Why do some Chinese players shoot insanely fast?

K

kingwang

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
One thing I've noticed about mainland Chinese players, both pros and amateurs, is that some of them shoot bizarrely hard and fast. Shooting hard makes sense because of how the Chinese tables work, but I can't figure out for the life of me why they're playing at such a fast tempo and how they're making it work on 3.5" pockets.

Here's an example of two players playing Golden Nine like they're imitating Tony Drago about to miss his flight:

Some highlights
  • 13:15 - great example of what I'm talking about. It's a routine shot but it's still the 9 ball and missable and Meng shoots it like it's a hanger
  • 23:45 - Tong with a tough runout, averaging about 10 seconds per shot. The entire rack would have been that fast if he didn't need to grab an extension
  • 32:05 - Another tough runout with a tricky shot on the 3 and it's still < 10s per shot
  • 36:51 - It's a close match and both players attempt insanely steep cuts on the 9 ball without taking any time to evaluate. No checking of angles or anything, just YOLO
  • 40:22 - WTF was this sequence? Neither player takes their time and Tong takes the lead by absolutely smoking in a tough 9 ball with zero pre-strokes or any semblance of a pre-shot routine

Now, to be fair, these guys (especially Tong Lu) are extreme examples, but they're pretty good representations of what I'm talking about.

Compare this to Joshua Filler, who we consider a fast shooter, shooting a very routine 9 ball (43:55 if the link doesn't work).

For a more direct comparison, here's what some non-Chinese players look like when playing the exact same game
  • Ko Pin Yi - Skip to 2:27:56 and 4:06:40 to see him shooting some routine 9 balls. Same KPY we always see - takes his time, checks his angles, not slow but not fast
  • Pagulayan shooting a routine 9 ball - Skip to 1:19:32 if the link doesn't work
  • Wu Jiaqing (moved to China as an adult, so I'm counting him here) shooting a routine 9 ball - Skip to 1:45:15 if the link doesn't work. Normal pre-shot routine: chalks, checks the angle, squares up, shoots
 
kingwang said:
One thing I've noticed about mainland Chinese players, both pros and amateurs, is that some of them shoot bizarrely hard and fast. Shooting hard makes sense because of how the Chinese tables work, but I can't figure out for the life of me why they're playing at such a fast tempo and how they're making it work on 3.5" pockets.

Here's an example of two players playing Golden Nine like they're imitating Tony Drago about to miss his flight:

Some highlights
  • 13:15 - great example of what I'm talking about. It's a routine shot but it's still the 9 ball and missable and Meng shoots it like it's a hanger
  • 23:45 - Tong with a tough runout, averaging about 10 seconds per shot. The entire rack would have been that fast if he didn't need to grab an extension
  • 32:05 - Another tough runout with a tricky shot on the 3 and it's still < 10s per shot
  • 36:51 - It's a close match and both players attempt insanely steep cuts on the 9 ball without taking any time to evaluate. No checking of angles or anything, just YOLO
  • 40:22 - WTF was this sequence? Neither player takes their time and Tong takes the lead by absolutely smoking in a tough 9 ball with zero pre-strokes or any semblance of a pre-shot routine

Now, to be fair, these guys (especially Tong Lu) are extreme examples, but they're pretty good representations of what I'm talking about.

Compare this to Joshua Filler, who we consider a fast shooter, shooting a very routine 9 ball (43:55 if the link doesn't work).

For a more direct comparison, here's what some non-Chinese players look like when playing the exact same game
  • Ko Pin Yi - Skip to 2:27:56 and 4:06:40 to see him shooting some routine 9 balls. Same KPY we always see - takes his time, checks his angles, not slow but not fast
  • Pagulayan shooting a routine 9 ball - Skip to 1:19:32 if the link doesn't work
  • Wu Jiaqing (moved to China as an adult, so I'm counting him here) shooting a routine 9 ball - Skip to 1:45:15 if the link doesn't work. Normal pre-shot routine: chalks, checks the angle, squares up, shoots
Click to expand...
The fact that this is considered quick just shows how much we have all gotten used to the slow deliberate mechanical shooting that is common today. To me, that is just a nice decent speed
 
miramachine said:
The fact that this is considered quick just shows how much we have all gotten used to the slow deliberate mechanical shooting that is common today. To me, that is just a nice decent speed
Click to expand...
Agreed. They aren't playing crazily fast. It's just that some players take way longer than actually needed.

Was great that Zhao Xintong won the world snooker championship playing a very fluent, no mucking about game. If he'd have been a grinder you'd now have x million Chinese players trying to emulate that style. Thankfully most of them all wanna get on with things instead.
 
miramachine said:
The fact that this is considered quick just shows how much we have all gotten used to the slow deliberate mechanical shooting that is common today. To me, that is just a nice decent speed
Click to expand...
I agree. Just to be honest, that is decent speed. I do however highly doubt a few YouTube videos of chinese (?) Players pocketing balls with an insane speed with some ridiculous CB control without even missing. It felt like the guys playing have mastered everything about pocketing and seldom do they even chalk. Not sure if you guys seen those videos as well.
 
miramachine said:
The fact that this is considered quick just shows how much we have all gotten used to the slow deliberate mechanical shooting that is common today. To me, that is just a nice decent speed
Click to expand...
Speaking about slow mechanical shooting, it does seem annoying and somehow disappointing seeing majority of the Pros getting much slower than you. I know I shoot slower now but never thought that I would see some pros takes longer to shoot a straight in shot like it's super complicated. I'm not saying everyone but there are a few out there that I might be interested browsing on my phone than waiting for those players to finally take a shot. No wonder we now have shot clocks.
 
find a video of lou butera playing straight pool as good as anyone.

and rethink about how taking too long may make you play worse.

 
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