Putnam vs A. Fisher - why I'm taking sides on this one.

[JB Cases]

How much weight can Allison or Karen give Jeanette? The 8? Maybe the called 8? Well Jeanette's hubby George can give her the 6 ball and he doesn't even hardly play pool anymore.... I would have to think George would give Allison the 7 and he doesn't even play anymore. What could Alex, Orcullo, Archer, SVB, etc... give Allison? The freaking world! This debate gets me every single time. In a field like the Predator 10 Ball, US Open, etc... a woman has ZERO chance of winning the tournament. Period...... Oh, and BTW, Karen plays better than Allison.

I wouldn't say that zero chance is accurate. Once in the top 32 they have to win 6 matches to win the event. Three women made it to the top 32 and so that means that they have three shots at getting there no matter how long a a shot it is.

These debates always come down to gambling comparisions when they should be focused on tournament play. In any given set any top five woman can take a set from any man. There is well more than ZERO chance of that happening, has already been proven many times over.

Yu Ram Cha just proved that a woman can even come from behind and win against a US Open and World Champion. I am pretty sure that if I had offered to bet even money on Yu Ram with Shane 8:4 ahead going to 11 then 99% of the people on here would have climbed a mile of razor wire to get a bet down. I probably could have gotten odds on the money.

She earned that victory. I know for a fact that I play pretty sporty at times and have run five racks against Ronnie Wiseman. But I can tell you that if I were faced with Yu Ram's last two outs I would have blown them both just thinking about beating Shane.

So why is it so inconceivable that the stars could line up and a player of the caliber of the top women could not win six matches against six men? Each match is played one match at a time, the race is to a set amount, the women can run out open racks with the best of them and can sometimes come with tough outs as well. As TwoforPool said earlier it's only a matter of time before a woman shows up who is playing lights out and gets the rolls and earns her victory match for match.

Improbable? Yes. Impossible. No.

If anyone wants to bet $1000 today I will bet that in the next ten years starting from this date a woman will win a major event where the final 32 consists of the top players in the world give or take a few unknowns.

 

[Ken_4fun]

Also at the DCC there are like ten women against HUNDREDS of men who all play fairly good and it's short races. That's hardly a fair example. If you took those same ten women and gave them EXACTLY the same upbringing as the past ten winners of the DCC - same experiences and everything WITHOUT the stigma of being a woman in the pool room then at least 2 or 3 of the last ten winners at DCC would be women.

Come on now, alot of those guys are playing because they want admission to the audience. My hats off to JL, and the others who play. But the last of that arguement aligns with my thoughts, physically it isnt plausable, not saying impossible (almost) but not plausable.

What is it about the fact that FAR LESS women play pool than men that people don't get? And of those women who do choose to try to play competitively they are not treated like everyone else is no matter how much people think that they are treating the women the same. All women who play pool right now face the inevitable "you play pretty good for a girl" mentality.

UGH, I agree less play. AND THEY ARENT AS GOOD AS THE MEN.

You want to see living proof of the FACT that WE - ALL OF US - can't treat women equally?

It's this very discussion. The fact that we discuss and argue and clap harder when a woman plays a man is proof enough that WE ALL still feel that women are INFERIOR to men on some cosmic level that no matter what the circumstances they will never achieve equality.

She IS the underdog. Hell, I usually cheer for the underdog in most things. Except the Cubs! (Cardinal fan)

And the other proof is the absolutely stupid extra bonus for highest finishing woman. If I were a woman in the 10-Ball event I would tell Charlie to keep it.

Disagree, surprize. You and I both agree that more women playing is a good thing.

I wish you well my friend, somehow, somewhere there is a bet, if you can figure it out, Im in.

How about this, next DCC, I will bet no woman, finishes in the top 6. Name the amount.

Ken

 

[Ken_4fun]

Yu Ram Cha just proved that a woman can even come from behind and win against a US Open and World Champion. I am pretty sure that if I had offered to bet even money on Yu Ram with Shane 8:4 ahead going to 11 then 99% of the people on here would have climbed a mile of razor wire to get a bet down. I probably could have gotten odds on the money.

She earned that victory. I know for a fact that I play pretty sporty at times and have run five racks against Ronnie Wiseman. But I can tell you that if I were faced with Yu Ram's last two outs I would have blown them both just thinking about beating Shane.

Again, my point. Great win for her, but to win a major tourneyment, she would have have to win, again, and again, in the loins den of top MEN players.

