Women? Why can't they hang with the men?

PROG8R

PROG8R

Gator Nation
Silver Member
Watching the women play pool (with the exception to the rule ((maybe 10 female players))) is like watching a bunch of B+ or A- level players play. Ga Young, Allison, and Karen are definitely the exceptions. After that you have Helena, Monica, Kelly, Janet, Gerda, and then the power curve falls off so fast its ridiculous.

You can't say men have been doing it longer. Overall? sure, but then what? Karen and Allison have probably been playing pool as long as Corey D, or Kid D, have been alive.
I don't get it, I may never get it, I am sure that the women can hit a cueball as hard as it ever has to be hit, so it isn't a power issue (unless it's the break), why are men so dominant over the women?

Any IDEAS?
 
PROG8R said:
Watching the women play pool (with the exception to the rule ((maybe 10 female players))) is like watching a bunch of B+ or A- level players play. Ga Young, Allison, and Karen are definitely the exceptions. After that you have Helena, Monica, Kelly, Janet, Gerda, and then the power curve falls off so fast its ridiculous.

You can't say men have been doing it longer. Overall? sure, but then what? Karen and Allison have probably been playing pool as long as Corey D, or Kid D, have been alive.
I don't get it, I may never get it, I am sure that the women can hit a cueball as hard as it ever has to be hit, so it isn't a power issue (unless it's the break), why are men so dominant over the women?

Any IDEAS?
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well, I think that power does have a little bit to do with it. I mean no offense here, Angel, you are a great player.

When I was waiting for my next match at the Swanee memorial me and my friend were watching the match between Angelina Paglia and Mike Massey from up above and I ended up making ten dollars off of him because there were two instances where either one of us would have been out 90% of the time that my friend(who has a crush on her) thought that Angel should have been out. He bet me five dollars on teh first rack that she would be out and I told him that she would mess up shape coming off the four to the five and miss the five, which sure emough she did. Then in a following rack he bet me double or nothing that she would get out THAT time. I called the exact way that she would miss AGAIN. So he owes me $10 and he gave up. Afterward we were talking about the exact same thing you are saying here that some of the female pros are barely A- players compared to the men.

Not saying that you are Angel, and in her defense those were extremely tight tables and the shots she missed were difficult shots, not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It was just that when faced with shape off of shots that require a hard stroke it seems that it's difficult for the women to keep their strokes straight. That may be it or it could be something else... Who knows?
 
PROG8R said:
Watching the women play pool (with the exception to the rule ((maybe 10 female players))) is like watching a bunch of B+ or A- level players play. Ga Young, Allison, and Karen are definitely the exceptions. After that you have Helena, Monica, Kelly, Janet, Gerda, and then the power curve falls off so fast its ridiculous.

You can't say men have been doing it longer. Overall? sure, but then what? Karen and Allison have probably been playing pool as long as Corey D, or Kid D, have been alive.
I don't get it, I may never get it, I am sure that the women can hit a cueball as hard as it ever has to be hit, so it isn't a power issue (unless it's the break), why are men so dominant over the women?

Any IDEAS?
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A chain of thought thats gaining momentum is that the dumber/mo ignorant you are the better you play cause you don't know how hard it is. Lets take squirt for example....men,as a rule, just know it happens. They don't try to control it. It's intuitive and when it feels right you let it rip. Women,on the other hand, are very much into control. They obsess with when,why and how much. They tend to be surprised when it doesn't happen. At this point women are just to bright, introspective and analytical to crash the top ten.
Most women do have an advantage in terms of selecting equipment...they're especialy skilled at identifing good wood. :confused:
 
ribdoner said:
A chain of thought thats gaining momentum is that the dumber/mo ignorant you are the better you play cause you don't know how hard it is. Lets take squirt for example....men,as a rule, just know it happens. They don't try to control it. It's intuitive and when it feels right you let it rip. Women,on the other hand, are very much into control. They obsess with when,why and how much. They tend to be surprised when it doesn't happen. At this point women are just to bright, introspective and analytical to crash the top ten.
Most women do have an advantage in terms of selecting equipment...they're especialy skilled at identifing good wood. :confused:
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Good points. Plus we have more balls than they do.
 
I've noticed

The better a woman gets, the more her mindset for the game becomes like a man's mindset when playing pool. More men grasp the concepts and can execute them quicker than women. Women are not as coordinated as men and able to quickly adjust for speed as men. If you tell a man to hit the shot with a light medium hit, he catches on pretty quick (from other sports experience perhaps), you tell that to a woman, and she doesn't know what that means. You can tell a man about to shoot an almost straight in shot to follow with lots of top right english to spin the cueball to the other side of the table, and he grasps what for. You tell that to a woman, and she will say she can't do it, or would rather just stop it, and take a much more extreme angle on the next shot. (which she misses). Men are required within our lifestyles to react more quickly and with precision than women. Many men imagine all kinds of situations and how they will react to them, women simply react to them they way they feel at the time.

