Professional level according to Fargo

[JPB2]

Pool is a substantially undeveloped sport.

Filler's father was a pool player, and Joshua spent lots of time at the pool table at age 6 and competed nationally at age 10
SVB came from a few generations of serious players and spent a lot of time at the pool table when he couldn't reach it without a stool
Siming Chen's parents owned a pool hall
Kelly Fisher's parents owned a pub
Most of our young stars right now have similar stories (parents owned an establishment, slept under pool table as a toddler at tournaments).

When/if pool starts to become more developed, that fate of unusual early access/exposure will become more rare.

If you look at hockey in Canada, basketball and football in the US, baseball in the Dominican Republic, and soccer almost anywhere in the world, there is a lot more meritocratic filtering of the population. The simple model is everybody starts by trying and having posters of players on their wall. By age 12, the fastest/strongest/best from the whole population are competing with one another and pushing one another to the next level. The best of these get the recognition, stature, encouragement, and opportunity. By age 18, the best are really really good, and they're moderately close to the best that COULD be generated from that population.

The best swimmers, chess players, pool players, synchronized swimmers, and violinists don't fit this model. The filtering of the population is far less meritocratic.

Siming Chen, once again, had parents who owned a pool hall. Her small province in northeastern China has 30 million people. If we could imagine millions of girl in that province all being adopted out at a young age to parents who owned a pool hall, would Siming end up being the best player amongst them? Maybe. But probably not.

That's a good point, that if 1% of a population has enough access to a sport to develop their skills, it seems likely that the most talented individuals will not be in that 1%. On the other hand, the concept of talent has been debated. The fact that Earl was on the road 3 years after picking up a pool cue, and I've owned a table for 3 years and get smoked in weekly tournaments is proof enough for me. How rare is top level talent? I don't think top level talent is quite so rare that many people from the most talented group won't find themselves in front of a pool table. Is there a level of talent higher than Gorst, Filler, FSR, and SVB that's untapped? I don't even know how much better you can get, especially in a sport that doesn't require much in the way of physical gifts. If 0.01% of a population has top level talent, how many people need access to develop their talent before you are guaranteed that one of those one in 10,000 gets access?

Talent v. Skills/Practice. Sport v. game. Two good areas brought up in this thread.

IMO a sport is something that tests a physical skill in an objective way. Plenty of people will disagree with me on this. The particular skill can be more or less athletic. The objective part takes some very physical athletic endeavors out of the sport category. In Nordic skiing cross country is a sport. Ski jumping isn’t. If you are graded subjectively on landing and jumping too far is penalized I don’t think it is a sport. So I don’t consider gymnastics and diving sports even though they require great athletic abilities and skills. I don’t disrespect the athletes in those events, but there is a reason why -to my knowledge- figure skating is called artistic skating many places. Athletic art/endeavor but not a sport. Referee calls are different, those are imperfect attempts at binary calls under objective rules - in/out catch/drop foul/ fair. A judged score isn’t a sport to me. Boxing is still a sport because you can win a fight in a clear objective way. If it goes to the judges because of no KO, well each fighter had a chance. And we know the problems when the fight is scored...

IMO Pool is a sport. Poker and chess aren’t. Darts -sport. Pool does not require great athleticism. Many body types can compete. You can be built like a sprinter or distance runner. Lineman or cornerback. Jockey or steer wrestler. But the game does test physical skills. Knowledge and mental skills of course, but the execution is physical. So in pool where all physical types can play and the skills don’t require the most athleticism, a wide range of people could become very good with practice. But I think the idea that talent doesn’t matter or that anybody can be good with 10,000 hours of practice is flawed. I read some of that stuff and definitely agree that good coaching and 10,000 hours of structured, disciplined practice can take anybody a long way. But that won’t get you to the very top. Because at the very top there will be some talent/ability that can’t be taught. We all see this. Some people could practice a given sport forever and never be that great. And the best just have something. A small example is the test somebody did of golfers and putting. They put impact tape on putters to see the size of the dispersion of impact around the sweet spot. Naturally the bad players were all over the place. But the difference between a tour pro and an excellent amateur was big. So once you take lessons and play and practice for years and get to scratch, how come you can’t hit the putt off the sweet spot like a pro? It’s just a little swing with the ball sitting there on a nice putting green. You played in college and won your club championship and are a +1 and putt every day. And the pro has something you don’t. One can just hit the sweet spot to a better degree all the time.

