Who You Got? Mike Sigel or Nick Varner

Who You Got? Mike Sigel vs Nick Varner

  • Mike Sigel

    Votes: 26 38.2%

  • Nick Varner

    Votes: 42 61.8%
  • Total voters
    68
sjm said:
Don't forget that, in 9ball, Sigel wore Efren out, especially in tournament finals.
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Don't feed Greg too much ;)
We aren't talking about Efren.

I too like your view where we don't talk about aptitude, but instead results. Yes so and so - could have been this or that, if only they had done such and such. Eventually, all the talk fades and what's left are the recorded results. That's how the players should ultimately be judged.
 
sjm said:
Don't forget that, in 9ball, Sigel wore Efren out, especially in tournament finals.
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I was not aware of that. My only exposure to Efren was in Reno starting in 85 and once a year for a while. Never saw anyone even come close. Well Ed did get to 7 going to 9....once. 🤷‍♂️ Efren absolutely changed the way the game of 9 ball was played. His billiards skills were so ...uh well nobody realized how important they could be until Efren showed them how to put the handcuffs on. The one finals playing Earl he broke and ran 4 then after the break over cut the 1 ball to leave it in the middle of the footrail. Whitey glided around the table and found the back of the ball sitting closest to the headrail and got married. Ball in hand allowed Efren to run 4 more and then do it again. Middle of the footrail and married to the back of the ball closest to the headrail. Earl's reaction was Priceless. The gallery coaxed him with, "break it! Break your cue!".
 
gregcantrall said:
Well Gawd forbid a thread should go Off topic. Some pretty important stuff to discuss. You know the irresistible unlovable stuff. To speculate uninterrupted with Superman vs Mighty Mouse analogies. 😉 No offense.
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Oh you're fine. You just tend to start a long straight pool run in the middle of a 9 ball thread. :)

Efren is beloved by everyone. He's an all-time great. But he NEVER dominated the game of 9 Ball and didn't have nearly the success that either Varner or Sigel did during their primes. And it wasn't just his break. I think both Varner and Sigel were better ball pocketers than Efren. I also think both were more clutch than Efren. Even still, Efren did change the way the game was played.
 
Aw heck I got so off the track, I forgot to vote. Better go vote. But should I vote when drinking? 🤔
Well guess I should probably just flip a coin. But But I don't want to skew a good pole so I will abstain. I'll be quiet now.....well unless I find another beer in the fridge. 😉
 
BasementDweller said:
is beloved by everyone. He's an all-time great. But he NEVER dominated the game of 9 Ball
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Okay but Greatest of All Time doesn't bear a footnote of except 9 ball.
Seriously do you remember how many sets Of 9 ball Efren played in Texas giving the 8 and breaks to end up losing one to Buddy Hall? Wasn't that when he was Caesar Morales? 9 ball was new to him and he didn't have a break. But well for sure if Sigel had been there.....
Well to come a little closer to the topic.... did you hear about Nick Varner playing Double Kiss Doolie at the 211? A simple proposition bet. 6 balls adjacent the side rail spots and an inch off the rail at the foot of the table. Double kiss 'em in and count the strokes. A simple C note bet as pass time. Mike went first and posted a 6. Nick just reached into his money pocket. Shirley Sigel would have done better. Okay that does it Mike gets My vote. 😉
The good news is I am out of beer and fading fast.
 
I didn't vote because there was no option for 'toss up'.

I think Mike S had a better tournament 9 ball record. He simply won more tournaments than anyone.

Nick seemed like he would get unbelievably hot for stretches and would out perform everyone for a year or three now and then.

I don't know. I can't disagree with those who know the players and records better, but for me this is falls close enough to be a toss up.

Stu, I am curious how you feel Buddy and Rempe fit in to the scene.
 
Here is how I look at it. Mike and Nick had pool playing skills that would be very difficult to lay any odds other than 50/50. Mike's one differentiating feature was his willingness to shoot the shot that made the difference in a game and often in a match that perhaps much more often Nick would rather pass on- and Mike had about an 80% success rate in making that shot from what I saw of his matches.

Mike was more volatile with his emotions during a match- Nick was like the rock of Gibraltar in terms of steadiness.

