What age pro is the best? Poll.

At what age do pros perform their best?

  • Total voters
    59
  • Poll closed .
iusedtoberich

iusedtoberich

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
What age do you think a given pro player will play the strongest in their career? Talking about pro's only here, who devote their lives to the game. Not us bangers.

This is a poll, vote on your choice.
 
I honestly feel that it really don't matter, Pro player A is 25 and Pro player B is 30 but Pro player B was a better player when he was 25 than Pro player A at his current age.

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JoseV said:
I honestly feel that it really don't matter, Pro player A is 25 and Pro player B is 30 but Pro player B was a better player when he was 25 than Pro player A at his current age.

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Click to expand...

Just focus on pro player A. At what age do you think he will play the best in his own personal career?
 
It all depends on the person mentally, you could say he played is best at 25, but he could tell everybody that he feels like he was playing his best at 21.

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rather small gap to choose from - I'd have gone 10 years on the poll instead of the 5. Still, and JoseV is correct in the "depends on who it is" thought - but I'd go the 35-45 bracket. (I picked the 40-45)

While other sports(?) may top out toward their late 30s (with some notable exceptions), I think in pool it's easier to put aside the back pains, and stick out the hours through the early to mid 40s. With that, I think you see experience become a factor. By your late 40s it becomes harder to focus for long stretches, as some of the aches and pains kick in.

I feel Efren and Earl are good examples of this, but I'll expand a bit. Many "road" players were retired or retiring by their mid-30s, but when the IPT came along and there was actually $$$money$$$ to be had - many of them "UN-retired" and very quickly were back at the top of their games.

Some of the best (classic?) matches I've enjoyed were players in their early 40s or so ... IJS.
 
Here, using the OP's age groupings, is the distribution of ages* for the WPA World 9-Ball Champions (1990 through 2016**):

15-20 -- 1
21-25 -- 2
26-30 -- 10
31-35 -- 4
36-40 -- 4
41-45 -- 2
46-50 -- 2
51-55 -- 1

*The age used here is year of event minus year of birth. For any players whose birthday occurred between the date of the event and the end of that calendar year, their actual age last birthday on the date of the event was 1 year less than I used.

**Two events in one of the years; no event in two of the years.

Edit -- This list has a couple errors; see post #12 for a corrected list.
 
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And here, agaiin using the OP's age groupings, is the distribution of ages* for the winners of the US Open 9-Ball Championship:

15-20 -- 0
21-25 -- 4
26-30 -- 13
31-35 -- 13
36-40 -- 6
41-45 -- 2
46-50 -- 1
51-55 -- 2

*The age used here is year of event minus year of birth. For any players whose birthday occurred between the date of the event and the end of that calendar year, their actual age last birthday on the date of the event was 1 year less than I used.

Note -- The age used for Louie Roberts (29 in 1979) is an estimate, as I have not yet found a reliable source for his year of birth.
 
And if we combine the results from the previous two posts, for the WPA World 9-Ball and the US Open 9-Ball events, we have these ages* for the 67 champions:

15-20 -- 1 (1%)
21-25 -- 6 (9%)
26-30 -- 23 (34%)
31-35 -- 17 (25%)
36-40 -- 10 (15%)
41-45 -- 4 (6%)
46-50 -- 3 (4%)
51-55 -- 3 (4%)

*The age used here is year of event minus year of birth. For any players whose birthday occurred between the date of the event and the end of that calendar year, their actual age last birthday on the date of the event was 1 year less than I used.

Edit -- This list has a couple errors; see post #12 for a corrected list.
 
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Thanks atlarge I was going to do the exact same thing with the exact same tournaments and you saved me a lot of work:)
 
Here I've added the winners' names for each event. I also found a couple errors in the WPA list, so I have corrected those.

WPA World 9-Ball Championship

15-20 -- 1 (Wu)
21-25 -- 2 (Archer, Hohmann)
26-30 -- 11 (Strickland, Strickland, Chao, Ortmann, Souquet, Archer, Takahashi, Immonen, Pagulayan, Ko, Ouschan)
31-35 -- 4 (Chao, Alcano, Peach, Hohmann)
36-40 -- 3 ( Akagariyama, Appleton, Feijen)
41-45 -- 3 (Okumura, Reyes, Strickland)
46-50 -- 1 (Bustamante)
51-55 -- 1 (Varner)
Total -- 26

US Open 9-Ball Championship

15-20 -- 0
21-25 -- 4 (Sigel, Strickland, Deuel, Van Boening)
26-30 -- 13 (Hopkins, Roberts*, Sigel, Hopkins, Howard, Strickland, Kennedy, Morris, Owen, Pagulayan, Van Boening, Van Boening, Cheng)
31-35 -- 13 (Mizerak, Sigel, Howard, Strickland, Pierce, Archer, Souquet, Jones, Schmidt, Appleton, Appleton, Van Boening, Van Boening)
36-40 -- 6 (Reid, Reyes, Strickland, Strickland, Immonen, Immonen)
41-45 -- 2 (Varner, Varner)
46-50 -- 1 (Hall)
51-55 -- 2 (Lebron, Hall)
Total -- 41

Distribution for the two events combined

15-20 -- 1 (1%)
21-25 -- 6 (9%)
26-30 -- 24 (36%)
31-35 -- 17 (25%)
36-40 -- 9 (13%)
41-45 -- 5 (7%)
46-50 -- 2 (3%)
51-55 -- 3 (4%)
Total -- 67

Note -- The age used here is year of event minus year of birth. For any players whose birthday occurred between the date of the event and the end of that calendar year, their actual age last birthday on the date of the event was 1 year less than I used.

*The age used for Louie Roberts (29 in 1979) is an estimate, as I have not yet found a reliable source for his year of birth.
 
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Champions are exceptional people....like Wu...Hoppe won his first world title at 18....
...Miz won his first 14.1 title at 18....
...but in general, the top players get it all together a little later...I voted early 30s....
...you still have your physical ability...and you understand yourself, the game, and how
to compete on a much higher level.

Efren says he played his best at a much younger age....I disagree with him....
...he probably hit the ball better....but as he matured, he found shots much more complicated
than just making the ball....he seems to forget that Parica was the MAN amongst the
Pinoys when he was young.
 
I think results are all that matters. If a player has more experience at 38 than at 28, but the results show more world class events won at 28, then the gain in experience is not worth as much as you think.

The numbers don't lie.
 
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