So this is where I think Mark Page is right on. If every person with the potential to be great had the chance to develop, the level of play would go up. I don’t think we will ever know for sure who exactly has the potential or how many potential greats never get the chance. As mentioned, it is easier to expose a wide section of a population to soccer, basketball, running etc... a lot harder for motor sports, right. The player still has to practice a ton, but at the end of the 10,000 hours the exceptional one will be better. So if the cue sports get developed I think the play could get better. And no, I don’t think this contradicts what I said about greats from past eras being able to compete. I think the greats likely were in that group of exceptional ones,even if they came from a smaller pool. But maybe there is a higher level of exceptional. There is definitely a higher level of “very good”

 

[iusedtoberich]

Pool is a substantially undeveloped sport.

Filler's father was a pool player, and Joshua spent lots of time at the pool table at age 6 and competed nationally at age 10
SVB came from a few generations of serious players and spent a lot of time at the pool table when he couldn't reach it without a stool
Siming Chen's parents owned a pool hall
Kelly Fisher's parents owned a pub
Most of our young stars right now have similar stories (parents owned an establishment, slept under pool table as a toddler at tournaments).

When/if pool starts to become more developed, that fate of unusual early access/exposure will become more rare.

If you look at hockey in Canada, basketball and football in the US, baseball in the Dominican Republic, and soccer almost anywhere in the world, there is a lot more meritocratic filtering of the population. The simple model is everybody starts by trying and having posters of players on their wall. By age 12, the fastest/strongest/best from the whole population are competing with one another and pushing one another to the next level. The best of these get the recognition, stature, encouragement, and opportunity. By age 18, the best are really really good, and they're moderately close to the best that COULD be generated from that population.

The best swimmers, chess players, pool players, synchronized swimmers, and violinists don't fit this model. The filtering of the population is far less meritocratic.

Siming Chen, once again, had parents who owned a pool hall. Her small province in northeastern China has 30 million people. If we could imagine millions of girl in that province all being adopted out at a young age to parents who owned a pool hall, would Siming end up being the best player amongst them? Maybe. But probably not.

I disagree pool is under-developed. The allure of pool starts as a child, when they hear the clacks of the balls. Money does not change that. Thousands and thousands have devoted their lives to playing this game, starting in their youth. A notable portion of the members here, for example.

In any endeavor, you don't need billions of people to find the max that is achievable by the human body/mind/heart combination. I don't know the number, but I'd guess it's less than 10,000, probably less than 1,000. Meaning if you did what the USSR did for gymnasts in the 1970s, plucking out the most promising in 1st grade, and putting them on the olympic path for "pool" instead of gymnasts, it would only take 1000 of those plucks to produce the best that can be produced.

In pool, we have had that. Not state organized like the USSR did, but if you count the generations of players, especially all the Filipino players of the 70's into the 90's who grew up with a cue in their hand, the sample size is big enough to produce the best that can be produced.

Yes, there might be new shots that would be learned, and or equipment changes that would evolve the sport. But Shane/Filler/Efren/Busty/etc, would have learned those new things just as well as those 1000 first graders plucked out by the USSR, if they occurred during the years they were competing.

 

[straightline]

I disagree pool is under-developed. The allure of pool starts as a child, when they hear the clacks of the balls. Money does not change that. Thousands and thousands have devoted their lives to playing this game, starting in their youth. A notable portion of the members here, for example.