Ken

 

[TX Poolnut]

Again, my point. Great win for her, but to win a major tourneyment, she would have have to win, again, and again, in the loins den of top MEN players.

Ken

loins den. :grin-square:

 

[JB Cases]

I wish you well my friend, somehow, somewhere there is a bet, if you can figure it out, Im in.

How about this, next DCC, I will bet no woman, finishes in the top 6. Name the amount.

Ken

I will bet 100 if you give me odds that are exactly equal to the number of men playing vs. the number of women playing.

So if in the 9-ball event there are 10 women and 690 guys then the bet is your $690 to each of my $10

If the number of women is equal to the number of men then our bet is equal.

How's that?

 

[JB Cases]

Again, my point. Great win for her, but to win a major tourneyment, she would have have to win, again, and again, in the loins den of top MEN players.

Ken

Well the point was made that there is zero chance of that happening and that's not true. For there to be zero chance then it would have to be impossible for a woman to ever win a set from a man. Obviously that has been proven false many time over the years as women have indeed won matches and even championship matches from established World and US Open champions.

Therefore no matter how great the odds against such a feat RIGHT NOW, the feat being winning six sets against six men in a row in a major tournament, logically it's not impossible just improbable given the CURRENT skill level difference between men as a group and women as a group.

I guarantee you though that IF such a situation ever occurred where the top women could play week in and week out against the top men then their average skill level WOULD increase and they would post more match and tournament wins.

If you offer me 100 to 1 odds then I will bet $100 on every major "men's" tournament that any women are playing in that a woman will win the event. I will escrow enough money for the next five majors if you will do the same. It makes no sense to shout that women are weaker players - they are and the women know this themselves. So what? We all agree that it's a long shot for the best woman to win against the best men?

It's also a long shot for any shortstop to win a major for the same reason. But sometimes they do. Once in a while some regional road player will win an event and then they will never win again. That week they got a hot stick and got the rolls and maybe played over their head a little and beat the best in the world.

My diving coach used to tell me that anyone could lucky once but doing it twice in row perfectly is skill. Right now the top women have enough skill that if they get lucky on top of it they can win a major. Five years or ten years down the road they may have enough skill and SEASONING through a lot of competition with the men that they have an equal chance to win any tournament they enter.

And maybe at that point they will just be considered world class pool players regardless of their gender.

 

[shinyballs]

I dont see why women cant play at the same level in the same tourneys as men. what skill does a man possess that give him any advatage over a women? breaking power? I don't think so, Id think that women like Jasmin have even bigger breaks than some men do.

Plus I think it would be great for pool if the men and women played in the same tourneys.

So, I was just in Vegas and checking the break speed contest booth quite a bit and the top woman's break I saw was around 23 mph. The top man was regularly in the 28-30 somethng range. Men are simply stronger. Does the break matter? Well, at least in ten ball it certainly seems to have some bearing. Yu Ram Cha proved that the women can beat the men sometimes, but regularly, I doubt it. The men are too deep with talent.

 

[JB Cases]

So, I was just in Vegas and checking the break speed contest booth quite a bit and the top woman's break I saw was around 23 mph. The top man was regularly in the 28-30 somethng range. Men are simply stronger. Does the break matter? Well, at least in ten ball it certainly seems to have some bearing. Yu Ram Cha proved that the women can beat the men sometimes, but regularly, I doubt it. The men are too deep with talent.

And do they have a list of how many men tried the break contest compared to women? Was there a chart of weight of participants along with their break speeds?

Big deal - Michelle Wie outdrives most men.

WE ALL KNOW THAT THE MEN ARE - ON AVERAGE - BETTER THAN THE WOMEN ON AVERAGE. NOW. Will it be that way forever? No, it will not.

 

[Masayoshi]

I wouldn't say that zero chance is accurate. Once in the top 32 they have to win 6 matches to win the event. Three women made it to the top 32 and so that means that they have three shots at getting there no matter how long a a shot it is.

These debates always come down to gambling comparisions when they should be focused on tournament play. In any given set any top five woman can take a set from any man. There is well more than ZERO chance of that happening, has already been proven many times over.

Yu Ram Cha just proved that a woman can even come from behind and win against a US Open and World Champion. I am pretty sure that if I had offered to bet even money on Yu Ram with Shane 8:4 ahead going to 11 then 99% of the people on here would have climbed a mile of razor wire to get a bet down. I probably could have gotten odds on the money.

