Pretty much everyone on this thread that is saying the women are up to speed of the top men is just out and out lying or they really dont have a clue. Jimmy is correct when he says the top women are playing at the speed of the good local players. The top two women in pro pool are at about the top 50 mark when compared to the men, the rest are far behind. The 10th best woman player in the world would not be in the top 200 men.
No woman in the world is playing at the level of Efren, Archer, Immonen, Busta, Souquet, Pagulayan, Strickland, and many other top male players.
Gremlin, you are a great fan of the women. Can you honestly say that Allison or Karen are playing consistently as good as Efren, Archer, and the other top male players? Sure they might have won afew matches against good male pro players but that does not make them as good as those players to win a match or two. I have beaten pro players on my good days in matches and I am still not nearly as good as them over the long run. Karen wins matches on the Joss tour events, she even won an event. McCready has also won events on the Joss tour and he is not nearly the player he used to be and is not close to the level of the top players now. He arguably has had more success in the Joss tour then Karen though.
It is not a knock against the women to say they are not as good as the best male players. Archer, Efren, Busta, Mika, these guys are phenomenal and there are very few males in the world that can go with them on an ongoing basis. There is no women in the world that can keep up with these top male players, they are not as good. Just like Keith can not keep up with Archer or Efren, he is good but in no way is he at their level.
BTW I have played in many tournaments where top 10 women have played. The finals of the Dufferin tour event in Calgary brought in Jennifer Chen and her room mate/road partner. They played in both the womens and mens divisions. Jennifer dominated the womens event and won it with ease, she was ranked 6th on the WPBA at the time. Both her and her playing partner (cannot remember her name, really hot and she was top 10 at the time as well I believe) did not even make the money in the mens event. Now we had some good players in that tournament but I will admit, we were a bunch of shortstops. The finals were between Edwin Montal and Stan Tourangano (sp?) both players were quite afew steps behind the top players of the time. Other players in the event were Dan Louie, Benny O, Dave Martin, ect.... This was a good field but in no way was it a top field and Chen and her partner could not even make the money and they were in no way favorites to win the event. Had Archer or Efren been there they likely would have taken home the trophy because they would have been the class of the field.
I also played in the WPC qualifier in Calgary. Hsin Huang and Kim Ga Young both played in the event and are considered serious threats for the WPBA in the near future. Strickland went for $1700 in the calcuta, Pagulayan Archer and Souquet all went for $1650. Montal went for $500, Horsefall went for 350, Dan Louie went for 400 or so, and so on..... The two women went for less then 100 each and the buyer of the first one only found out she was a women after he had bought her, he had bid only because he saw the location the player had traveled from. Both women bowed out of the tournament fairly early. One made the money I know, not sure about the other. These are women that would be a threat to win any WPBA event they played in atm. They are not a threat to win a top pro event with men playing in it though.
I dont get why some people are comming to this thread and trying so hard to say that the top women have as much game as the top men. It is so obvious that it is not true. Best thing for the women would have been afew people comming on this thread and saying that while the women are not quite at the mens speed yet they will be there some day and the gap is closing, that might be arguable and might even be true. Instead they argue that Allison can play even with Archer and Efren and beat them 50% of the time in races to 11. Karen can play just as good as Souquet and Immonen and would be a favorite to win the WPC if she could play in it. Yeah right, I gotta go up to the moon in my spaceship for a sec guys, I am outa cheese.
! I'm giving the ladies the *exact* credit they deserve. You want to give them more. "Many have great talent that DOES equal any of the males in the sport"? Please, help me out by naming ONE that equals Efren in talent! It isn't a knock against the women to simply point out the fact that the best women (namely Alison and Karen) play like very good male shortstops. What does that mean? It means that they DO play good enough to beat anyone out there (male or female) in a tournament (where you are playing *one* set), but neither of those two would have any kind of chance in like a 10-ahead set with any of the top male players - period. But again, this conversation isn't to bicker over the obvious. While the person who started this post might have made a poor attempt at humor (with the "jugs" comment), the question wasn't "do the men play better than the women". We know the answer to that. The question was "WHY".