In any endeavor, you don't need billions of people to find the max that is achievable by the human body/mind/heart combination. I don't know the number, but I'd guess it's less than 10,000, probably less than 1,000. Meaning if you did what the USSR did for gymnasts in the 1970s, plucking out the most promising in 1st grade, and putting them on the olympic path for "pool" instead of gymnasts, it would only take 1000 of those plucks to produce the best that can be produced.

In pool, we have had that. Not state organized like the USSR did, but if you count the generations of players, especially all the Filipino players of the 70's into the 90's who grew up with a cue in their hand, the sample size is big enough to produce the best that can be produced.

Yes, there might be new shots that would be learned, and or equipment changes that would evolve the sport. But Shane/Filler/Efren/Busty/etc, would have learned those new things just as well as those 1000 first graders plucked out by the USSR, if they occurred during the years they were competing.

I think pool skills referenced to accomplishments in other disciplines are clearly under developed, haphazard, and even shoddy in contrast.

 

[JPB2]

I disagree pool is under-developed. The allure of pool starts as a child, when they hear the clacks of the balls. Money does not change that. Thousands and thousands have devoted their lives to playing this game, starting in their youth. A notable portion of the members here, for example.

In any endeavor, you don't need billions of people to find the max that is achievable by the human body/mind/heart combination. I don't know the number, but I'd guess it's less than 10,000, probably less than 1,000. Meaning if you did what the USSR did for gymnasts in the 1970s, plucking out the most promising in 1st grade, and putting them on the olympic path for "pool" instead of gymnasts, it would only take 1000 of those plucks to produce the best that can be produced.

In pool, we have had that. Not state organized like the USSR did, but if you count the generations of players, especially all the Filipino players of the 70's into the 90's who grew up with a cue in their hand, the sample size is big enough to produce the best that can be produced.

Yes, there might be new shots that would be learned, and or equipment changes that would evolve the sport. But Shane/Filler/Efren/Busty/etc, would have learned those new things just as well as those 1000 first graders plucked out by the USSR, if they occurred during the years they were competing.

I think pool skills referenced to accomplishments in other disciplines are clearly under developed, haphazard, and even shoddy in contrast.

First sorry about the typo on Mike Page above. Oops

I think there are a combination of factors producing players. I was always interested in pool from the first time I saw it but was maybe 19 when I had access. Didn’t devote my life to it and am not great. I don’t know how good I’d be, but I know I’d be better than I am if I had the same access to pool as other sports, and I don’t think I am alone in that. I had more access to golf for example, and my parents didn’t belong to a country club. Part of access is societal and family related. My parents would take me to hockey practice or games, baseball, football, etc... but pool? No way. How many kids are in that boat? And when I had a drivers license I could finally go to a pool hall, there were pool halls that you could go to under 21. How many kids live places where you have to be 21. So there has to be access to the sport by enough people at a young enough age where some end up becoming great.

Once you have access then structured programs and teaching come into play. You mentioned USSR and gymnastics, but that also entailed sport science and study in addition to the authoritarian government. I think Russian ballet does something similar - before and after the USSR period. They weed out not enough talent and wrong body type pretty young I think, but I don’t know much about ballet to be sure. Many countries do something similar in national sports programs. Anyway, a big enough population to pick out that 1000 kids is needed, and to do it you need a structure to find and develop the athletes.
The level of instruction in basically every other sport is better. It is getting better in pool. Snooker has had more instruction too. But how many kids ever get the coaching available in other sports, tennis, golf, figure skating (not sport) or say weightlifting. A kid learning the snatch isn’t told “use a comfortable grip and a stance you like and rip that bar up like that guy there.” Granted few kids get exposed to Olympic lifts. Pool is behind and relatively undeveloped. Yeah, a hotbed like the Philippines is great but isn’t necessarily the best way. It does seem like more young people have access and a chance to develop.

Again though I partially agree in that the greats find a way and can do things without great instruction sometimes.

 

[straightline]

I'd add that there is no incentive beyond winning. IOW that's good enough. From an evolutionary POV, I don't think it IS enough.

