i disagree, I don't think Efren or Parica today would be able to beat Ko Pin Yi at 10 ball. But that's not fair, Ko Pin Yi is probably the best 10 ball player that lives right now. Although of course he would get crushed at 1 pocket and such since he doesn't play it.
Ko may very be playing the main rotation games at the highest level ever (although we have no way of measuring and quantifying that idea), but that doesn't mean today's players are
generally better overall, as you stated earlier.
Take it from Jay, who's sweated them all in long gambling sessions, including the modern Taiwanese and Filipino stars, where you can actually see a player hit their high gear. And he's not one for nostalgia, either. He was calling Si Ming Chen the best women's player ever when she was only 17 and he raved about Wu Chia Ching.
Some reasons I think the players today are a hair below the standard of players of yesteryear:
- Most of today's top players are tournament stars, used to the pristine and predictable conditions of tournament play. Back in the day, pool players, especially the road gamblers, had to adapt to all sorts of unpredictable environments, from bucket pockets to triple shimmed, from clean balls to dirty balls, beat up felt to new felt, Brunswick Gold Crowns to some shitty no name table, etc, etc. And the road player was playing the hometown star in his backyard, where the hometown guy would know his home table like the back of his hand. We don't see that anymore. Even "challenge" matches are set up like a tournament.
Not that I'm complaining, conditions should be favorable and fair, but players of the past had to develop more of an all around game that could play in a variety of nice or terrible conditions, on a variety of tables from like 50 manufacturers. Now they all play on either Gold Crowns or Diamonds.
- Most of today's top players are specialists in one or two games. Same as above, the old roadies of the past had to be adept in all games, because your opponent might switch it up on you, "Okay, you beat me playing 9 ball, let's play banks now and raise the bet." If the road player wanted to stay in action, he needed to know all games.
- Players of the past were tested more in the formative years. Read CJ's (or any other road player) about being 17 and playing another champion for 20 hours straight for 10 or 20K. And they had to do this nearly every day. No tournament on Earth compares with that kind of pressure and grind. Today's "superstars" were trained by instructors and cut their teeth in structured junior tournaments and such. Sure, the players of today have better fundamentals, but 90% of this game is between the ears, and the environments older players traversed were much, much more mentally demanding and better prepared a player for performance under pressure.
Incidentally, this is why your Filipino and Taiwanese favorites are the best overall players in the world, since they still gamble like this, while the Europeans, Chinese, and even American Juniors learn from instructors and work on their fundamentals and practice drills more than they play pool.
I'm relatively younger, and grew up watching tournament pool, and believed the players on the pro tour were "the best players in the world," and I think this mentality still remains with modern pool fans. It was a shock for me to discover that tournament champs weren't that respected in the old days (unless of course they could also gamble), but I have to agree. I'm not celebrating gambling over tournament competition, I simply think those long 8-10 hour sessions, sometimes played over week between two top players, are a better test of ability than these short race tournaments.
And then the next week, the player in question had to go play another champ for hours or days at a time.
This is why many pool fans highly regard Parica as possibly the best ever (even over Efren), despite Jose never taking down a major title, because he was unbeatable "when it really counted."
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