She earned that victory. I know for a fact that I play pretty sporty at times and have run five racks against Ronnie Wiseman. But I can tell you that if I were faced with Yu Ram's last two outs I would have blown them both just thinking about beating Shane.

So why is it so inconceivable that the stars could line up and a player of the caliber of the top women could not win six matches against six men? Each match is played one match at a time, the race is to a set amount, the women can run out open racks with the best of them and can sometimes come with tough outs as well. As TwoforPool said earlier it's only a matter of time before a woman shows up who is playing lights out and gets the rolls and earns her victory match for match.

Improbable? Yes. Impossible. No.

If anyone wants to bet $1000 today I will bet that in the next ten years starting from this date a woman will win a major event where the final 32 consists of the top players in the world give or take a few unknowns.

Well if you look at it from a purely mathematical point of view, if you assume the top women will beat the top men 40% of the time in any given set (which is more than likely a huge overestimation of the actual percentage), then they have a .4% chance of winning 6 matches in a row to win the tournament. Multiply that by the 3 women that made it to the top 32 and you have a 1.2% chance of a woman winning the predator open starting from the single elim bracket. This is of course assuming the women don't draw each other, if they do, their chances go up slightly, I think.

 

[JB Cases]

Well if you look at it from a purely mathematical point of view, if you assume the top women will beat the top men 40% of the time in any given set (which is more than likely a huge overestimation of the actual percentage), then they have a .4% chance of winning 6 matches in a row to win the tournament. Multiply that by the 3 women that made it to the top 32 and you have a 1.2% chance of a woman winning the predator open starting from the single elim bracket. This is of course assuming the women don't draw each other, if they do, their chances go up slightly, I think.

I am not a mathematician. I'd like to know how you get to a .4 chance of winning the tournament based on your example. 40% win percentage is too high but let's go to 20% and say that a woman is likely to win a set against a top man 20% of the time. The odds are then 20% in each set she plays that she will win that set. That doesn't translate into a 20% chance to win the event because she has to beat the odds six times in a row which skews the results. I doubt that it's as low as 1.2% though.

No male player has a better than 50% winning average.

I understand that .4 equals 40% but by reducing it that way then 1.2 equals 120% and that's definitely not what you meant.

And the odds are better when three of 32 players are women. What would the odds look like if 16 of the top 32 were women?

What would they look like if those 16 women had the same experience and library of shots as the men did?

Of course the chance is small that 1 of 3 women would win the Predator tournament. But it's not zero, even right now. And I know that this might be semantics to some folks as in the chance might be close enough to zero as to be the same. Ok, let's say then that there is no chance today that a woman will win a major. But we can see that they can take sets. Even from being behind in the set.

So the next step is to take more sets, learn, practice, challenge yourself even more, get seasoned, play shortstops, play in small tournaments, play in regional events, do what the men do to get better. Until we see women doing that, cultural bias be damned, they won't have any better chance to beat the top players in the world than they do now.

I'd LOVE to see the entire WPBA out every weekend mixing it up on the Joss Tour, The Viking Tour, The Southeast tour and every tour where they can go head to head with the best shortstops in the country in tournament formats. Beat on those guys until they get barred. Then they only have to face the prejudice when the male pros won't let them play in their events.

If I were a woman I would NEVER accept any money for "highest woman" finisher. I would pay my entry fee and play right alongside the men as their equal and they would kick my ass and I would learn how they did it and come back stronger the next event. I wouldn't rest until I knew that I could not possibly get any better OR I was the best player on Earth.

The opportunity is all there for any woman to reach the status of best player on Earth. The odds are against them but so what - becoming the best is all about overcoming adversity.

The only thing besides a lack of talent that can stop a woman from becoming the best player on Earth is being denied the chance to compete.

And about 1000 other world class male players

 

[PoolSharkAllen]

I am not a mathematician. I'd like to know how you get to a .4 chance of winning the tournament based on your example. 40% win percentage is too high but let's go to 20% and say that a woman is likely to win a set against a top man 20% of the time. The odds are then 20% in each set she plays that she will win that set. That doesn't translate into a 20% chance to win the event because she has to beat the odds six times in a row which skews the results. I doubt that it's as low as 1.2% though.

No male player has a better than 50% winning average.

I understand that .4 equals 40% but by reducing it that way then 1.2 equals 120% and that's definitely not what you meant.

