Wake-Up For Pool
- Thread starter Boro Nut
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Boro Nut said:
You gotta be kidding me, right? I mean, how in God's green earth could anyone not recognize a specialness about Wu. I haven't seen too many 16-year-olds reach this level of play anywhere else in the world. Wu is a pool wonderment. How a young teenager could acquire the skills set and then the mental fortitude, and deliver, is truly phenomenal.
JAM
Geez. Maybe golf's easy too, just look at Michelle Wie and the other teenagers at the US Women's Open. If Wu's nothign special then where are the rest of the 16 year old world champs. If it was so easy, what's your world ranking?
JAM said:
I'll admit you can never tell how someone will react the first time they are in the television glare, but are you saying the first 16 year old who comes along also happens to be the best? I'm telling you now you need to get used to the fact. He's just the first of many, and he's already spawning the generation that will surpass any of his achievements. You need to take a trip to the UK Jam. I don't think you have any concept of just how frighteningly good these kids are. Pool as you know it is finished. From now on you better be an all time great if you still want to be a peripheral figure like Steve Davis by the time you're 35.
Boro Nut
Boro Nut said:
In this instance, the World Pool Championship venue, yes, Wu is the best 16-year-old in pool. This is now a historical fact.
Boro Nut said:
I'd love to take a trip to the other side of the pond, but where were those UK young'ns in this year's WPC? The only young'n I saw was Wu! If one were to do a demographic of ages in this year's WPC, I wonder what the median age is. Well over 16, I would imagine, maybe late twenties, early thirties.
However, time will tell. If next year's WPC is dominated by a new generation of the pool players in their teens, I will eat crow and be looking for the nearest senior tour available in my area.
JAM
JAM said:
They were all playing snooker (or up here billiards) like they should be. Who for instance holds the record for the youngest player to score a 147 break in an officially recognised snooker competition?
Stephen Hendry
Ronnie O'Sullivan
AN Other
The fact is, snooker hasn’t really got any ‘greatest ever’ players, only greatest so far. Pool is just about to embark on the experience.
Taking English Billiards as an example, an old mans game if there ever was one. The Teesside Boys Billiards League was formed in the 1970's, when local clubs had the foresight to allow teams of boys as young as eight to compete against each other before the clubs opened doors on Saturdays and Sundays, with the benefit of coaching from the likes of Alf Nolan (British Empire Champion). It wasn't long before the British Boys U16 & U19 Billiards championships from the quarter finals stage upwards were contested entirely by products of this league, from that point in time onwards. Knowing this, see if you can guess the answers to these questions:
How many of the world age records set by the likes of Davis or Lindrum withstood the rise of the first wonder boy the league coughed up?
How many years did it take for these records (in fact every record going) to be eclipsed by the phenomenal sprog Mike Russell?
How many of those world age records set by the incomparable Mike Russell still stand?
1
less than 1
None
After the clubs relaxed their rules to allow underage players onto licensed premises to compete in the senior leagues, has the aggregate age of the championship winning 3 man teams drop by:-
20 years
40 years
80+ years
How many times since then has the English individual, English Team, CIU individual or any other championship worth the travelling been won by any other than a product of that single local boys league? (Assuming you have the full complement of fingers you will not need to remove your socks).
Which single boys billiards league produced the current world's top 5 ranked players and current world champion?
Since the final of the World Professional Billiards Championship was contested for the first time by two products of the Teesside Boys Billiards League in 1989, which boys billiards league has produced both finalists on more occasions than the total number of single finalists there have been from the rest of the world put together?
If a single Northern English industrial town of approx 250,000 can achieve this level of domination of a sport simply by training their young men to be at their peak when they reach their peak instead of being allowed to learn for the first time at an age they are already past it, what could a nation do if it put it's mind to it?
Are there any nations out there who may fit this picture, and if so have they produced both finalists in a major competition on any occasion recently?
The answer should be exciting Jam, not scary.
Boro Nut
Boro Nut said:
I don't know of any teenagers ever making any noise on the Eurotour. If you know of any, please share.
I've been around pro pool for forty years, and Allen Hopkins, Earl Strickland and Oliver Ortmann are the only players that I've ever seen live playing world championship class pool (meaning the kinbd of pool that would enable one to have a shot at a world championship) as teenagers.