 

[mikepage]

[...]

In any endeavor, you don't need billions of people to find the max that is achievable by the human body/mind/heart combination. I don't know the number, but I'd guess it's less than 10,000, probably less than 1,000. Meaning if you did what the USSR did for gymnasts in the 1970s, plucking out the most promising in 1st grade, and putting them on the olympic path for "pool" instead of gymnasts, it would only take 1000 of those plucks to produce the best that can be produced.

When you suggest picking the "most promising" 1000 1st graders, you ARE choosing from that much larger pool. It's not the same as choosing 1000 people at random. We don't know how big an effect that can have. But here is a clue it is big. The top 6 women in Taiwan, population about the same as Florida and less than Texas, less that California, Less than Canada, average 747. The US and Canada have produced no women over 700.

This suggests it is possible--in a raw material sense--for US and Canada to produce hundreds of women over 700 and probably way more. You can't look at our current top women and suggest they are somehow underperforming. Those 700s we could produce would generally be different women.

 

[skogstokig]

of course there will come better players than filler, shane etc eventually. participation growth, professionalization, better training practices are likely factors (and even with those factors stagnant it would probably happen, time sorts it out). this is the same discussion as in the todays-vs-yesterdays-players threads where some people think pool is exempt from the evolution that every other sport, including other cue sports, go through. it isn't.

 

[tomatoshooter]

of course there will come better players than filler, shane etc eventually. participation growth, professionalization, better training practices are likely factors (and even with those factors stagnant it would probably happen, time sorts it out). this is the same discussion as in the todays-vs-yesterdays-players threads where some people think pool is exempt from the evolution that every other sport, including other cue sports, go through. it isn't.

I thought the discussion was not about the inevitable performance increase that comes from better training, but that there are talented people that never participated and some of these people are talented enough that Filler, Gorst, etc. would not even be top players. I can believe that there may be many people who could potentially be as good as them, but never developed. I'm having a little trouble believing that there is an untapped potential level of play that would relegate Gorst, Filler, FSR, etc. to amateur status.

 

[tomatoshooter]

This suggests it is possible--in a raw material sense--for US and Canada to produce hundreds of women over 700 and probably way more. You can't look at our current top women and suggest they are somehow underperforming. Those 700s we could produce would generally be different women.

That's an interesting wrinkle to the discussion. I think a lot of women in the US are for various reasons, not drawn to competition, and the ones that are may be drawn to sports that have a strongly established women's division, like softball, tennis, etc. The number of high performing women in Taiwan suggests to me that pool talent may not be so rare. I have to wonder what the level of participation in a true competitive and disciplined training atmosphere is. Still, it's hard to accept that if a population of 20 million has enough talented players to have dozens of 700 level women, that in the US, with 16 times the population, no talented women walk into a pool hall.

 

[atlas333]

Fargo rating is the true leukemia to pool! Rating must of been a liberals idea!

Why do you say that? I'm not sure I understand your point

 

[alphadog]

Why do you say that? I'm not sure I understand your point

Don't play to the railtards.

 

[maha]

bigger player pools and better players will come from the second and third world countries. as the little bit of money means much more to them than americans and europians naturally. raise the level of the prize funds and watch the sport blossom quickly.

that's what happened in poker. once the world got to see the tremendous amounts of money to be had, people from all walks of life put in massive amounts of time and study learning the game to the highest levels.
if pool had million dollar prizes the flock of players would expand right away.

the way to do that isn't to find sponsors, it is to have the buy in for the big tournaments much much larger and change the format.
the best will still come out more ahead this way as well.
do away with tournaments with 100 and 200 buy ins except for local ones. that's chicken feed.

 

[hang-the-9]

Interesting you seem to assume Shane, Filler, and Gorst would be pro level players.

Interesting also, you think that if say everyone that went to train for baseball, went and played pool with training instead since they were about 10, there would be enough players good enough to make those guys not be in the top 40 in Fargo? There is really no higher training and expectations than places like China, and those guys are not out in front of many other pros. I don't think there is enough skill to push aside the top guys now, not by much, there is simply a matter of human limitations that we are slowly reaching.

