples he says most American players do this wrong all the time (bridge for when cueing over a ball and standing side on to the shot which is his explanation for America struggling with tighter pockets in Mosconi cup)

 

[Cleveland_Rocks]

I never wanna answer this freaking question again.

And I don’t wanna answer to all the excuses.

Efren beat Ronnie. The Ronnie was a teenager. He was still one of the best snooker players on the planet of the time. They were on a snooker table. Efren was using a pool queue. In that tournament, Efren had several century breaks. Ronnie was giving Efren 25 points per frame, which sounds substantial against another snooker player, but the going word is always been that a top snooker player in full tournament mode should beat any nine ball player spot or no spot. Not only did Efren beat Ronnie, but they continued by playing 7-ball on the snooker table. Efren won that set as well. This is a pretty well known story retold by Efren himself as well as Darryl Peach and Ronnie himself. Efren was record by Mark Griffin, and Efren told me the story himself.

Here’s the kicker… Efren has never been known to be the greatest pure shot maker in the pool world.

Thank you for this story. This is a good example of the context that I was hoping to gain.

 

[Cameron Smith]

LLMs are in very simple terms acting as an aggregator. They will summarize what the consensus is based on probability, which itself is based on the amount of information out there to consume. They will tend to say snooker is harder or that snooker players are the best, not necessarily because it’s true, but because there’s simply more text out there and within the model making that case and much of it being made by snooker players.

 

[straightline]

Whatever they (bots) think or don't think there is the fanatic factor. They don't call 'em disciplines for nothing.
I suppose you can have fanatic jacks of all trades but apparently they'd be limited to jacks. The fanatics almost have to win in their fanatic spots.

 

[Cleveland_Rocks]

LLMs are in very simple terms acting as an aggregator. They will summarize what the consensus is based on probability, which itself is based on the amount of information out there to consume. They will tend to say snooker is harder or that snooker players are the best, not necessarily because it’s true, but because there’s simply more text out there and within the model making that case and much of it being made by snooker players.

This is in general a true statement.

 

[nataddrho]

Funnily enough Melling has just posted a video called 5 beginner mistakes, and two of the examples he says most American players do this wrong all the time (bridge for when cueing over a ball and standing side on to the shot which is his explanation for America struggling with tighter pockets in Mosconi cup)

Reminds me of this excellent article:

https://www.reddit.com/r/billiards/comments/1irk7im/the_real_truth_about_pool_improvement_why

Namely, "This is too basic," he says. Then proceeds to accidentally put spin on half his shots. Because his fundamentals weren't actually letting him hit where he was aiming.

The absolute number one problem with American players is their inflated egos, which is fed from the individualistic society we live in here. You can't "personal-style"-ize your way around proper fundamentals. People here would rather jump into the herd and live the life, mediocrely, rather than be bad at something boring for a long time before mastering it. It is related to this current willful-ignorance (or even spiteful-ignorance) environment that bothers me so much.

 

[Jaden]

Shaw said afterwards that he played safeties he knew Trump didn't know how to get out of. He also of course is a much better pool player.

It is apples and oranges - snooker players who had dabbled in pool have done well in tournaments but probably need to get lucky with layouts/patterns against the top players (high 700s and 800s) to have a chance of beating them. The very best pool players on the otherhand will rarely make breaks bigger than 50 or 60 and will lose to top amateur players in a race to 4 pretty much all the time.

Snooker is harder. Pool involves skills that snooker players rarely master. That's about the long and short of it.

I have to call bullshit. I can count the number of times I've played snooker on both hands and have an 83 break and several breaks over 60. I have to think that a top pool player who puts in the time would easily get higher average breaks.

edit: I have played on snooker tables more than that, but not actually the game of snooker. I used to play rotation and 8 ball on the snooker table with the skill balls, which are snooker sized balls in 1-15.

 

[Swighey]

I have to call bullshit. I can count the number of times I've played snooker on both hands and have an 83 break and several breaks over 60. I have to think that a top pool player who puts in the time would easily get higher average breaks.

Maybe you should enter Q school and get on the World Snooker Tour. You would "easily" have beaten Oliver Brown or Craig Steadman in this event with those higher average breaks in tournament play.

 

[Jaden]

Maybe you should enter Q school and get on the World Snooker Tour. You would "easily" have beaten Oliver Brown or Craig Steadman in this event with those higher average breaks in tournament play.

I didn't say "I" would have those higher average breaks, I said top pool players should have higher average breaks if they dedicated themselves to it. There isn't incentive to take the risk for the higher level pool players they're succeeding at what they're doing. The only ones who have tried were already declining in ability when they gave it a shot.

I didn't really want to get into this argument it's been had "100 times" (tongue in cheek) on this site.

SH!7, back in the day we had a top snooker player who got banned for two or three years from the snooker tour who was from Australia tell us all about how he was going to come rob all of the American pool players at pool...lol... Never happened.