Which involves more skill, snooker or pool?
daniz2pac
that some of the players are extremely talented. Especially
people like John Higgins and Mark Williams. Snooker requires
immense skill, but what about pool? Living in England I
haven't ever saw a pool match, so I really don't know what I am
on about in this area. So what do you people think then?
Does snooker or pool require more skill?, subsequently are
snooker or pool players more skilled?
One other thing, I know they are different games but please do
you best to compare them as I am curious.
Thankyou
Dan
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Fred Agnir
daniz2pac wrote in message <01342c6e...@usw-ex0102-013.remarq.com>...
>After watching most of the World Snooker championship I realised
>that some of the players are extremely talented. Especially
>people like John Higgins and Mark Williams. Snooker requires
>immense skill, but what about pool?
Also requires immense skill.
> Living in England I
>haven't ever saw a pool match, so I really don't know what I am
>on about in this area. So what do you people think then?
>Does snooker or pool require more skill?, subsequently are
>snooker or pool players more skilled?
I think both require great skill, and that the skill sets are different.
They may overlap, however. I watched some of the Snooker championships a
few weeks ago. Here's what I gathered. Ready? The Snooker Professionals
have zippo, zero, nada, absolutely no strategic skills. The guy with the
best potting skills always won. I watched fabled Jimmy White sell out over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And yet his
opponent (Snaddon?) returned the sell out. It was gun gun gun. Just like
watching the Women's Division of the U.S. 14.1 Open. Innings always ended
in sell outs. And Snaddon had like 6 breaks of over 50. How can you sit
there and continue on trying to pot difficult/impossible shots when your
opponent has already had several frame-winning breaks in the set? IMO,
White was lucky to win his set against Snaddon. Did he just feel that the
odds were against yet another 50 break?
In men's straight pool upper professional game, you rarely see them selling
out over and over and over. When faced with something tough, you see a lot
of safety play. Not so in Snooker. One good safety in Snooker and the
crowd goes bananas. And what about kicking when snookered. I watched a few
"professionals" at the World's kick at balls and completely miss. In
Snooker, the referee would then reset the balls, and the player would try it
again awarding the points. And these players missed again!! Today's pool
professionals are 50-50 to pocket some of these shots, let alone hit the
damn ball-on.
>One other thing, I know they are different games but please do
>you best to compare them as I am curious.
All I'm really saying is that I'm completely sick and tired of people
thinking that snooker is a more difficult game than "pool." And suggesting
that snooker players are somehow better. Potting is more difficult, sure.
But strategy, snooker is a loser. Pool's One-Pocket out-distances snooker
in overall skill by a mile. And please don't point to Allison and Karen. A
World Champion is a World Champion. It's not the game; it's the cueist.
Had Jean Balukas grown up in England, guess what title she would have won?
Regards,
Fred Agnir <---- 50 break in snooker the first day he tried it. (nothing
remotely close since)
daniz2pac
Thank you for such an honest reply!
Makes a change from usual crap.
I myself think that White is one of the lesser talented players
of the game. Have you ever seen Higgins for example? Earlier
today he made 600 odd points without reply from his opponent.
However I would love to see some professional pool games. Does
anyone that lives in the uk that is reading this know of
anywhere to get pool videos ( I would be especially happy to get
some tuition ones).
I have heard of straight pool players potting litteralyl
hundreds of balls in a row, this is an amazing feat! The
highest break I ever had is 12 :( (but I do have to use a toy 6"
table, I'm only 16). Please remmeber however that a 12x6 ft
table is quite a bit bigger than a 9x4.5 ft one, so this makes
potting much harder.
This topic is a hard one because it is obvious that people
having their say living in America are bound to say that pool is
a better sport/requires more skill, and vice versa.
Thanks for your input anyways, anyone else have any thoughts?
Patrick Johnson
> After watching most of the World Snooker championship I realised
> that some of the players are extremely talented.
Took you that long?
Pat Johnson
Chicago
Ron Hudson
<danielN...@holman83.freeserve.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>After watching most of the World Snooker championship I realised
>that some of the players are extremely talented.
