Which players caused a shift in thinking or standards?

hang-the-9

hang-the-9

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I know we would all, or mostly, agree that Efren changed how people look at kicking for accuracy and safety, as well as "touch".

Arguably SVB is now causing a shift to how the break is studied and executed, that was probably started with Cory.

What other players, or maybe arguements to the 2 above, have caused massive shifts of thinking for a majority or players? Like "we all did this before so and so came along and did it better".
 
I think Scott Frost changed they way people play/look at one pocket.
Instead of safes, alot more running balls. Makes it more exciting.
Thats what got me playing it..
 
Agree with all of the above, with the addition that Ronnie Allen really started opening up the forepower in 1P. I'd point to Earl in showing what the "modern" power 9 ball game could look like - on the big table. He was a pure, high speed, run out machine. When the equipment really sped up, Corey led the way in executing the cut break effectively w/ shape.
The Pinoys, as a whole including Efren, chg'd the landscape for rotation games on the defensive side.
 
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i thought the frost style one hole started with shanon myself, he won legends one hole tournament and was shooting like crazy... and im sure even way b4 that.... but that is when i really saw the shift.

on another interesting note.... if one guy averages 3 balls when he gets a shot in one hole, and another guy 6.... do you think you can say the guy who runs 3 has to move twice as good?? i am always amazed at how many people shooters can beat. but when you combine shooting and great play that is obviously the best.
 
Corey Deuel. The soft break changed the way people think about the break, and even made people enact rules to try and stop it.
 
I've got a tape of a young Rafael Martinez playing 1P against Steve Cook. Talk about a contrast! Cook was a legendary mover, and Martinez had no idea that the shots he was making were way too tough to get away with in 1 Pocket:-)
Martinez won that match, but it was mostly sheer, "uneducated", pocketing power.
 
Terry Bell and his partner Larry Hubbart for coming up with a 8-ball handicap system that keeps over 250,000 amateur players coming back every week to play on 7 foot bar tables.
 
hang-the-9 said:
I know we would all, or mostly, agree that Efren changed how people look at kicking for accuracy and safety, as well as "touch".

Arguably SVB is now causing a shift to how the break is studied and executed, that was probably started with Cory.

What other players, or maybe arguements to the 2 above, have caused massive shifts of thinking for a majority or players? Like "we all did this before so and so came along and did it better".
Click to expand...

To me, an outstanding moment was in 2001. I don't think anything was quite as dramatic as Corey Deuel demonstrating, without a doubt, he could control chaos itself. He won the US Open with the cut break, running through the field, finally beating a frustrated Mika Immonen 11-0 in the finals.

Since then, thanks to Corey, rules have changed to limit his cut break, the break box, requiring balls to pass the side, even where the rack is spotted - but the 9 ball break has not been the same since 2001.

Chris
 
Fats defined the showmanship.

Whoever invented the coin-operated pool table changed everything.

Venom has changed the way we look at trick shots.
 
Fong Pang Chao, my all time favorite Asian player, "perfected" the jump shot, which we all know, is pretty standard in top flight pool nowadays.

Along this same line, the Taiwanese players approach pool almost like a vocation. They have high quality schools turning out incredible players.
The government in Chinese Taipei helps these schools financially.

Now, with the demise of the San Miguel Asian 9 Ball Tour and then, the same fate happening to the Guinness 9 Ball tour, this training / sponsorship has declined somewhat, with the "global economy" to blame, or so it's said.

The point was that for the time they had this process in place, the Chinese Taipei players were being churned out in mass at a very high level.
We all know the playing level of the likes of Chia Ching Wu, Po Cheng Kuo, Pei Wei Chang, Ching Shun Yang, Pin-Yi Ko, etc.

When Chao won his 1st World 9 Ball Championship in 1999, the big guns in his country were him, Kun Fang Lee, with Hui-Kai Hsia just starting to make noise. After he won it again in 2000, top shelf players started coming out of the woodwork!

Moral of the story-If, "IF", your country's pool federation gets being the players and is serious about making champions, it IS possible to expedite the learning process.

If I were asked though what changed the game the MOST in recent times, I would say when Corey began experimenting with softer breaks. He found things out in his 'labratory" that are still being used today.
 
Can I also add that Accu-Stats made a lot of us a whole lot smarter. Not everybody has the money to travel to these tournaments, let alone get time off from work. But thanks to pat Fleming & crew, we have an invaluable learning tool with the very best commentators in the world (Grady, Billy, etc.) sharing their wealth of info.

And how about the books available today? freddy the Beard's book on banking are worth their weight in plutonium! :D

We pretty lucky to have tapes of the great championsto study and also, thankfully, these greats will be preserved for future members of pooldom to watch in awe.
 
TATE said:
To me, an outstanding moment was in 2001. I don't think anything was quite as dramatic as Corey Deuel demonstrating, without a doubt, he could control chaos itself. He won the US Open with the cut break, running through the field, finally beating a frustrated Mika Immonen 11-0 in the finals.

Since then, thanks to Corey, rules have changed to limit his cut break, the break box, requiring balls to pass the side, even where the rack is spotted - but the 9 ball break has not been the same since 2001.

Chris
Click to expand...

What he just said.....
 
The most significant point in history is when someone said, "Fu*k, its cold out here. Dude, let build a table and take this game inside. That would be *****in'!"

I think those were the exact words too, but I could be wrong.
 
i think the internet is the player that has caused the largerst shift in thinking or standards.


as far as person goes, I was out of the pool scene for years and when I came back things were lots different. I played at home and got out a little but largely ignored the "Scene" but kept on playing, when I returned I asked myself the same question, because things were lots different(in some good ways and some bad ways). I think Corey probably had the most impact of any player.
 
The Color of Money and The Hustler helped take pool main stream, and probably for burning the image of a hustler into the minds of the public.
 
I knew a few 'shifty' players

:cool
The first name that comes to my mind is Ronnie Allen.It was said in the
middle 60's that he was 2 years ahead of everybody at 1-pocket.
He turned standard safe shots into 8'n'outs.I feel that not till Efren did
a player take the game farther.

Buddy Hall brought shot making to a new level.Many players could make
great shots...but Buddy could do it for days.

Breaking - I'll settle for Billy Johnson's break in the 70's...he was the best
till SVB. Many players can hit them that hard but not that accurate....
...actually the Pearl was an equal in the 90's.

Kicking - Jose Parica took it to a new level...and safeties also.
A reporter wondered where the hell he came from.Jose said "I had to
leave the Philippines...couldn't beat anybody there." Everybody laughed....
,,then Efren showed up.:eek:

Raymond Ceulemans showed the way at 3-cushion.Won the world title
in Vegas in '78 with a 1.52 average (i think) taking the game into the
modern era.When modern players like Dick Jaspers makes a great shot
He'll murmur "Ceulemans"...got a feeling many of them do.

pt..< just my opinion
 
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aren't we forgetting someone?

I think we're forgetting Johnny Archer, he had the best break for a decade, maybe still does. We can credit him with deliberate methodical play (like it or not) which resulted in many opponents not seeing the table after a bad shot until to shake hands at the end of the set.:thumbup:

also he's the consumate professional, a class act.
 
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