I think that Mike's success rate in taking game and match winning chances would, in the longer run, have resulted in more wins for Mike, only because he was about the best ever in that category.
My vote would go to Mike overall, but not by much- it is very, very close.
 
Does anybody have access to Billiards Digest's annual player of the year list? Or any other now defunct magazine's list? Those would be interesting to see and worth considering as you would think they were paying attention to tourney results.
 
mikemosconi said:
Here is how I look at it. Mike and Nick had pool playing skills that would be very difficult to lay any odds other than 50/50. Mike's one differentiating feature was his willingness to shoot the shot that made the difference in a game and often in a match that perhaps much more often Nick would rather pass on- and Mike had about an 80% success rate in making that shot from what I saw of his matches.

Mike was more volatile with his emotions during a match- Nick was like the rock of Gibraltar in terms of steadiness.

I think that Mike's success rate in taking game and match winning chances would, in the longer run, have resulted in more wins for Mike, only because he was about the best ever in that category.
My vote would go to Mike overall, but not by much- it is very, very close.
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Mike did usually go for the shot but not before pretending he wouldn't, while completing several head bobs, several head shakes, and several exclamations. Nick wouldn't hesitate to fire in some needed bank shots from time to time, so it may have been close to even in that department.

Good description of the players though.
 
Tin Man said:
Stu, I am curious how you feel Buddy and Rempe fit in to the scene.
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Buddy at 9ball was legendary, just a half notch below Mike and Nick on the big tables, and Buddy may well have been the best ever 9baller on the seven-footer. Not known as a straight pooler.

Buddy's true legacy is that he is the "Efren" of position play. In the same way that Efren got everyone thinking differently about kicking by demonstrating unprecedented precision and imagination, Buddy got everybody thinking differently about pattern/position play. His "clock system" set the stage for the most productive considerations ever of rotation pool position play. I wouldn't say he played the patterns any better than two other legendary position players that came later, Souquet and Appleton, but he showed everybody how to go about pattern play and his influence is still felt.

On to Rempe. One thing that I noted earlier is how both Mike and Nick transitioned seamlessly from the straight pool era to the 9ball era. Each was top five in both time periods in the respective disciplines. Rempe is another guy who transitioned seamlessly, surely a top ten player while he played in the straight pool era and top ten again once he transitioned to 9ball. Rempe was a small notch below Sigel, Buddy, Earl, Varner, Reyes, Parica and Archer as a 9baller, but he won a lot of big titles and was a very technically elegant player from whom you could learn a lot by watching.

Rempe was an elite pattern player at both straight pool and 9ball and was, by the way, an early influence of Ralf Souquet. Those of us who watched prime Mike Sigel often call him the "greatest closer we have ever watched." If Rempe had a weakness, it was that he was not a great closer, and it often meant a lot of second and third place finishes.
 
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Tin Man said:
I didn't vote because there was no option for 'toss up'.

I think Mike S had a better tournament 9 ball record. He simply won more tournaments than anyone.

Nick seemed like he would get unbelievably hot for stretches and would out perform everyone for a year or three now and then.

I don't know. I can't disagree with those who know the players and records better, but for me this is falls close enough to be a toss up.

Stu, I am curious how you feel Buddy and Rempe fit in to the scene.
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If you fail to vote you won't be allowed to host the upcoming AZ Billiards sponsored podcast - "Listening to the Legends" with your host TinMan.

Then again, maybe you need to keep your neutrality intact just to maintain the high journalistic expectations we have around here.
 
I would say between the 2 who has kept in stroke playing and other playing next to none or on ocassional times.
 
BasementDweller said:
Sigel vs Varner...Who was better?

I would like nothing more than to really know what their head-to-head record was. There's no surprise that Sigel was the better of the two at 14.1, since he grew up right in the heart of 14.1 country. While Varner was a more Midwestern boy who I imagine played his fair share of 14.1, but rounded out his game with banks and one-pocket.

I've looked at their career achievements that are listed in Wikipedia (which looks like a good starting point) and I wouldn't argue that Varner had the better career, but I would maybe argue that they were both monster freighters chugging along right past each other in the night. Of course they would anchor at the same port from time to time, but they both moved a lot of cargo! Their achievements are quite comparable. I'd say Varner maybe had a little longer run but they were both pretty hot for almost 20 years.