A clue might have been that they were playing in the World championship.
Ron
daniz2pac
realised
>>that some of the players are extremely talented.
>
>A clue might have been that they were playing in the World
championship.
haha
ok then, after watching one match of the world championship,
seeing just *two* players play, I realised that *most* of the
players are extremely talented.
Do you see the irony Ron? (think next time!)
gideon_f
$q67.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Fred Agnir"
<oha...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I watched some of the Snooker championships a
>few weeks ago. Here's what I gathered. Ready? The Snooker
>Professionals have zippo, zero, nada, absolutely no strategic
>skills. The guy with the best potting skills always won. I
>watched fabled Jimmy White sell out over and over and over and
>over and over and over and over and over. And yet his
>opponent (Snaddon?) returned the sell out. It was gun gun gun.
>Just like watching the Women's Division of the U.S. 14.1 Open.
>Innings always ended in sell outs. And Snaddon had like 6
>breaks of over 50. How can you sit there and continue on
>trying to pot difficult/impossible shots when your
>opponent has already had several frame-winning breaks in the
>set?
Interesting. I note Rupe's comments in another thread about
snooker not being a strategic game. Were these sell-outs early
in the match? Maybe the problem is that with all reds "on", and
no requirement to hit a rail with anything after the hit,
safeties are not an effective weapon early in snooker matches.
I have seen some interesting battles late in matches where one
player is down and is "needing snookers". Some of the safeties
have been lock-tight.
Maybe someone who actually plays the game can weigh in on this -
I just watch it on t.v.
Regards,
Gideon
snook...@my-deja.com
affair. Most of the matches have been extremely good in all
departments. The
sell outs came about because both players were playing bloody awful for
most
of the time. The point Rupe was making about English 8-ball(I presume)
being
more strategic than snooker is justified as most 8-ball I've seen and
played
is on extremely tight tables where players vie for their ball position
hanging in the pocket jaws. But Fred's accusation that snooker players
have
zilch tactical awareness (or whatever) is wholly unjustified. If he'd
seen
some of the other matches played he's have seen 45 minute long frames,
wars
of attrition where there were some fantsatic shots played.
That comment on some pool players not only hitting the long kicks but
potting them, I hope he was joking about that!!!
I remember straight pool ace Tom Karabatsos playing in the snooker
amateur
championships 2 years ago. He lost a few of his games then flew home
early
saying the pockets were too tight!!
Anyway, when are some decent US players going to come over here and
kick our
butts?!!
Mat Wilson
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Rupert Ward
> I think both require great skill, and that the skill sets are different.
> absolutely no strategic skills.
As I've said in another thread, I don't think the game has
so much strategy. For example, in snooker if you have a chance
to pile some points on it's always the right thing to do. In
pool one is much more often faced with a choice to make regarding
whether to pot a ball or not. More choices=more strategy (?)
But it's a bit OTT to say they have no strategic skills at all!
There are choices to be made, especially in safety exchanges.
But more often than not, at the pro level, the games with
the most strategy in them are those where neither player
is punishing the other when they get a chance.
> The guy with the best potting skills always won.
That's pretty much true. But I'd replace "potting" with
"shotmaking". If the potting of the players is similar, often
it's the player that's got the pace of the table right and
manages to leave the cue ball on the baulk cushion in the
early exchanges and gets the first chance to exercise their
potting that gets the upper hand.
> I watched fabled Jimmy White sell out over
> and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And yet his
> opponent (Snaddon?) returned the sell out. It was gun gun gun. Just like
> watching the Women's Division of the U.S. 14.1 Open. Innings always ended
> in sell outs. And Snaddon had like 6 breaks of over 50. How can you sit
> there and continue on trying to pot difficult/impossible shots when your
> opponent has already had several frame-winning breaks in the set?
Yes. The thing is, that wasn't a particularly good match. Neither
player played that well. White didn't playing very well at the
Crucible this year, on the whole.
And when there's a big difference between the players, like Higgins
against Hamilton today, The lesser player just gets potted out
of sight.
