Snooker play VS American style.

Cameron Smith said:
One thing we need to take into consideration when discussing pro pool players having a go at snooker is you can't just go pop over to Manchester toss them your entry fee and have a go at the UK championships. To even get the opportunity to try you need to qualify either through Q school (a 2000 pound investment I believe), win the European Amateur Championships (Amateur being anyone who is not currently on the pro tour, so many are "pro" caliber"), win the World Amateur Championships (you need to be invited/qualify) etc. etc. In other words just getting that opportunity is a tough accomplishment in it's own right. And up until now, even if you do get on the tour you go through a qualifying process that is like winning a tournament to play a tournament. That said, more events are starting at a flat 128 draw so that makes life a bit easier.

But the point is, it's really difficult to get a fair chance even if you have the talent and the ability.

Compare that to Stuart Pettman's experience where he came over paid his entry fee and made some noise the Straight Pool challenge at the derby city. Any pro snooker player could have paid their entry fee and competed at the US Open so it makes trying out another game much easier.

If Corey Deuel wanted to try out some snooker, he would need to probably move to the UK and play the English Amateur tournaments and hope to either win the English Amateur championship or finish first on the amateur tour or qualify through the Q school events. I have no idea if he would be successful or not, it'd be better perhaps to try with someone young enough to reach the skill level required at snooker to be competitive and go through the growing pains necessary to adapt to professional play. Even Judd Trump took about 5 years I think to reach his full potential. Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy fell off the tour on their first attempts. I wouldn't be surprised if it took about 6-8 years for a pro pool player to reach their full potential at snooker, (2-3 years or practice and competition at the amateur level and another 3-5 years before they adapt to conditions on the tour).
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All sports are equally hard. Even if a sport is "easy" then it is still hard as the easiness applies equally to both players.

That said, statistically, pool is harder.

Consider...

Number one in the world is number one in the world.

There are many many many times more pool players than there are snooker players, therefore, it is harder to attain top status in pool than it is at snooker by virtue of weight of numbers only.
 
voiceofreason said:
All sports are equally hard. Even if a sport is "easy" then it is still hard as the easiness applies equally to both players.

That said, statistically, pool is harder.

Consider...

Number one in the world is number one in the world.

There are many many many times more pool players than there are snooker players, therefore, it is harder to attain top status in pool than it is at snooker by virtue of weight of numbers only.
Click to expand...

Sure, there's more pool players, but you have to factor in the quality of players as well. The #1 player in the world isn't competing against against every single one of them. At the most, I would guess there's like 50 to 100 (maybe a little less or more) players in the entire world that actually have a reasonable chance of obtaining the #1 status.
 
Years ago they did combine the disciplines, I still have the matches on VHS somewhere. Mizerak played Steve Davis, they played 9 ball, 14.1, and snooker I believe. I think he played another famous player at the time the same way, but maybe 8 ball instead of 9, the following year. Was interesting to see a pure snooker player play pool and watch Mizerak play snooker.

I think the ladies have been more successful when crossing over since the increased ball pocketing ability is usually enough to elevate their game vs. the competition, and they seemed to learn enough cue ball control, position routes, specialty shots, etc. to do pretty well.

On the men's side, players like Darren Appleton, Alex, Chris Melling, etc. have that snooker-style background and it shows in their position play, something I've actually integrated into my own game as well. Learning to punch the ball more and bending slightly with follow/draw as opposed to always spinning the ball all the time. Very effective, and I'm sure other snooker players could pick up the fine aspects of pool with practice easier than a 9 baller could learn to pocket balls on a 6x12 as consistently as those guys do.

In the end it's still a game with a stick and balls, and whether it's 9 ball, snooker, 3 cushion, English billiards, pyramid, or any of the other fringe games out there, any one of these guys with talent and time could learn the other disciplines at a pretty high level if they so chose.
Scott

Scott
 
Pool players don't participate in snooker because they don't want to dress up in a silly costume. Can't blame 'em.
 
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