If one assumes that a woman has a 40% chance of winning a match, then to repeat it six times to win the event, I believe Masayoshi computed this as follows:
(0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4 * 0.4) * 100 = 0.4%

For three women, it would be 0.4% * 3 = 1.2%

 

[1129]

mathematically

if you look at it mathematically?

if it pays $10,000 to win the predator open or you could get 50-1 or better odds on Yu Ram Cha to win against Van Boeoning in Vegas what would be the smart play here?

not saying Shane would dump because he seems too competetive and a stand up guy for that but it seems more beneficial odds wise to have your money played smartly

a single $1,000 bet and a coulpe of small $100 or less bet puts the favorite on the money against winnig the tournament

 

[Ken_4fun]

If you offer me 100 to 1 odds then I will bet $100 on every major "men's" tournament that any women are playing in that a woman will win the event. I will escrow enough money for the next five majors if you will do the same. It makes no sense to shout that women are weaker players - they are and the women know this themselves. So what? We all agree that it's a long shot for the best woman to win against the best men?

Wow, let me think about this....I can win a whole 5 dollars. Very tempting, but luckily I could win a footlong Subway sandwich with a $500 bet.....

You all are telling me that they have a good chance. Talk is one thing, backing it up with a fair wager is another. Dont ask for odds on money if you are arguing that they have good chance of winning.

Ken

 

[Black-Balled]

Loins' Den...literally. Teehee.

 

[rhncue]

Many on this forum are not going to like this but Yeh, I agree, women should play as good as any man - in about another 100,000 years of evolution maybe. Women are just plain inferior as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe there is one single endeavor by mankind where a woman holds the record for being the best except for having offspring and now, apparently, men are trying to do that. Women think differently than men and physically, they are built differently. Ever watch a woman throw a baseball? Their physic is made for carrying babies, not for throwing spears. Allison Fischer, who I do believe plays very well, for a girl that is, once did a tour with ole Grady Mathews doing exhibitions around the country and having a race of nine-ball at every event. Grady, who wouldn't have even been considered in the top 100 of men players won more of these competitions than Allison, who at the time was considered the #1 female player in the world. I can hardly stand to watch the women's tour when on TV as the pockets on the tables are so big so as to make the women look good that balls some times hit a diamond and a half up rail and still are pocketed. They've got a good scam going especially with Mitch Lawrence proclaiming that every shot is so remarkable and that the women have such a great talent. One tournament that he was commenting on and Allison was running out the last three or four balls to win he was exclaiming how lucky the viewing audience was for having the opportunity of watching the greatest pool player on the planet performing. Give me a break and get real!!!

Dick

 

[CreeDo]

Well the math thing is kinda interesting. We could look at it another way.
If all players were equally likely to take the whole thing, the odds are 1 in 112 for any single player in the predator 10 ball field. So even a bet on shane or some other heavy favorite is worse than 100 to 1 odds.

Of course they're not all equal, some guys are shortstops, some are pros, and some are top level pros.

No idea where a female fits in all of this but I'm gonna say the difference between the absolute top player and the absolute worst is no more than 30%.

If a woman were the worst to enter (not saying that she would be) then 140-to-1 odds are reasonable.

That comes up with .7%

Not all that different from the other math model.

Multiply by all the women to enter the event and the odds aren't too astronomical. Really betting on any single player to take it all during the earliest round would be nuts, man or woman.

 

[JB Cases]

Wow, let me think about this....I can win a whole 5 dollars. Very tempting, but luckily I could win a footlong Subway sandwich with a $500 bet.....

You all are telling me that they have a good chance. Talk is one thing, backing it up with a fair wager is another. Dont ask for odds on money if you are arguing that they have good chance of winning.

Ken

I never said that they have a "good" chance. I have patiently explained how the odds are stacked against them and WHY.

You say they have NO CHANCE and won't bet on that conviction. If it's true that they have no chance then you can give any odds you want and your money is safe.

I don't want to make this an argument. It's an easy concept 10 women against 400 guys or however many are in the tournament gives us the easy odds (although the odds against getting to the top six are greater than that for other reasons.)

Don't say a player has no chance to win and then refuse to bet on your own statement. I am the one who is taking all the risk when the players I bet on have no chance at all.