So I guess I'm saying that you need to see a match between 2
top players on form to see the full range of snooker skills.
Hardly a big surprise.
> And what about kicking when snookered. I watched a few
> "professionals" at the World's kick at balls and completely miss.
> In Snooker, the referee would then reset the balls, and the
> player would try it again awarding the points. And these
> players missed again!!
Sometimes that's because they're playing the percentages. Given
the frame score it might be better to keep missing, going for
a difficult escape, than make sure of getting out of the snooker.
There was a good example in Jimmy White's match against Matthew
Stevens. Jimmy was snookered behind the baulk colours, and
was trying to come off two cushions and just clip one of the reds
to bring the white back up into baulk. If he hit it too full he'd
leave a clearance. But if he missed it co,mpletely the white
would come safe. So he deliberately kept erring on the side of
missing it completely. Jimmy was well ahead in the frame so he
could afford to give a few fouls away, but given how Stevens
was potting Jimmy couldn't afford to leave him in. He fouled
quite a few times and was put back in each time. Eventually
he made the shot as intended. Stevens by then was a few points
ahead, but it was clearly a sensible way to play it by Jimmy
(maybe not the *best* way - I don't recall the exact situation).
So, Jimmy White not talented? PAH! But he's not nearly as good
as he used to be. Please don't let history judge him on how
he's playing now, as one RSBer seemed to be. And there are
skills other than potting.
> Today's pool professionals are 50-50 to pocket some of
> these shots, let alone hit the damn ball-on.
I've always thought that snooker players are too scared of
doubles (banks), plants (combinations), cannons (caroms) and
kicks. It seems like there has been a tradition in snooker
that these shots are too risky, so they don't practise the
shots as much as they might. So often they pass up such
shots for safeties even when the double or whatever would
actually be a pretty safe option. To be fair, some of the
newer players do go for them more often (and the likes
of Jimmy, Ronnie always did). But in the old days of Pot
Black you'd never see it. The Canadian players, of course,
like Kirk Stevens and Cliff Thorburn, knew more about
those shots and would play for them more.
> All I'm really saying is that I'm completely sick and tired of people
> thinking that snooker is a more difficult game than "pool." And
> suggesting that snooker players are somehow better.
I get sick of this too. I think it just comes from the fact
that potting is harder on a snooker table. So snooker players
come to a pool table and find the potting side of it very easy
and tend to think that means it's an easier game. But I've
known quite a few snooker players that have converted to pool
once they've actually got into the game a bit more.
> Fred Agnir <---- 50 break in snooker the first day he tried it.
> (nothing remotely close since)
Blimey that's good. On a 6 by 12? I'd have been tempted never
to play another frame! :-)
Rupe.
-----
Ru...@arseweb.com
http://arseweb.com the original Arsenal website
http://arseweb.com/rupe/pool/ UK 8-ball rules
Bob Jewett
: Does snooker or pool require more skill?
Three cushion billiards requires more skill. Routinely, the cue ball
will travel 20 feet before hitting its target. The best players in the
world rarely make more than 75% of their shots. And wait until you
see Artistic Billiards.
The other answer is that all of these games require both a lot of skill
and a lot of knowledge to play well. The skills are are somewhat
different, of course. One of the best reasons to play the "other"
games -- whatever those might be for you -- is that it forces you to
sharpen the skills you might otherwise overlook.
Sadly, most players seem to think that their game is the only one that
exists.
Bob Jewett
Daniel James Ingles
Fred Agnir wrote:
>daniz2pac wrote in message <01342c6e...@usw-ex0102-013.remarq.com>...
>> Living in England I
>>haven't ever saw a pool match, so I really don't know what I am
>>on about in this area. So what do you people think then?
>>Does snooker or pool require more skill?, subsequently are
>>snooker or pool players more skilled?
>
>I think both require great skill, and that the skill sets are different.
>They may overlap, however. I watched some of the Snooker championships a
>few weeks ago. Here's what I gathered. Ready? The Snooker Professionals
>have zippo, zero, nada, absolutely no strategic skills. The guy with the
>best potting skills always won.