It seems to me that, over the years, the great ones have tended to come into fullest bloom in their early twenties.
sjm said:
That's over the years. Over the years doesn't count anymore. The myth of 40+ year old fat men in film noir movies being the real kings of pool is over.
The irony is, they will still be in their fullest bloom in their early twenties, when their vastly increased match experience compensates their slightly waning ability, but you don't know how good early twenties can be if your not producing a steady supply of 16 year olds who are already phenomenal.
Answer this question. Of the all time greats you can bring to mind, how many started at age 10 or before? Don't you think it's more than a coincidence of all the 10 year olds out there, it just happened to be those ones who had access to a pool table? Don't you think if all 10 year olds had the chance to play, in a nation of your size, you might just find out what an all time great really looked like?
In snooker, the advent of colour television spawned the Steve Davis generation. They played to a standard not seen before. Snooker clubs boomed around the country. Young players flocked there with their dad's, and the Hendry/O'Sullivan generation emerged to eclipse all that went before them. Young players can still go there, but now have access to coaching from players of a higher standard than ever in history. It will surprise no-one over here when they eclipse all that has gone before them. Then we've still got China and a billion people on the horizon. The bar has not reached it's peak yet.
Boro Nut
Boro Nut said:
Over the years means up to and including now. I just don't see this superabundance of teenagers who play top level pool. Where are they? As I've siad, I don't see many of them here in the American pro pool screne, and I don't see them on the Eurotour either.
If you have some examples to provide that will substantiate your claim, I'm listening. I do agree with you that there is a youth movement in pool, and, like you, I think it's good for the sport.
Still, if you can do no better than claim that there are many sixteen year old that already play top level pool, I'm not buying it. If you can't say who or where they are, your claim amounts to nothing more than speculation.
sjm said:
I totally agree. I have no idea if the Eurotour allows access to children to learn. America clearly doesn't. And I know nothing about pool. I based my prediction simply on what I understood from reading this forum what was happening in Taiwan, based on what I had already seen happen over here. It turns out I wasn't that far off. You think that's a coincidence and I don't.
Boro Nut
JAM said:
With the exception of the US. This young man is the Chris Moneymaker of pool for the rest of the world. Since pool has been growing throughout the world, this young mans success of becoming a World Champion will definitly inspire kids his age or younger to compete at pocket billiards.
Over the next several years, we will definitly see a wave of young players like Wu competiting at a high level. This would be a good time for big corporations to sponsor major tournaments here in the US to exploit this young mans success and make it visible to the sporting public throughout the US. Espn definitley needs to put this young man on some highlight tape.
16 year old World Champion! Wow. With modern technology and training (videos, books, personal instructions..) it just goes to show that it doesn't take that long to get good at pool to be a world champion and like poker, that is what Professional Pool needs!
Hardly a fair question, since 99.95% of all pool players have no idea who Davis and Lindrum were and would be astounded to see the size of the tables they played on and the shots of their game. And would that be Steve Davis or Miles Davis?Boro Nut said:
And I suspect all those prodigies you referred to use the same unbeatable system: see the shot, shoot the shot, be happy.
JAM said:
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see him play (so I may be totally off base), but teenagers win major tennis tournaments pretty often. Just like Wu, many of them have won their share of Junior tournaments so they are used to competition. But when it comes to a major Por event they can go in more relaxed with no expectations and often have the raw stamina to carry them through where older players do not.
The biggest question for Wu is how will he do in his next major tournament where everybody, including himself, is expecting him to win.
O
onepocketchump
Guest
Boro Nut said:
Um, yes he is and no they haven't. If they were then the final sixteen would have been full of players under twenty and it wasn't.
So, no this would not be an opportune time to say you told us so.
John
sjm said:
Some of this may be blamed on culture. For the longest time you could not get into a pool hall before you were 16, which is a bit old to start if you want to be a world champion by 16, but it's not too late if you want to be a champion by 24. Some of the earlier child-prodigy types were children of pool room owners, so they were much less restricted. Now if all players started at 8 years old .... you see my point.
Dave