 

[JB Cases]

Many on this forum are not going to like this but Yeh, I agree, women should play as good as any man - in about another 100,000 years of evolution maybe. Women are just plain inferior as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe there is one single endeavor by mankind where a woman holds the record for being the best except for having offspring and now, apparently, men are trying to do that. Women think differently than men and physically, they are built differently. Ever watch a woman throw a baseball? Their physic is made for carrying babies, not for throwing spears. Allison Fischer, who I do believe plays very well, for a girl that is, once did a tour with ole Grady Mathews doing exhibitions around the country and having a race of nine-ball at every event. Grady, who wouldn't have even been considered in the top 100 of men players won more of these competitions than Allison, who at the time was considered the #1 female player in the world. I can hardly stand to watch the women's tour when on TV as the pockets on the tables are so big so as to make the women look good that balls some times hit a diamond and a half up rail and still are pocketed. They've got a good scam going especially with Mitch Lawrence proclaiming that every shot is so remarkable and that the women have such a great talent. One tournament that he was commenting on and Allison was running out the last three or four balls to win he was exclaiming how lucky the viewing audience was for having the opportunity of watching the greatest pool player on the planet performing. Give me a break and get real!!!

Dick

Damn,

Down on women this morning? The WPBA is partly responsible for the fact that pool is still in front of the public on a regular basis. Whatever Mitch says is just marketingspeak and he isn't expected to say anything else.

The pockets on the WPBA tour now are 4.5 inches. I have seen Efren hit the second diamond ON DIAMONDS at the US Open and the ball goes in. Check YouTube for that.

The tour with Grady was ten years ago and Allison was still learning how to play 9-ball. The fact that she could come over and so easily capture the number one spot tells of the relative weakness of the women at that time.

Grady commented that Allison is a great player and that by the END of the tour she was winning more than him. CJ Wiley played Allison and conceded that she is a great POOL PLAYER.

Now ten years later we see more and more women who are capable of taking down sets from champions. We see women who have won championships from male champions - i.e. Karen Corr on the Joss Tour - twice - Allison Fisher against Tommy Kennedy once on the SE Tour.

In the coming ten years we will see much more of this happening until it's not a special occasion every time a woman beats a man in a set. The next milestone will be consistently high finishes, after that snapping off a few majors and lots of minors, and after that winnign the majority of tournaments in a year and capturing the number one ranking among all pool players.

For all that to happen there has to be some things to support it. More women have to play seriously so that the talent pool gets deeper. Those women have to play as hard and do the same things men do to get better. And most importantly they have to be ALLOWED to play with the men. The men should welcome any human being with a pool cue who wants to compete with them.

If the women are too weak then the are just fish donating to the prize fund just like any c-player with too much money who wants to blow $500 so he can say he played with the pros. Give any POOL PLAYER the chance to compete and prove what they do based on their skill.

I like you Richard and you make a HELL OF A CUE - but seriously, this attitude is so 1950s or even maybe 1850s. At least in pool the evidence is clear that it's taking WAY less than 100,000 years for women to close the skill gap between them and the men.

 

[UrackmIcrackm]

I was told the other day that Karen Corr beat Shawn in a Joss event. I haven't had a chance to research it yet but they said it would've been in the last 3 or 4 yrs. The timing of that would be pretty funny to me because Shawn told me himself abut 4 yrs ago that he would never get beat by a girl.

 

[Masayoshi]

I am not a mathematician. I'd like to know how you get to a .4 chance of winning the tournament based on your example. 40% win percentage is too high but let's go to 20% and say that a woman is likely to win a set against a top man 20% of the time. The odds are then 20% in each set she plays that she will win that set. That doesn't translate into a 20% chance to win the event because she has to beat the odds six times in a row which skews the results. I doubt that it's as low as 1.2% though.

Thats .4%, .4 implies they have a 40% chance of winning .4% is a 1/250 shot

Its simple really. To find the probability of an even occurring twice in a row you multiply the probability of that event occurring by itself (assuming the odds are separated from each other). So if you want to find the odds of flipping heads twice in a row you multiply .5*.5 = .25 or 25%

Now if you want to find the probability of an event occurring 6 times in a row, well you just multiply the probability by itself 6 times.

so if you say the odds of a top female pro beating a top male pro are .2 (20%) then the odds of that female pro winning the Open are .2*.2*.2*.2*.2*.2=.000064 or 0.0064% chance of winning the tournament. Now because there were 3 women in the single elimination bracket, that multiplies the odds of a woman winning by 3 (actually slightly more than 3 if they can draw each other) so the odds of a woman winning the predator open from the knock out stages is roughly .02% if you assume they have a 20% chance against any top tier male in any given set (and that all the men in the single elimination bracket were top tier players).