Since I haven't seen much top-flight chapionship snooker, my comments
might be useless, but what the hell...
Potting a ball is so damned hard in snooker that a player with even a
marginal advantage in aim should win. Consider this the extreme example of
playing on difficult equipment. On a 6x12 table with tight pockets, you
need speed control and the ability to analyze patterns, but first and
foremost you need to make the ball.
>I watched fabled Jimmy White sell out over
>and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And yet his
>opponent (Snaddon?) returned the sell out. It was gun gun gun.
How often do world-class snooker players miss? Probably more than 14.1
players. A world-class run at 14.1 is 150 balls. A 147 break in snooker is
only 36 balls. The emphasis is different in each game. In 14.1, favorable
position is rewarded. In snooker, favorable potting skills are rewarded.
>And Snaddon had like 6 breaks of over 50. How can you sit
>there and continue on trying to pot difficult/impossible shots when your
>opponent has already had several frame-winning breaks in the set? IMO,
>White was lucky to win his set against Snaddon. Did he just feel that the
>odds were against yet another 50 break?
I didn't see the set, so I don't know, but in my own snooker experience,
diving after an improbable shot is pretty good strategy. The parsimonius
pockets will reject any poorly aimed shots. I routinely won games against
players with superior positional skills that rattled ball after ball.
IMO, the better shotmaker will win in snooker in the long run.
>And what about kicking when snookered. I watched a few
>"professionals" at the World's kick at balls and completely miss.
These are smaller balls on a very big table with a rounded rail nose. I
often missed dead kicks because I was trying to hit one side of the ball.
The cue ball would travel some strange route and miss by four inches.
Very frustrating.
>In
>Snooker, the referee would then reset the balls, and the player would try it
>again awarding the points.
Why not? Your opponent already blew it, let him screw up again! Plus, he
might overcompensate and *really* open the table up.
>Today's pool professionals are 50-50 to pocket some of these shots
On a pool table...
>>One other thing, I know they are different games but please do
>>you best to compare them as I am curious.
>All I'm really saying is that I'm completely sick and tired of people
>thinking that snooker is a more difficult game than "pool." And suggesting
>that snooker players are somehow better. Potting is more difficult, sure.
Total agreement here. Snooker favors the shotmaker, pool favors the
position player. But only because each discipline requires different skills.
Consider Davis or White versus Archer or Reyes? Who would you put your
money on in a 9-ball match? Or a snooker match? I'd back Archer against
almost anybody (with the $2.32 in my checking account:-) in 9-ball, but
I'd put the same $2.32 on White in snmooker, provided he matched me. ;-)
>Had Jean Balukas
>grown up in England, guess what title she would have won?
"Duchess of Doom?" :-)
Regards,
Dan Ingles <-- High break of 33 in snooker, so don't take me too seriously
Fred Agnir
snook...@my-deja.com wrote in message <8e80v1$aaf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>But Fred's accusation that snooker players
>have
>zilch tactical awareness (or whatever) is wholly unjustified. If he'd
>seen
>some of the other matches played he's have seen 45 minute long frames,
>wars
>of attrition where there were some fantsatic shots played.
>
I saw 6 hours of coverage. And this ain't the first time I've watched
snooker. My post was a bit unfair, but I needed to get the point across:
Snooker is no more skillful than Pool. Any of the tactical battles came
late into the frame, if the score was close. Before that, it was gun gun
gun. I stand by my post.
>That comment on some pool players not only hitting the long kicks but
>potting them, I hope he was joking about that!!!
>
Obviously, I was talking about kicking on a pool table. Yes, the top
professionals actually changed their game after watching Efren Reyes win
with kicking in balls in the 70's and 80's. I watched no less than four
world snooker professionals completely miss hitting the ball on "big ball"
kicks. I found that incredibly poor. On one such kick, Snaddon finally hit
the ball-on on his third attempt. It was a long, up and down kick with the
ball-on about 1-2 inches off the side rail. The ball-on was HUGE. For a
professional who had several breaks of 50+ in the same frame not to hit it
seemed odd to me.
