Ronnie OSullivans American Hustle Season 1 Episode 1 on Youtube
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Yeah I'd agree with you there, Straight Pool is an interesting one as the phrase 'simple to play, difficult to master' fits it quite well. On face value anyone can run a rack...but trying to get a run of over 14...then it becomes trickier!
One way I Iook at it is an aggressive runlength metric. When it's go time, the difficulty can be measured in how easy or difficult it is to score points. I look at how many innings in a row can one score points. Without too much more study than hand-waving, I put in order:
3C
Full Rack Banks
Short Rack Banks One Pocket (tough one to rank, since there are only 9 balls)
Snooker
10-ball
9-ball
8-ball
14.1
The pocket billiard games can change drastically with easier pockets. I had a 50 break with a crappy house cue on an "easy" 12' snooker table in Manchester, UK. I had a tough time running two balls on the 12' snooker table in my home room growing up, as they had Simonis cloth and entirely too tight a pocket.
Short Rack Banks, you'll see top players able to bank 9-out on accepting pockets, yet a 5 or a the Bank Ring Game on Diamond Pro Ams brings the house down.
But in 3C, I suppose no heat and slow cloth will make this game super hard, but I don't know what they can do to make it easier.
If you consider safety play, that needs way more thought since scoring metrics aren't exactly straightforward.
Freddie <~~~ IMO
How do you figure that?
Let's take person from an isolated area whose only experience playing baseball is with other amateurs. The pitching is slow underhand, which makes hitting the balls relatively easy. We ask this person his opinion on baseball, "Easy sport!"
How do you think his opinion would change if he had to face 100 mph fastballs and 93 mph sliders?
I honestly don't know how you compare difficulty of snooker and pool. They really are different games. You'd have to first set some arbitrary standard of good play and operate from there. And any defined standard would always be arbitrary, and thus a matter of opinion.
Snooker and pool have different standards of good play. As I said, making a snooker shot and a pool shot aren't 1 to 1. Does running a rack of 8 ball equal a 30 break in snooker? Does a two pack equal a 60 break?
Snooker professionals average a 50 break about 1 every 6 frames (about 17% of the time) and a 100 break about 10%-15% of the time.
Now time for more arbitrariness. Pool's offensive stats can be highly dependent on table conditions and set-up (AFAIK, snooker tables are more standardized in pro play). Here's some stats. You can see how break-and-run percentage changes depending on table conditions.
https://billiards.colostate.edu/FAQ/break/stats/
Seems the 9 foot diamond with pro-cut pockets is pretty consistent in holding players to around a 20-25% BnR. So I guess a 50 break is in the neighborhood of difficulty of a 9 ball BnR on a Diamond.
This is why it makes more sense to define the difficulty of any game/sport by talent pool. Ultimately, it's your opponent you have to beat. And I would say snooker's talent pool is more robust since there's actually some money in it and they have a structured tour. If you're not a top 10 pool player in the world, probably working a side job.
On the flip side, easier offense also means easier offense for your opponent, which can translate into requiring more faultless play. I used to scoff bar table pool when I was younger, but gained a new appreciation of it when I considered there's always the looming danger of your opponent going nuclear. Ernesto Dominguez told a story about losing big once to Bernardo "King Kong" Chavez. They were playing on a bar table (not sure if 8 or 9 ball, probably 9 given the runs). Ernesto won the first 6 games, feeling good. Chavez then proceeded to run 18 games in a row (an 18 pack). That has a certain mental pressure to it all its own.
let's not drag kid size tables into this neverending debate. you used to have snooker tables in the US, and 10ft pool and billiards tables. is real estate really that expensive that you have to downsize pool tables? what is the next progression, carrom?
and yes, snooker fans who commentate on youtube pool videos are generally a**holes. totally clueless
and yes, snooker fans who commentate on youtube pool videos are generally a**holes. totally clueless
I think your premise of basing the difficulty of the game on the standard of competition is spot on. It may be easier to pot balls in pool, but pros have become exceptionally good and consistent which raises the bar. The games played on a pool table have also evolved to take advantage of this. Either by highlight incredible consistency (straight pool) or position play and shot making (Rotation games, One Pocket).
By comparison, snooker is a difficult game on a snooker table but on a pool table it’s barely worth playing.
I don’t think you can really compare the games difficulty at all. No two centuries are created equal so I can’t imagine trying to find a comparable in pool. That said, I do think a 50 on a regulation snooker table is a lot more difficult than a break and run on a diamond despite the similar frequency.
