This appears to be Savannah's home table. I found it interesting that given her age she chose a GC1. At any rate, she did get one of the best to calibrate the rails and set it up. One very nice home table.
Savannah's home table?
- Thread starter Steve Dickey
- Start date
I would guess that is a table they've had for a while and just had redone and spruced up. Could be wrong, purely conjecture, but you're right you'd expect a Diamond if it was something purchased recently for her. But, you don't get to be that good at her age without growing up near a pool table so I wouldn't be surprised if that was what they've had in the house all along and they just decided to fix it up a little rather than replace it with a Diamond or similar.
Well setup GC is a nice choice regardless!
Well setup GC is a nice choice regardless!
billiards_watch
Well-known member
Good video and was that Vilmos Foldes? LOL
I played him once and got him pretty agitated and pacing. Basically kept him off the table is the best defense. Eventually he settled and whooped my ass.
Anyways that is a nice table. I much prefer GC''s over what is out there. I just hate ball return tables because I play so many games and bending over to fetch the ball is tiresome. I rather get the opponents involve whether that is fetching the ball from each pocket to racking. It's camaraderie when two guys can chat briefly while fetching balls out of a pocket rather than just sit back down. Technically, you don't have to talk to your opponents at all when you rack your own on ball returns.
I played him once and got him pretty agitated and pacing. Basically kept him off the table is the best defense. Eventually he settled and whooped my ass.
Anyways that is a nice table. I much prefer GC''s over what is out there. I just hate ball return tables because I play so many games and bending over to fetch the ball is tiresome. I rather get the opponents involve whether that is fetching the ball from each pocket to racking. It's camaraderie when two guys can chat briefly while fetching balls out of a pocket rather than just sit back down. Technically, you don't have to talk to your opponents at all when you rack your own on ball returns.
It was Josh Filler who introduced me to Savannah. She is an energetic, charismatic young lady, and it will serve our game well if she is successful as a pro. I'm sure her sponsors at Brunswick will do everything in their power to give her the right practice facilities and equipment. That table is beautiful.
Still, she'll need to avoid reading her press clippings, which sometimes overstate both her game and accomplishments. Despite good fundamentals, her game is underdeveloped in most areas. She will need the right coaching and the right practice habits to ever be a world championship caliber player (which, in my books, is Fargo Top 25.)
I believe Savannah is 15 now. Jean Balukas and Loree Jon Jones, the two most noteworthy American teen phenoms ever in women's pool, had already won world championships by age 15. Siming Chen won a world championship at 16. As we so often discuss on the forum, a player can only be judged against his/her contemporaries, and based on Fargo, Savannah is currently World #92, a longshot in a match against any world championship caliber player.
I'd be very happy if Savannah, a very likable young lady, went on to be a great one, but she's got a lot of hard work ahead and will need to stay well-grounded. Wishing her every possible success.
Still, she'll need to avoid reading her press clippings, which sometimes overstate both her game and accomplishments. Despite good fundamentals, her game is underdeveloped in most areas. She will need the right coaching and the right practice habits to ever be a world championship caliber player (which, in my books, is Fargo Top 25.)
I believe Savannah is 15 now. Jean Balukas and Loree Jon Jones, the two most noteworthy American teen phenoms ever in women's pool, had already won world championships by age 15. Siming Chen won a world championship at 16. As we so often discuss on the forum, a player can only be judged against his/her contemporaries, and based on Fargo, Savannah is currently World #92, a longshot in a match against any world championship caliber player.
I'd be very happy if Savannah, a very likable young lady, went on to be a great one, but she's got a lot of hard work ahead and will need to stay well-grounded. Wishing her every possible success.
Last edited:
it's a new thing, certainly for a female pool player, to have such a following she has. she's a social media phenom and it gets kinda cult like at times, at least if one reads the chats or comments when she's in a streamed match.
if i had to guess it's not a net positive for her game. for sponsorship of course, no discussion. but in a tournament she has way more expectations because of that following and i'm not sure that's good.