>I remember straight pool ace Tom Karabatsos playing in the snooker
>amateur
>championships 2 years ago. He lost a few of his games then flew home
>early
>saying the pockets were too tight!!
>
Not the point. I could easily note that when the first team pool
championships came about, the UK contingent was easily the most lost of the
lot. Different game, different atmosphere. I AM NOT SAYING POOL IS A
BETTER GAME!!! I AM JUST SICK AND TIRED OF SNOOKER FANS SAYING THEIR GAME
IS MORE SKILLFUL!!!
>Anyway, when are some decent US players going to come over here and
>kick our
>butts?!!
Not the point.
Fred Agnir
Daniel James Ingles wrote in message <8e8enb$o...@news.duke.edu>...
>>In
>>Snooker, the referee would then reset the balls, and the player would try
it
>>again awarding the points.
>
>Why not? Your opponent already blew it, let him screw up again! Plus, he
>might overcompensate and *really* open the table up.
Don't get me wrong. I completely agree with this rule. My point was that
this particular snooker professional had three chances to simply hit the
ball. And the ball was "big."
>
>>Today's pool professionals are 50-50 to pocket some of these shots
>
>On a pool table...
>
Yes. But to hit it (which you snipped) was the point. On such a kick, I'd
expect the pool professional to hit the ball-on nearly 100% of the time.
I'd also expect the snooker professional to hit it near 100% of the time
also. But kick shots aren't a normal happening in a snooker frame.
>
>>Had Jean Balukas
>>grown up in England, guess what title she would have won?
>
>"Duchess of Doom?" :-)
>
Bingo!!
Fred Agnir
Rupert Ward wrote in message <39078B1A...@ipg.umds.ac.uk.com>...
>As I've said in another thread, I don't think the game has
>so much strategy. For example, in snooker if you have a chance
>to pile some points on it's always the right thing to do. In
>pool one is much more often faced with a choice to make regarding
>whether to pot a ball or not. More choices=more strategy (?)
Maybe more choices = more opportunity to hone strategic skills?
>
>But it's a bit OTT to say they have no strategic skills at all!
Oh, hell, Rupe! If I don't go extreme, who's gonna respond? ;-)
Regards,
Fred Agnir <---- really loves snooker/ no chances to play
lfigueroa
else can?
About a year ago, in BD, in the section up front titled "Yesteryear" where
they do the "10 Years Ago," "50 Years Ago," "75 Years Ago" thing, I thought
I read a quote from Willie Hoppe in which he said pool was much harder that
3C. Anyone got it?
Lou Figueroa
Bob Jewett <jew...@netcom8.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:8e87lm$pee$3...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net...
Ron Shepard
>they do the "10 Years Ago," "50 Years Ago," "75 Years Ago" thing, I thought
>I read a quote from Willie Hoppe in which he said pool was much harder that
>3C. Anyone got it?
Taken out of context, saying that one game is "harder" than another doesn't
mean much. He could be saying that a wider field of competitors make it more
difficult to dominate the game. Or he could be saying that it is so easy to
score points that it is difficult for one player to consistently win
tournaments.
My favorite measure of game difficulty is runlengths (measured in balls, not
points, if it makes a difference). I find that, for most people who play both
9-ball and snooker, their runlengths are about the same in the two games. This
means that the difficulty of pocketing balls on the snooker table is balanced
by the difficulty of running balls in rotation in 9-ball, and in the end, the
two games have the same intrinsic difficulty. This measure does not include
how good the competitors are or how many of them are out there, it is just a
measure of the player vs. game difficulty. It also assumes that some kind of
"average" equipment is used (average pocket size, average cloth speed, etc.).
The good thing about this is that widely different games can be compared, from
9-ball, 8-ball, 14.1, and one-pocket to snooker and 3C. In short games
(9-ball, 8-ball) you must find some fair way to continue stats from one rack to
the next, and in tactics-rich games, such as one-pocket, you have to treat
fairly the safety innings.
