Pro Pool is now a young man's game !!

[spartan]

So let us compare winners podium (i.e. semifinalists -gold, silver, bronze medalists) of major events over last 3 years (2017-2019) against 2010-2016 World 9 Ball Championship (since W9B data is more readily available).






Based on the limited data set, we can infer a few things:
1) The winners podium is getting younger and younger.
The young (The age of maturity is 25. So technically, we can define “young” as 24 and below) on winners podium jumped four fold from 7% at turn of the decade to 30% in last few years.
Number of those 30 and below jumped from about one third before 2017 to two thirds in recent years.
Number of those 31 and above halved to just 36% from 71%
The average age of semifinalists dropped from 33.5 to 28.2
7 out of 9 winners of recent events were 30 and below. Before that only 2 out of 7 were 30 and below
That is not true of all sports though. Golf is getting younger but tennis is still dominated by older bunch led by the top 3.

2) The cream/usual suspects always rise to the top
All the semifinalists from last 3 years were known names, notables (whether in their country or overseas). The only anomaly/exception was Masato Yoshioka (Fargorate 764), an unknown qualifier who had a dream run to semifinal of recent World 10 Ball. Anton Raga was an unknown outside Philippines but was already in top 30 Fargo (below 800) before his surprise run to China Open final. His revised Fargorate is now 820. All others were above Fargorate 785 (Thorsten lowest at 785)

3) Winners (Champions) of these events are top 10 Fargorate (810 and above).
But at the semifinal stage, any one of them can win the event and since semifinalists are above 785/790 Fargorate , minimum 785/790 should be good enough to win these major events. So from current Fargorate , only about 60 players in world can win.In fact, if there is a pro tour, only the top 64 should be allowed to play, the rest can be spectators. :grin:
Of cos, that may change, since Fargorate seems to be keep increasing so in near future, may need minimum 800.
In other words, if you are a pro with less than 785 Fargorate, you can book your flight home on the second last day of the event (since semifinal and final is usually on last day).

 

[sjm]

Yours is definitely a fair conclusion in rotation games. Buddy Hall and Mike LeBron both won the US Open in their 50s, but those days appear long gone. In recent times, few old-timers have been able to exhibit world championship class skills in rotation pool, although Souquet is still near the top on the Eurotour at the age of 50 and even played on Team Europe at age 49 in the Mosconi Cup.

In one pocket, the older guys still give the young guys fits. Bustamante has won the last two one pocket titles at the Derby City Classic, an event having a field of about 400 players. Francisco is in his mid-50s. Corey Deuel and Dennis Orcullo are probably among the world's top five in one pocket, both past their 40th birthday.

In straight pool, too, the older guys still hold their own against the younger guys. Niels Feijen, John Schmidt, Thorsten Hohmann, Mika Immonen, and Dennis Orcullo are still among the best few and all are past their 40th birthday.

I don't see it changing anytime soon. Rotation pool is a young man's game. Thanks for all the informative facts. I think you've made an air-tight argument.

 

[michael4]

…...Golf is getting younger but tennis is still dominated by older bunch led by the top 3.

The men's and women's champions of the US Open tennis tournament each received $3,850,000.

Let that sink in for a second.....

 

[AtLarge]

Interesting presentation, spartan, thanks.

Note that 7 of the 36 slots in your info for the past 3 years are for Filler and Kaçi. Without them, the overall average of 28.2 rises to 30.3.

I found a story by Ted Lerner on the 2014 World 9-B event, and he said Haya was 37 at that time, so your estimate of 35 was pretty close.

Here's a post showing the ages of all the winners of the World 9-Ball Championship and the US Open 9-Ball Championship. The median for both of those events is in the low 30's (without regard to recent vs. more distant years). https://forums.azbilliards.com/showpost.php?p=6432363&postcount=20