But the thing you need to keep in mind is that you get multiple attempts at 50s per frame (you can even get two 50s in one frame) and BnR percentage is hindered largely by not having a shot off the break. When you only look at run out stats off the first potting attempt of the game in 9 ball, they shoot up to 60-70%.
I think a reasonable comparison is a 30 break (or an 8 ball run) is roughly comparable to a 9 ball run out. The way I see it is that a B level player is expected to get break and runs in a match and a player of equivalent skill should get 30 breaks in snooker. They may be capable of 50s but not expected to get them.
Great points. Yeah, there's no objective way to compare the two games in a vacuum. As I said in my prior post, you'd have to set standards of good play for each game, which is a matter of opinion. It's too hard to find the equivalents in either game (i.e. does a 150 run in straight equal a 147? Does a 3 pack in 9 ball equal a century)?
Then after you find these equivalents, you'd have to sample 1000 (or more) persons from around the world who have no prior experience with either game, give them 6 months on each game, and see which group reaches a certain feat quicker. And this test is still nonsense because it wouldn't take opponent into consideration.
I also see no point in bringing up snooker in pool conversations/comparisons about "difficulty" or equipment differences, etc. A 12 foot, rounded pocket table would be terrible for all pool games. Playing rotation games on a table that size would necessitate the bridge/extended cue every other shot, which would get annoying. Safety play would be much less interesting in those games, as well. You could just play distance most of the time and be good, whereas rotation games on a pool table require locking up. So when people fetishize snooker's "difficulty" over pool's, what do they want to pool be exactly? Every cue sport using rounded pockets would make for a boring cue sport landscape.
If we want to make pool a bit harder, the solution isn't overly tight pockets. We want to keep pool's shot variety/possibility intact. It would be moving to the 10 footer with slower playing cloth. This would punish players without accurate power strokes, which not many players use in modern conditions since it's so easy to get action on the cue ball.
I think there are easy and hard games. I would describe an easy game as one where a match between any of the top players would be a toss-up. Consider tic-tac-toe (naughts and crosses). Between any two reasonably skilled players, there will be a lot of draws. The game is not interesting because it it too easy.
Similarly, it turns out that American checkers (AKA draughts, played on an 8x8 board) is too easy for the current champions and a variant has been introduced where you start three moves into the game, sort of like nine ball where three balls are randomly placed on the cushions before the six remaining are broken.
At cue sports there have been multiple times that the rules have been changed (as at checkers) because the game was too easy. At English billiards (two cue balls and a red ball on a "snooker" table) the top players developed multiple techniques of repetitive scoring and the rules were changed multiple times to keep the game more interesting than tic-tac-toe. The peak of boring was a run of nearly 250,000 consecutive scoring shots -- that's not a typo.
At carom billiards, players mastered simple ball-to-ball caroms but it took something like 40 years from the time the equipment was good enough to allow that level of play (horse-hair cushions, anyone?). The current "simple" ball-to-ball game, balkline, is a challenge to learn but the top players can still finish the game in one turn.
At pool, I think that rack your own 9 ball on a template, one on the spot, no points requirement for the break is an uninteresting game for the top players. For example: https://youtu.be/ZnYiuO8I6Pg?t=173
I think 10 ball, one pocket, banks, 3-cushion and snooker are all hard games at this point by this way of judging hard/easy. I suppose you could compare them by how close they are to being unable to differentiate between the top players, but it's not clear how that could be organized.
Similarly, it turns out that American checkers (AKA draughts, played on an 8x8 board) is too easy for the current champions and a variant has been introduced where you start three moves into the game, sort of like nine ball where three balls are randomly placed on the cushions before the six remaining are broken.
At cue sports there have been multiple times that the rules have been changed (as at checkers) because the game was too easy. At English billiards (two cue balls and a red ball on a "snooker" table) the top players developed multiple techniques of repetitive scoring and the rules were changed multiple times to keep the game more interesting than tic-tac-toe. The peak of boring was a run of nearly 250,000 consecutive scoring shots -- that's not a typo.
At carom billiards, players mastered simple ball-to-ball caroms but it took something like 40 years from the time the equipment was good enough to allow that level of play (horse-hair cushions, anyone?). The current "simple" ball-to-ball game, balkline, is a challenge to learn but the top players can still finish the game in one turn.
At pool, I think that rack your own 9 ball on a template, one on the spot, no points requirement for the break is an uninteresting game for the top players. For example: https://youtu.be/ZnYiuO8I6Pg?t=173
I think 10 ball, one pocket, banks, 3-cushion and snooker are all hard games at this point by this way of judging hard/easy. I suppose you could compare them by how close they are to being unable to differentiate between the top players, but it's not clear how that could be organized.
