Players today are better

Johnnyt said:
John thanks for your input to this thread. I agree the tables are tougher today for the most part. 40 to 50 years ago in poolrooms like mine I had one, maybe two tight pocket tables. In the late 1950's Brunswick and I'm sure most other table companies set-up tables with bucket pockets so the new players coming in could make balls.
Today you have whole rooms with tight-ass pocket Diamonds. And I did forget that the Asian Invasion was not around in the 1960's, along with other countries that play here now. Johnnyt
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Old tables had buckets. Buckets,buckets.
Everytime I see an old GC or Sport King or Anniversary, I look at the pockets and they are all more than 2 balls width easily.
Mosconi's 526 would have been broken now if straight-pool was still the game of choice imo.
 
Today we have really low deflection shafts, everyone can apply side english without problems. We have all kind of equipements to play the game easier. There are also a lot of teachers who already figure all the things, so you can learn from them, instead of learning by yourself. So yes, the players are playing better today.
 
AZE said:
Natural progression, the players of today should be better then the players of yesterday - because they expand and improve on the old knowledge and equipment. The same as in most any other sport.
That is not to take anything away from the older players, if they were born in this age they would've been better. More knowledge, better equipment, you know what I'm saying?
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Valid point, and put today's players in a pool room 50 years ago with no air conditioning, inferior equipment, force them to wear a suit and then bring in Mosconi, Crane, Balsis, Caras, Lassiter, etc and I'm guessing those old timers would hold their own. Heck, Crane was 65 years old when he took down the overall in the world series of pocket billiards which was a combination of 14.1 and 9 ball. Crane was past his prime and the young guns were there.

People think today's baseball players are superior. Put these steroid boys in a batters box 50 years ago without a batting helmet facing a pitcher throwing off a higher mound and an umpire who isn't going to stop the pitcher from throwing at your head and lets see how many guys are leaning out over the plate and jacking balls out of the park.
 
Engert ran 491 on a nine footer. I don't think Mosconi's record would last a year if someone put up a bunch of money to break it.

Engert, Schmidt, Strickland, Dallas West, all have runs over 400 I believe.

If 14.1 had a major championship that paid a LOT of money, we might get some of the Asian stars to take up the game and who knows how many they might run. Give the Filipinos, players from Taipei, Japan,etc... enough incentive and I think one of them might run 700.

Wu, Ko look like top players already; if Archer ran 200+ after a few lessons from Varner, who knows how many these teenagers would run after a few years of instruction.
 
If todays money game was straight pool I beleive you'd see Mosconi's recorded shattered. Young players don't concentrate on that game.
That being said, the best pool I've seen played was by Strickland, Hall, Varner, Sigel, Parica, Bustamante, Tadd and Archer. There was a certain quality to their pool playing that you don't see with today's player. I'm a musician and I feel the same way about musice from the 60's and 70's. There is a certain sound to that music because it was preformed by well-rounded pros. It had character and the same can be said for pool of that era. I do believe that Shane Van Boening will stand out in the group for the next 20 years like Archer did.
 
always interesting discussion

I have to agree with no real difference between the most elite players of any age. I think that if the best young players that have only played on fast cloth and good equipment went back seventy-five years they would be barbecued, . . for awhile. Likewise I think the same would be true of yesterday's greats trying to play today's style of game. However, the best of either group would be competitive in a very short time.

The real difference is the next level of players. Even a twenty year layoff showed me a world of difference in the pool rooms. Better equipment true, but also a much more savvy group of players. Many youngsters in their late teens and early twenties already know much more than over 80% of the people in the old pool halls ever would.

It gets harder and harder for any one person to standout for any length of time simply because the top 10% or so of players are so close together. There may never be another player that dominates the game for years on end. If there is, it will probably be because of the mental game, not raw skills.

Hu
 
ironman said:
768 or 526?? Both are incredible numbers I can't even fathom.

What amazes me about both these feats is that I've played this game for35 years {app.} and at one time played pretty fair. but set up any shot on the table and shoot it 5-6-700 times and not scratch seems just incredible to me.
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It IS incredible. And what 14.1 amplifies, more than any other game...is the player's ability to maintain INTENSE concentration for VERY long periods of time.

For anyone who doubts that concentration...and yes, the ability to overcome boredom...isn't CRUCIAL...just set up a straight in, down the rail shot with the CB and OB one diamond on either side of the side pocket.

Now shoot that shot...which is almost a hanger one handed/jacked up...and see if you can make it 500 times in a row!


But we live in a short attention span society...thanks to MTV! (-:

So a 2 minute 9 Ball rack is about as long as we can hold the audience's attention...and not too many in the audiences at that.