The times were so different, I suspect that they weren't always even competing at the same time and place. In today's world, everybody knows about EVERY SINGLE tournament under the sun. Did they back then? How did these guys fill out their playing schedules? They obviously played a lot of the same majors but you wonder how many times they actually locked horns.

Would someone please get these two together for a podcast? I would love to hear them discuss their careers. They would maybe have to use a chess clock to keep it fair to Varner.
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BasementDweller said:
Sigel vs Varner...Who was better?

I would like nothing more than to really know what their head-to-head record was. There's no surprise that Sigel was the better of the two at 14.1, since he grew up right in the heart of 14.1 country. While Varner was a more Midwestern boy who I imagine played his fair share of 14.1, but rounded out his game with banks and one-pocket.

I've looked at their career achievements that are listed in Wikipedia (which looks like a good starting point) and I wouldn't argue that Varner had the better career, but I would maybe argue that they were both monster freighters chugging along right past each other in the night. Of course they would anchor at the same port from time to time, but they both moved a lot of cargo! Their achievements are quite comparable. I'd say Varner maybe had a little longer run but they were both pretty hot for almost 20 years.

The times were so different, I suspect that they weren't always even competing at the same time and place. In today's world, everybody knows about EVERY SINGLE tournament under the sun. Did they back then? How did these guys fill out their playing schedules? They obviously played a lot of the same majors but you wonder how many times they actually locked horns.

Would someone please get these two together for a podcast? I would love to hear them discuss their careers. They would maybe have to use a chess clock to keep it fair to Varner.
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I would say Varner is the better ”all-around“.
 
BasementDweller said:
Oh you're fine. You just tend to start a long straight pool run in the middle of a 9 ball thread. :)

Efren is beloved by everyone. He's an all-time great. But he NEVER dominated the game of 9 Ball and didn't have nearly the success that either Varner or Sigel did during their primes. And it wasn't just his break. I think both Varner and Sigel were better ball pocketers than Efren. I also think both were more clutch than Efren. Even still, Efren did change the way the game was played.“
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”more clutch”? How do you figure that?
 
sjm said:
Buddy at 9ball was legendary, just a half notch below Mike and Nick on the big tables, and Buddy may well have been the best ever 9baller on the seven-footer. Not known as a straight pooler.

Buddy's true legacy is that he is the "Efren" of position play. In the same way that Efren got everyone thinking differently about kicking by demonstrating unprecedented precision and imagination, Buddy got everybody thinking differently about pattern/position play. His "clock system" set the stage for the most productive considerations ever of rotation pool position play. I wouldn't say he played the patterns any better than two other legendary position players that came later, Souquet and Appleton, but he showed everybody how to go about pattern play and his influence is still felt.

On to Rempe. One thing that I noted earlier is how both Mike and Nick transitioned seamlessly from the straight pool era to the 9ball era. Each was top five in both time periods in the respective disciplines. Rempe is another guy who transitioned seamlessly, surely a top ten player while he played in the straight pool era and top ten again once he transitioned to 9ball. Rempe was a small notch below Sigel, Buddy, Earl, Varner, Reyes, Parica and Archer as a 9baller, but he won a lot of big titles and was a very technically elegant player from whom you could learn a lot by watching.

Rempe was an elite pattern player at both straight pool and 9ball and was, by the way, an early influence of Ralf Souquet. Those of us who watched prime Mike Sigel often call him the "greatest closer we have ever watched." but if Rempe had a weakness, it was that he was not a great closer, and it often meant a lot of second and third place finishes.
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Once again I agree with your assessment on these players particularly with regard to Buddy and Rempe. On Rempe, I've always loved his game the essence of elegance. I remember reading some of the top players who were asked about Rempe's game saying that Jimmy always chose the correct shot in a particular situation. He also the was the one who crossed the pond to play in British snooker tournaments from time to time.

All great players and I can consider myself fortunate to have seen these guys multiple times during the past!
 
I once asked Pat Fleming who he thought the better all-around player was, Mike Sigel or Nick Varner, and without hesitation he said Nick Varner.
 
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