Nice report coming from The generation Z crowd?? But you only saw one great American, and that is SVB. When pool was really popular in the 80s and 90s. I'm talking packed pool halls everywhere. Where I'm from Long Island, NY....there was a pool hall in nearly every town. They were packed every single night. It really was a great time for pool. Now? We only have 1 in one the most densely populated areas in the country. Sad how the game has declined.I love GOAT discussions![]()
I just read the full 9 pages of comments
I think it is hard (or impossible?) to compare players from the 70s-80s with players of today for a lot of reasons:
-Different equipment
-Different rules
-Different field (filipinos arrived in the 80s, european in the 90s, chinese/taiwan later on..)
-Different tournaments (the major tournaments of yesterday arent all the same as today's)
--> So looking at 'titles only' is difficult. It's definitely not apple to apple.
And then if you base your judgement on 'what you witnessed', your own age can make you bias.
Younger pool fans are likely to have a bias towards SVB, Alex, etc...
Older fans are likely to vote for Efren, Earl, etc...
And even older fans will shout Sigel, Varner, Hall, etc...
And even if you try to not be bias, your memory will make you unconsciously bias as you will only remember the amazing achievements of those players you used to watch and you'll discard their failures, or the context, etc ... its pretty natural. And younger fans just have no idea how good Hall, Sigel, Varner were ...
I think the only 'fair' way to do it is to have a GREATEST per decade.
So who would you vote for?
70s: Hall?
80s: Efren?
90s: Earl?
00s: Pagulayan?
10s: SVB!!
I think we can all agree SVB is the greatest when it comes to the past decade. I even made a video on that topic last year.
Personally I only discovered pool about 8 years ago so I admit I can't talk much about what happened before even tho I've watched tens of thousands of hours of youtube videos, and read countless of stories ... Being fairly young, I probably have a bias towards SVB and it's no surprise he is my favorite player.
Efren is my 2nd fav because from all the videos I've watched, he is the one that I've enjoyed watching the most. I've never seen any other player get out of 'problem situations' the way he does ... but I still prefer SVB because I feel he plays so perfect he never gets in those 'problem situations' and never has to pull a great escape kind of shot.
Earl and Alex would finish my top 4.
Unfortunately I'm too young, and there isn't enough videos for me to really get to know the games of Sigel, Varner, Hall, etc... I've watched hours of them on YouTube, but nowhere near as much as the more recent players.
So I know I am bias whether I want it or not ...![]()
There were so many all time greats in the 80s and 90s. It's really difficult making a list. When the pro's had their short lived tour, the PBA tour, you had so many all time greats in their prime. Early 90s, at one of these tour stops you witnessed Americans Sigel, Hall, Archer, Mizerak, Varner, Strickland. AND....Reyes, Parica, Bustamante, Ortmann, Souquet. And local NYC legend Ginky. I may have left off a name or 2. Incredible fields. This was also when Accu-stats was born and I would order matches for the VCR. Thats enough for now.....