Regards,
Jim
 
john schmidt said:
my two cents.todays best are not better or worse than yesterdays best ,there is just alot more of us.and for those who say the tables today are easier ,your kidding right.in the old days a match of say 900 accustats was a great score playing 9ball on bigger pockets .today the best players are scoring that high playing tenball on a diamond. someone said buddy hall and harold worst would manhandle svb,or alex pag.if you brought buddy and harold back through time to play todays best it would take them a little while to adjust to different rules cloth break etc etc but trust me they would do just fine.because they were great players.same for alex and shane, they went back in time they could figure out how to play rollout on nap cloth trust me.the only difference is alex and shane would be looking around the room and high fiveing each other ,you know why.because they would say wow there is only fifteen great players in this 64 man tourney instead of 15 asians,15 europeans,and 30 more great players from around the world who never hardly miss a ball and break 30 mph.ive played rollout on nap cloth and believe me its a hanger to runout on compared to a boingy,tight diamond table.also the things that made guys like buddy and the other pros back then way smarter than everyone else is common knowledge now.trust me 50 years from now running 400 at 14.1 will still be very tough and rare,but there will most likely be 100 players capable of doing it instead of say 30 nowadays.
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John, I'm not sure I follow you on this...

"for those who say the tables today are easier ,your kidding right.in the old days a match of say 900 accustats was a great score playing 9ball on bigger pockets .today the best players are scoring that high playing tenball on a diamond."

In the first part of your comment you suggest that today's tables are harder...which I agree with. But then you say that on today's tables, top players are scoring HIGHER than in the old days which suggests that today's tables are easier.

Regarding the best today and the best of long ago having the same skill levels...as I've said, that will never be known. But except for less than a handful of players, I really doubt that there has been no measurable improvement in player skill over long periods of time, mostly because if true, it would be the first time in the history of any sport that has been the case.

Again, we can never prove anything and I don't pretend to know the pocket sizes of every table in every tournamnet from 1900-1970 but my GUESS is that A) they didn't play on 4.5s all that often back then and B) the cloth was easier IMHO!

So WHO KNOWS how Wimpy would have played on tighter, faster tables? He would have played GREAT for sure...but could he beat the best players of today on today's equipment? That's just impossible to know.

Regards,
Jim
 
Well i watched caras vs. mosconi on azbtv playing straight pool, and i believe they were around 54 years old or so. After watching i came to the conclusion that present day efren would give either one of them the 7 and 8 playing tenball on any table.
 
ShootingArts said:
I have to agree with no real difference between the most elite players of any age. I think that if the best young players that have only played on fast cloth and good equipment went back seventy-five years they would be barbecued, . . for awhile. Likewise I think the same would be true of yesterday's greats trying to play today's style of game. However, the best of either group would be competitive in a very short time.

The real difference is the next level of players. Even a twenty year layoff showed me a world of difference in the pool rooms. Better equipment true, but also a much more savvy group of players. Many youngsters in their late teens and early twenties already know much more than over 80% of the people in the old pool halls ever would.

It gets harder and harder for any one person to standout for any length of time simply because the top 10% or so of players are so close together. There may never be another player that dominates the game for years on end. If there is, it will probably be because of the mental game, not raw skills.

Hu
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Oh, there will be. It's just a matter of time. There will always be the Tigers, MJs, Federers...and Allison Fishers...people who simply play at a different and higher level than anyone before them. And YES...the "mental toughness" aspect is AT LEAST as important as any other single thing.

The greatest champions...every single one of them....have/had an UNBELIEVABLE will to win and HATRED of losing which, combined with an otherworldly ability to maintain INTENSE concentration under pressure and over long periods of time, leads to domination of their sports.

Pool is very much like tennis in that the game is generally "lost" due to unforced errors instead of "won" with a series of services aces or 89 degree cut shots.

Regards,
Jim
 
donny mills said:
Well i watched caras vs. mosconi on azbtv playing straight pool, and i believe they were around 54 years old or so. After watching i came to the conclusion that present day efren would give either one of them the 7 and 8 playing tenball on any table.
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I hear ya Donny...but Willie had a stroke in his 40's and it was only through sheer will power that he regained as much of his game as he did.

But I've seen MANY of those classic matches too and I know what you are saying. We'll have to wait a few more years to see how Efren plays in his mid-to-late 50s but it would be hard to believe that he would lose that much in 3-5 years.

Regards,
Jim
 
First let me say I'm not sure if the players today are better. I will say it was harder to run out on a 9' table with slow cloth, a regular cue ball and playing with standard shafts.

The old slow cloth required a harder hit on the regular cue ball to get around the table by at least 25%. Everybody knows the harder you have to hit the cue ball the harder it is to hit it exactly where you want to hit it therebye increasing your chances of missing. You needed a strong stroke to get around the table and you don't need nearly as strong a stroke today. The red circle cue ball is a little easier to draw than a blue circle (again you don't have to hit the ball as hard).

The Predator shaft and other low deflection shafts (over 50% is advertised as pro's using) are more efficient with reduced deflection and making balls is a little easier.

One foul ball in hand rules allows more luck to enter the picture. Players doggin it and getting lucking and hook a player and winning the game because of it (in roll out you could push to a tough shot). Getting out of line and playing safe to win. The better players can't dominate like they did 30 years ago because of the one foul rule.

There are more competive players today because the game has become easier. I don't think any pro will argue that. Keith McCready said his game went down 2 balls when one foul rules became the standard. He was wrong - most everybody elses game went up 2 balls.

Are there better players today? Probably but the game is easier.
 