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Yeah, no clue why 9-ball still persists. Seems redundant to 10-ball, and has never been a respected game among pros in the past at least (believe Willie called it a Mickey Mouse game, and I'm sure Eddie Felson's lines about the game in Color of Money were a composite opinion of players from that generation).
How does high level full rack rotation play look between pros? Seems that should be the game, as it would demand more exacting position play, shot making creativity, and safety escapes.
I think the issue is that you are stuck on looking at the games themselves and not what it takes to be great at the games. Which goes back to my original point that equipment definitely plays a factor.
Take 3 tables. 7' bar box, 9' Diamond, and a 12' snooker table. All with standard tournament specs. Place an object ball in the middle of the table, and the cue ball approximately 2 diamonds away so that it sets up a straight in shot to the corner.
If you were to shoot 10 stop shots on all 3 tables. Do you believe your consistency would be the same for all 3?
Do you realize that making a ball in snooker and in pool isn't the same thing? Straight pool and snooker are the most similar in rule sets and play with full racks. Making 20 balls straight in snooker is a big deal. Making 20 balls straight in 14.1 is nothing.
I'll go back to baseball vs. cricket. When baseball players have messed around with cricket in casual settings (like Ruth touring England, etc), they often say how easy it is to hit the ball with such a wide bat. Same thing when a snooker player says how easy it is to pocket balls on "bucket pockets." Difference is, per each sport's standards, a safe hit in baseball and a safe hit in cricket aren't 1 to 1. A single base hit in baseball is an impactful offensive event. A "base hit" in cricket (a 1 to 6 run hit) isn't special. Because the ball is easier to hit in cricket, the batter is expected to make more safe hits, like 10 or more during his turn.
"What it takes to be great" at baseball is hitting safely about 3 out of 10 tries (note, baseball has much better stats to illustrate hitting ability than batting average, but for brevity, I'll just go with batting average). Hitting safely in 3 out of 10 tries in cricket would make someone just about the worst cricket player alive. Making 36 straight balls (147) in competition is a once-in-a-lifetime event for many snooker pros (Ronnie has 15 over his career). If a dedicated straight pool player only managed fifteen 36 ball runs over 25 years, he's a C level, B- level player at the game.
You're just narrowly focused on pocketing difficulty and not anything else. Pool isn't defined by pocketing difficulty. Never has been. Always been an offensive game from the start via 14.1, a variant where a good player is expected to consistently make 50 or more balls in a row if he has a good opportunity. In the rotation games, a good player is expected to run out a good opportunity every time. In snooker, if a player manages 50-75 points following a good opportunity, he gets applause.
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In any mainstream game on a table with pockets, the sole focus is to pocket balls.
If pocketing balls on a snooker table is more difficult (NEWS FLASH: it is), then any game played on a snooker table is immediately more difficult than any game played on a smaller table.
If the role were reversed, and 9-ball was played on a 12' table and snooker on a 9' table. Then I would consider 9-ball to be more difficult. If snooker was played on a 9' table, Ronnie would have reached 1,000 centuries ages ago.
#equipmentmatters
I don't understand how you can ignore that any respective game played on either table will find their own level of median difficulty. Once again, 10 shots in a row in snooker before a miss is a strong inning. 10 shots in a row before a miss in straight pool is bad.
What I meant by saying pool isn't defined by ball pocketing difficulty is that the developers of American pool (Michael Phelan, et al) didn't say to themselves, "We want to make pocketing balls in the game just as hard as it is on rounded pocket tables!" It was an intentional design choice to make pocketing balls easier in order to open the game up and reduce the luck factor off misses (in those days and even still today, if you rattle a shot on a rounded pocket, it spits the ball out to who knows where).
And increased offensive chances means the standard for what is considered "good offense" is raised. See, once again, cricket and baseball. Increased offense also means defense is tougher to play. Here's a safety Robertson played in a match with Ronnie a few weeks ago:
https://imgur.com/a/NqvTTch
Good containing shot in snooker, but one that gets you put in the chair for who knows how many minutes in straight pool.
Yeah, saying snooker wouldn't be worth playing on a pool table (as another poster pointed out) pretty much illustrates how rule sets and game design are what define difficulty. A B level player would achieve a 147 on a 9 foot pool table in a week, or at the very least a total clearance.
Maybe you have the rotation games and 8 ball in your mind in this comparison, and I honestly don't know how you compare those games to snooker. Those games are primarily about stringing racks together to keep the pressure on your opponent.