 

[mikepage]

Interesting also, you think that if say everyone that went to train for baseball, went and played pool with training instead since they were about 10, there would be enough players good enough to make those guys not be in the top 40 in Fargo?

I think that's likely true

There is really no higher training and expectations than places like China, and those guys are not out in front of many other pros.

By "places like China," let's distinguish mainland China (big, lots of people) from Chinese Taipei/Taiwan (island with 24M people).
Let's define a few units.
A "TAIWAN" of people means a population of 24 million people.
A "CMT" means a Credible Mosconi-like Team, a group of five players who average 816 and are competitive with a typical European Mosconi Cup team.

Pool seems to be pretty popular in Taiwan. It's hard to know just how popular. The top five current Taiwanese players average 816. So we can say that particular TAIWAN of people produced one CMT.

What would pool be like if every TAIWAN of people produced a CMT? First, mainland China would produce 58 CMTs --that's 300 people averaging 816 from China alone. The USA and Canada would have 15 CMTs between them. Japan would have 4. Europe would have about 30.

That's already more than 500 people averaging 816. I wonder what the all star team plucked from THIS group would look like.

I don't think there is enough skill to push aside the top guys now, not by much, there is simply a matter of human limitations that we are slowly reaching.

In 1954, the record for running a mile was 4:01.3 and had been for a decade. The medical/scientific/athletic community regarded breaking 4 minutes as an insurmountable limitation of the human body. So far in 2023, 63 runners have run a mile under 4 minutes for the first time.

 

[hang-the-9]

In 1954, the record for running a mile was 4:01.3 and had been for a decade. The medical/scientific/athletic community regarded breaking 4 minutes as an insurmountable limitation of the human body. So far in 2023, 63 runners have run a mile under 4 minutes for the first time.

The thing with sports advancements is not just in the people skill and talent, it's also in training and in equipment they use. To gain a few seconds of time over 4 minutes it took some better shoes and running surfaces, not just stronger humans. The modern bows in archery are more accurate, due to the equipment, I doubt the archers of 100 years ago were worse at using their equipment, they just had different equipment. Muscle-builders are bulkier and stronger due to harder more focused training and changes in diet (taking away things like steroids), guys from 100 years ago could have been as big if they had the same standards and knowledge. We have had LD shafts for decades now, but I can't imagine any better training or accuracy from the equipment than we have now. The modern shooting methods that produced all the 800+ players and snooker players seem hard to improve on, and the % of errors we see is almost at an inhuman level now LOL

 

[kidcuban21]

If golf is considered a sport (worldwide), then pool should be a sport even more rightly so.

I'm not a golfer, but I would think there is extensively more strategy and knowledge, just in one-pocket alone.... you cant play safe in golf, lol.

 

[JPB2]

If golf is considered a sport (worldwide), then pool should be a sport even more rightly so.

I'm not a golfer, but I would think there is extensively more strategy and knowledge, just in one-pocket alone.... you cant play safe in golf, lol.

I like golf but tend to agree with you. I got interested in golf architecture for a while and tried to learn a bit about it. I also had some sense of course management. The golf architecture people discuss strategy a lot, but IMO it pales in comparison to one pocket. There are some strategies in golf, but it tends to be simpler. Maybe like 9 ball compared to one pocket. You are right you can't play defense in golf, but you can and should vary your strategy based on a situation and your ability to execute a shot. The flip side is that you have to get your ball in the hole - you have to shoot. Also, match play has some strategies that are different from stroke play.

Golfers are using stats and better knowledge of their own games to try to play in a smarter more strategic way. In this way it is something like shot choice in one pocket where you have to pick a shot based on what you can pull off. So in golf I think you need knowledge and execution is difficult. Strategy wise I think pool is ahead. Don't quote me to the golf architecture crowd tho.