I Know That Ed Was Dying For Someone To Ask

Ed Simmons said:
The respect shown to each other in this thread is what makes it different from almost every other forum on the net,
and that's half the reason I come to AZ almost every day.
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What's the other half ?
Doug
 
av84fun said:
I hear ya Donny...but Willie had a stroke in his 40's and it was only through sheer will power that he regained as much of his game as he did.

But I've seen MANY of those classic matches too and I know what you are saying. We'll have to wait a few more years to see how Efren plays in his mid-to-late 50s but it would be hard to believe that he would lose that much in 3-5 years.

Regards,
Jim
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You've no doubt seen the Crane vs Balsis match from 1966 then. Crane runs 150 and out in the finals. Crane was 53 at the time.

I'll tell a story about a guy that most people never heard of. Bill Hendricks is 1964 intercollegiate straight pool champion and author of a book about pool. A guy named Butch who used to own a room in the St Louis area told me that Bill came into his room once and got a table. Set up a breakout ball, ran 200 balls and without missing a ball started to break his cue down. Butch asked him "Aren't you going to finish"? Bill said "I'll finish tomorrow". I'm not sure how old he was at the time but he is in his 80's now so I'm guessing he was probably in his 50's or 60's at the time, and a 200 ball run wasn't a big deal.

The only reason I tell the story is to say that there were more than 15 or 20 old timers who could run some balls.
 
john schmidt said:
my two cents.todays best are not better or worse than yesterdays best ,there is just alot more of us.and for those who say the tables today are easier ,your kidding right.in the old days a match of say 900 accustats was a great score playing 9ball on bigger pockets .today the best players are scoring that high playing tenball on a diamond. someone said buddy hall and harold worst would manhandle svb,or alex pag.if you brought buddy and harold back through time to play todays best it would take them a little while to adjust to different rules cloth break etc etc but trust me they would do just fine.because they were great players.same for alex and shane, they went back in time they could figure out how to play rollout on nap cloth trust me.the only difference is alex and shane would be looking around the room and high fiveing each other ,you know why.because they would say wow there is only fifteen great players in this 64 man tourney instead of 15 asians,15 europeans,and 30 more great players from around the world who never hardly miss a ball and break 30 mph.ive played rollout on nap cloth and believe me its a hanger to runout on compared to a boingy,tight diamond table.also the things that made guys like buddy and the other pros back then way smarter than everyone else is common knowledge now.trust me 50 years from now running 400 at 14.1 will still be very tough and rare,but there will most likely be 100 players capable of doing it instead of say 30 nowadays.
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great post ...! a lot of us stopped playing for a while and I'm sure have a similiar story ...the overall level of play has risen dramatically ... go to any 5.00 entry 8-ball tournament in any city and lower level players running racks is not unusual .....
 
alstl said:
You've no doubt seen the Crane vs Balsis match from 1966 then. Crane runs 150 and out in the finals. Crane was 53 at the time.

I'll tell a story about a guy that most people never heard of. Bill Hendricks is 1964 intercollegiate straight pool champion and author of a book about pool. A guy named Butch who used to own a room in the St Louis area told me that Bill came into his room once and got a table. Set up a breakout ball, ran 200 balls and without missing a ball started to break his cue down. Butch asked him "Aren't you going to finish"? Bill said "I'll finish tomorrow". I'm not sure how old he was at the time but he is in his 80's now so I'm guessing he was probably in his 50's or 60's at the time, and a 200 ball run wasn't a big deal.

The only reason I tell the story is to say that there were more than 15 or 20 old timers who could run some balls.
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I'm sure there were but not as often as many might think. Mosconi's tournament 125-50 and out runouts happened only 10-11% of the time.

Most 14.1 matches took LOTS of innings to complete. I will take a WILD guess so don't bash me if I'm wrong but I would guess that the typical 14.1 match took at least 12-15 innings and I would GUESS that the average run...after breaking into the initial rack would be 40-50 balls.

Make no mistake...you need some ROLLS to run over 100.

And yes, I own the Crane/Balsis match. One of my prized possessions.
(-:

Jim
 
Poolplaya9 said:
Today's players have had so many more years of increased achievement and pool history that they have been able to erase many of the subconscious mental barriers that someone from an era say 50 years ago would likely have.
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I'm not sure I understand the premise. If you take Mosconi in his prime and put him in there with today's best 14.1 players, then if they have the benefit of all that has been accomplished in the game 'til now, so does Mosconi.

If everyone concedes that today's athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and better, then I don't see what the interest would be in comparing, say, Mickey Mantle of the 50's to Barry Bonds of the 90's, or Jim Brown of the 60's to Ladanian Tomlinson of the 2000's. The interesting comparison would be to take Jim Brown in his prime and Tomlinson in his prime and have them compete under the exact same conditions. That's the way to find out who is the greatest athlete.
 
Lose the AVATAR

Smorgass Bored said:
What's the other half ?
Doug
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Smorg!!! I PROMISE I'll never ask you for another favor the rest of my life...but PLEASE lose the Bubble Belly!

That just TOO GROSS!!!!

(-:
 
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