As far as snooker v pool debates go, this has actually been one of the better ones and you have made some really good points...however the fact is snooker isn't player on a 9-foot table, hence the game is fundamentally harder, as BeiberLvr said, try playing the equivalent of blue's off the spot on a pool and snooker table, there's no comparison. However of course that doesn't mean its easier to win a game of pool, as that is down to the relative skill vs your opponent.
Your cricket v baseball argument is interesting, but I think team sports are impossible to compare as the only real difficulty is down to the strength of your opposition, most team sports are easy against weak opposition and hard against good opposition.
Sports such as:
Golf
Billiards (including pool, snooker, carom etc.)
Darts
Can probably be described as inherently difficult to some degree (albeit inherently out of that list 8-ball would be near the bottom).
Where I think you make another good point is around other pool games. I don't agree with you on 10-ball as thats just 9-Ball, but a bit harder and doesn't compare to snooker.
I don't know anything about one pocket as we don't really play it over here, but 3 cushion seems incredibly hard. As for straight pool, that is a really tricky one, as its fundamentally easy, but of course in reality isn't!
If you exclude exhibition and trick shots, then the difficulty in 3 cushion is mostly knowledge based.
Like, I would get trounced playing any semi-competent 3C player, because they are going to know all of the shots and I'll just be guessing.
But if that same player said, "Aim here and hit the cue ball there", then I believe I could make most of the standard 3C shots.
Where as I could practice for ages, and may never be consistent in making a long distance red and drawing the cue ball back to baulk.
I have to disagree, because the point that seems to be missed here is that the relative levels of what is good offensive play are totally different in the two games. Again, no one is impressed if you can make 10 straight balls in straight pool, but 10 straight balls in snooker is a solid run to the tune of around 35 points. Intuitively, I would say making 5 straight balls in pool is the equivalent of making one in snooker. The math kind of works in that a 147 or total clearance requires 36 straight balls for a relatively rare world class feat, while runs of 200 are the equivalent in straight pool.
The bias toward snooker being inherently more difficult likely stems from the fact that people who play both games somewhat regularly at an average level can occasionally run a rack of 8 or 9 ball, but haven't managed so much as a 20 break in snooker (about 5 straight balls). But running a rack isn't particularly impressive. High level play in a race to 7 or there around basically requires that you rarely miss a shot, safe, kick, etc. Jay Helfert here remarked on the decline of Earl's game, and said when he was in his prime, he maybe would miss one tough shot in a race to 7, 9, 11. He misses about 4 or 5 shots now.
I forget how Accu-stats are calculated, but professional level play over a race is usually in the .850-.950 range, which I think is about 3 to 5 errors (not just missed shots, but safety errors, kicking errors, etc) per race to 7. That is very exacting and demanding play. B players make about 2 or 3 errors per rack.
Ah:
Winner in a race to 7 will make about that number of balls. So this player only committed 4 errors (you get double-penalized for missing easy shots) in a race to 7. If we Accu-stated snooker by the same standards, a great TPA would probably be around .600, since again, the offensive and defensive standards are just different. See the picture of the safety I posted. That would get penalized as an error per Accu-stats.
This should illustrate how each game finds its own median difficulty. 3 cushion is a good example. Professional level play is about 1 point per inning. So you see, with higher offensive difficulty comes lower offensive standards. We have to remember that what is difficult for you is also difficult for your opponent.
To sum it up neatly. The average pool player is as far away from Shane Van Boening's level (or insert your great here) as the average snooker player is as far away from Ronnie, Mark Williams, etc.
This post reveals that you're still considering pool table shots and snooker shots as equivalents. Even snooker greats have difficulty with that shot, whereas on a pool table, you're expected to be able to perform a long distance draw shot on demand (if you want to play at a high level). People act like snooker players are firing in centuries every other frame. Over the course of professional snooker history (per cue tracker), centuries occur in just 3.3 percent of total frames.
They miss many shots, position, etc over the course of a match.
Sullivan loves to smack anyone and everyone, on occasion. That is just the perverse part of his personality. I would not take his comments on American pool serious - in the series he gets beat handily by some people who are past their prime. He also plays and acts the gentleman during the four episodes I have watched.
But he can be an imp. I love the old video where he is overseas, being praised, in Chinese I think, and thinking no one understands English, he comments to the effect "I wonder if they will give me a BJ, you think they will? That would be nice" or words to that effect, spoken with some disrespect.
But he can be an imp. I love the old video where he is overseas, being praised, in Chinese I think, and thinking no one understands English, he comments to the effect "I wonder if they will give me a BJ, you think they will? That would be nice" or words to that effect, spoken with some disrespect.