I watched her match against Roberto last night. First time I really watched one of her matches. She is awesome! I love how fast she played and she has some style! I hope she dominates!
We all want that. Let's see if we get it.
Good post. Perhaps she can make a positive of those expectations.
wealmostlostdetroit
Member
Yeah on GC's with Diamond rails and tightened pockets there's basically no shelf. I wonder if anyone ordered a custom slate with longer shelf and put it on a GC. After all it's just rock.
Savannah may barely be in the world top 100 currently, but in the 1970s and 1980s when Jean and Loree Jon dominated, there were likely no more than 10 or so female pros that were better then than Savannah is now at age 15.
Even in her prime, there is no way Jean would be nearly as dominant when matching up against today’s top female pro players as she was then.
Last edited:
Great question!
If you mean "is the standard higher?" then it is yes, but being the best is outrageously difficult in every era of pool. I think people overlook just how tough fields were a couple of generations back in women's pool.
Let's look back thirty years to 1995, Allison Fisher's first full year playing pool in America. What did it take for her to become and remain the best? For starters, her game had to pass those of Loree Jon Jones, Robin Dodson. Jeanette Lee, Belinda Bearden Calhoun, Ewa Laurance, and Gerda Hofstatter. They were six future BCA hall of famers.
By 2003, Allison still had to contend with all of them, but also future BCA hall of famers Karen Corr and Kelly Fisher and soon to be hall of famers Ga Young Kim and Jasmin Ouschan, so there were ten future BCA hall of famers in every field at the majors. There were also stone-cold killers Xiaoting Pan, Jennifer Chen, Helena Thornfeldt, Vivian Villareal and Monica Webb to negotiate, but Allison was usually the top ranked player. The fields were crazy tough 20-30 years ago, and it was super-tough to navigate one's way to the top of the heap or anywhere near it,
Yes, it's brutally tough to get to the top today, but it has always been. Let's not set the bar too high for Savannah, for if she is ever a top 10 player in the world based on Fargo with at least a few titles at the majors, she will be in the conversation for a BCA hall of fame spot.
As you rightly suggest, Savannah will have to play better pool than that displayed by the last generation of women to get to or near the top but reaching top ten in the world was brutally difficult in Allison Fisher's day and it's probably no more difficult today.
We all hope Savannah will make the grade and will delight in her future major accomplishments.
Last edited:
True. But SJMs points are good ones. Women develop and peak quicker and earlier than men in sports. They don’t tend to last as long either. Dunno why, just saying I’ve seen the golfers and tennis players come and go. Maybe she’ll be different. There doesn’t seem to be a reason why she can’t develop and learn skills in her late teens and twenties. On the other hand if she’s 92 now she might never get there. Sounds harsh, but I bet there is an unknown group of 11-13 year old girls who might pass her by in the next 3 years. In 10 years she’ll have to compete against some talented, well coached girl who is 5-7 right now. You can’t always tell. i Hope it works out for her too.
If you mean that Jean, playing at the speed she displayed circa 1985, could not have beaten Han Yu or Siming Chen, the two best players of this era in women's pool, of course you are right.
That said, in her day, Jean was considered about 30th best in the world including the men. Neither Han Yu nor Siming Chen are in the Fargo Top 100, so relative to their contemporaries, I'm not willing to put them in the discussion with Jean.
Jean often beat future male BCA Hallof Famers, and you cannot say the same of today's top two.
I think Jean, given the time and resources available to today's top players, would have been just as dominant today as she was in the 1980s. She is the greatest champion we have ever seen in women's pool, not to mention that she was a world class athlete. Still, as we've often noted on the forum, these "time travel" comparisons are, for practical purposes, impossible.
Savannah had that GC1 table when she was a tiny kid, her dad had it, well before any sponsorships. She recently had MG put Artemis cushions on the rails. I asked her about it on FB (completely politely, not like I'm here, ha ha). She said she wanted it to play closer to Dimaonds, because that's what she mostly competes on these days. Makes total sense to me, and I'd probably do the same if I was an aspiring pro.