This is in general, and of course there are exceptions to each gender.
 
PROG8R said:
You can't say men have been doing it longer. Overall? sure, but then what? Karen and Allison have probably been playing pool as long as Corey D, or Kid D, have been alive.

You've kind of answered your own question. You brought up two women players that have been playing forever, and they are monsters who almost never miss. So you've established that at least some women who have played their whole lives play at a top, top level.

If you want to counter that they don't play as well as, say, Johnny, then allow me to say that neither does Shannon Daulton. Both Johnny and Shannon have been playing forever, and both are men. Why can't Shannon play as well as Johnny? Well, because Johnny probably has a hair more talent/knowledge/etc. that allows him to play a little better.

So.... if assuming you've played for pretty much your whole life, it's now only a question of minute differences in talent as to who plays better, then wouldn't it follow that the group with the larger universe of people to start with (men) would produce the one or two outliers with the greatest talent?

You could continue this line of reasoning by saying that clearly non-black players are better at pool than blacks. Right? Oh wait... hmmmm.... maybe the universe of pool players in the non-black group is so much larger, that it is completely obvious which group will have produced greater overall players.

And to prove that the outliers can come from anywhere, there are those who claim that James Evans (a black player) was the best there ever was. And he came from the group with the much smaller starting universe.

- Steve
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This issue is two parts to me. One is purely a cultural issue. There aren't as many women playing pool and they don't need to be as good to become 'world class.' I'm a tennis player and when Martina Hingis was number one in the world at about fifteen years old, she only practiced about two hours a day. Why would she work harder; she's the best in the world? No male player could get away with that. It's the same in pool. For us to have a chance we've got to play like six-eight hours a day for years and they don't. Why should they work harder? Maybe a co-ed tour like the IPT will make a difference.

The other factor is one of pschological make-up. I played pool for a living for a couple years and lived out of a van when I started. I've played for my last dollar and my food money many times. This is a situation that can't be simulated and I know many other men who have done similar things. I can't think of any women that have put themselves through that. My understanding is that most women have more of a need for security then men do and so don't put themselves in a position where they could lose everything. Maybe men have less fear on the table because of that.
 
Two sample populations with normal distributions, X and Y.

X has 1,000 people.
Y has 1,000,000 people.

The 99% confidence interval (let's say this represents the pros) are the elite cream of the crop in a population. In X, there will be 10 people. In Y, there will be 10,000 people.

Re-rank the elite. The elite of the elite.... In X there will be 0. In Y there will be 100.

Ignoring physical and psychological differences (of which there are plenty), it really just boils down to statistics. X are women, Y are men. More players in a population, better elite.

I'm just reiterating what others have said before...
 
papercut said:
Two sample populations with normal distributions, X and Y.

X has 1,000 people.
Y has 1,000,000 people.

The 99% confidence interval (let's say this represents the pros) are the elite cream of the crop in a population. In X, there will be 10 people. In Y, there will be 10,000 people.

Re-rank the elite. The elite of the elite.... In X there will be 0. In Y there will be 100.

Ignoring physical and psychological differences (of which there are plenty), it really just boils down to statistics. X are women, Y are men. More players in a population, better elite.

I'm just reiterating what others have said before...
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Statistics only explains the numbers of better players, not the caliber of players, for a given population, the top of the game should still be the top of the gameu unless the disparity in knowledge or undeerlying mechanisms differ.. That would be like saying that a state with 1/10 the population of another state cannot produce a top ranked player because there aren't as many people playing in that state.

If the top female pros play on keel with the top male pros then why don't they do well in the open tournaments? because there are less of them? not likely....
 
I think saying that women have physiological inferier components that don't allow them perform as well as the men, is B.S. The fact that Alex Pagualyan has such a powerful break shows that women wouldn't have such a hard time in that department. All it requires is good fundamentals. Furthermore I have taught many women who have picked up the concepts far quicker than any man. So don't try to infer that men are more intelligent or far better at understanding concepts, because that is ridiculous.

You can not forget that women have only been allowed in pool halls for a short amount of time. Furthermore it has been an even shorter amount of time since the first womens pro tour was establish. When you learn to play any sport you tend to have a certain idol in mind, you try to equal and or surpass that idol. Most girls learning to play will look at Ewa, Allison, Karen etc, as their hero's. Not very many will idolize Earl Strickland or Johnny Archer, they probably won't be able to relate. Its the same reason why I don't idolize Allison Fischer. I have a lot of respect for her, but Steve Davis is my hero.

As women learn to play they will eventually make their way into the pro ranks, and their abilities increase due to the competition. But here is the thing. It is difficult to keep evolving as a player if you don't keep taking the next step. A B player will probably stagnate if he/she does not attempt to move up and play A players. They may be a great B player, and do very well in competition but they will plateau. If these girls don't have anywhere else to go, if they are already in the pro ranks, then they will stagnate as well. Competition evolves, and so do the players. But with Karen and Allison in mix and dominating, it will force the competetors to get better in order to compete. No proffessional athlete or sportsman is able to accept being an also-ran.

Annika Sorennstein (sp?) was the first woman to average a 67 in golf, now its common. She still dominates but her competition is getting better. Tiger Woods was untouchable when he burst onto the scene, it caused players to practice and get better. As a result of these two, the standard of golf is better than it ever has been. As a result of the top women players in pool, the standard is getting better and better.

One last thing that may have slowed the growth of womens pool. SJM pointed out to me that for every woman who dedicates herself to pool, there are 50 men who do so. With such a small talent pool (:D), there is less oppurtunity for someone the caliber of Strickland or Reyes.

Anyways thats my theory.
 
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Jaden said:
Statistics only explains the numbers of better players, not the caliber of players, for a given population, the top of the game should still be the top of the gameu unless the disparity in knowledge or undeerlying mechanisms differ.. That would be like saying that a state with 1/10 the population of another state cannot produce a top ranked player because there aren't as many people playing in that state.

If the top female pros play on keel with the top male pros then why don't they do well in the open tournaments? because there are less of them? not likely....
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You have a pool of 100 people, X.
You have a pool of 1000000 people, Y.

You're telling me you don't think the top 5 Y players will be better than the top 5 X players (and yes, I agree that there would be more, in quantity, in the tail in population Y)? More data, more outliers to fill the tail distribution. That 1 in a million chance player (true prodigy) is much more likely to exist in a population of 1 million than 1 thousand. Put another way, 100 prodigies are much more likely to exist in a popluation of 100 million than 100 thousand.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that I'm not sure I'm convinced I'm wrong... yet again...
 
Hasn't this topic been done to death? Even though its hard to argue because men have won most all inclusive tournaments, does it make you feel so much better to rehash this same topic to bash women players? To be honest, I get more entertainment of watching a match where people miss now and again rather than run out rack after rack after rack after rack.
 
papercut said:
You're telling me you don't think the top 5 Y players will be better than the top 5 X players...
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Depends on which 5.

But your right, if you randomly select 5 players from group Y and X, there is a better chance that the Y players will be better than the X, rather than vice versa. But it is not 100% cetain.
 
papercut said:
You have a pool of 100 people, X.
You have a pool of 1000000 people, Y.

You're telling me you don't think the top 5 Y players will be better than the top 5 X players (and yes, I agree that there would be more, in quantity, in the tail in population Y)? More data, more outliers to fill the tail distribution. That 1 in a million chance player (true prodigy) is much more likely to exist in a population of 1 million than 1 thousand. Put another way, 100 prodigies are much more likely to exist in a popluation of 100 million than 100 thousand.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that I'm not sure I'm convinced I'm wrong... yet again...
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I'm not saying that your wrong per say, just that when you get toward the top of the game there is a limit as to having a greater pool producing better players, and in this instance it is likely that there are other factors involved beyond just that, and besides I doubt that would give any comfort to the top females even if it is the case.


And as to this being done to death, ah who cares one way or the other but this is an open forum, and if someone wants to talk about this whatever, I'll throw in my two cents worth and any stories I may have that are pertenant whatever the situation or byline.
 
Cameron Smith said:
Depends on which 5.

But your right, if you randomly select 5 players from group Y and X, there is a better chance that the Y players will be better than the X, rather than vice versa. But it is not 100% cetain.
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No he was saying if you take the best 5 y players and the best 5 x players which five will be better? And the answer is it depends on whether the disparity between them is solely their numbers or if there is an inherent difference in other ways as well. If the larger numbers creates greater access to knowledge quality of practice materials etc, then yes.. otherwise no. The best should not be contingent upon the greater numbers so long as the sample is large enough to not be ridiculous....

Now if you were take a group of 1000 and a group of ten and give them access to the same tools and training then there is a good liklihood that the top 5 of the 1000 will be better than the top five of the ten. But in the numbers that we're talking about here, I don't think that that is a factor.
 
The answer is simple. Girls just don't have the hand/eye coordination of boys, therefore weaker stroke. Power strokes are not about physical power of the muscles...it's about control and finesse at high cue speeds. I can't imagine ladies breaking like Pagulayan or drawing the cue ball like Deuel. Most of pro level men have control in a stroke that is way ahead of any woman.
 
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