By this measure, 9-ball, 8-ball, and snooker all have about the same level of
difficulty. 14.1 is "easier" -- I think the typical run by the typical player
is about 3 times longer in 14.1 than in 9-ball. One-pocket is more difficult
than 9-ball et al, but it is hard for me to get a good fix on the number
because there are so many safety innings in a one-pocket game -- something like
3 times harder seems about right to me. 3C is about 10 times harder than
9-ball.
There are other ways to try to measure game difficulty, but they seem a little
more subjective. Another good one is how many different types of shots must be
mastered in order to play the game well. With this measure, I think 14.1
starts looking "harder" relative to the other games than it does with the
runlength measure.
Someone else mentioned the importance of the kicking game in 9-ball in the
80's. This was due in part to the rule changes. Before that time, a player
seldom, or never, was required to kick at a ball. Sometimes the incoming
player had to play the cue ball from position (basically there was no penalty
for missing the kick). Some rules allowed the snookered player to execute a
push out (just like the push out after the break shot now) at any time during
the game. So instead of trying for a risky kick shot that might sell out, he
could always push to a neutral place on the table and leave himself a 50/50
chance of winning the game. The BIH after foul plus the 3-foul rule in 9-ball
changed all this. These rules brought in a whole class of "required" shots
that players had to master, and they tightened the connection between the
offensive and defensive aspects of 9-ball. Reyes was one of the first to
include these shots in a sometimes spectacular way, but I think it was the
nature of the game (with these "new" rules) that was driving the tactics in
that direction.
$.02 -Ron Shepard <-- JMO, of course.
Hammack
was in the last six months, but I can't remember which one.
lfigueroa <lfig...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:ktYN4.25760$PV.18...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> I don't keep the back issues, so I can't look this up -- perhaps someone
> else can?
>
> they do the "10 Years Ago," "50 Years Ago," "75 Years Ago" thing, I
thought
> I read a quote from Willie Hoppe in which he said pool was much harder
that
> 3C. Anyone got it?
>
Daniel James Ingles
>Daniel James Ingles wrote in message <8e8enb$o...@news.duke.edu>...
>>>In
>>>Snooker, the referee would then reset the balls, and the player would try
>it
>>>again awarding the points.
>>
>>Why not? Your opponent already blew it, let him screw up again! Plus, he
>>might overcompensate and *really* open the table up.
>
>Don't get me wrong. I completely agree with this rule. My point was that
>this particular snooker professional had three chances to simply hit the
>ball. And the ball was "big."
Yes, I should have read that more carefully. At first glance, I thought
the shot was a difficult kick, but re-reading your post it's obvious it
was an easy hit. And I'm also surprised that a world-class player has
trouble with these. Snooker players? Is this common?
>>>Today's pool professionals are 50-50 to pocket some of these shots
>>
>>On a pool table...
>Yes. But to hit it (which you snipped) was the point.
Sorry about that. I assumed the kick was a tough one. Chalk it up to poor
reading comprehension skills at 12 AM.
>On such a kick, I'd
>expect the pool professional to hit the ball-on nearly 100% of the time.
>I'd also expect the snooker professional to hit it near 100% of the time
>also. But kick shots aren't a normal happening in a snooker frame.
True. Most of the professional snooker I've seen (not very much,
unfortunately) has few if any kicks, and the play is extremely aggresive.
Cueball-hiding safeties occur after the opening break. Eventually someone
makes a mistake, and then it's off to the races...
Regards,
Dan Ingles <--- You can ask me to read, and you can ask me to comprehend,
just not at the same time
weelie
>this particular snooker professional had three chances to simply hit the
>ball. And the ball was "big."
Hitting a snookered ball is not important in snooker. often you don't really
get punished for missing as much as you would if you hit but did not leave
it safe. I don't think the pros practice hitting off the cushions. If you
forfeit, let's say, up to 12 points, it often hasn't got any bearing on the
result. for example in 9ball, if you miss, you are doomed.
and if you were talking about Bingham, he is not a very top pro anyway. he
was lucky to get that far.
Ville
Deno J. Andrews
>
> I don't keep the back issues, so I can't look this up -- perhaps someone
> else can?
>
> About a year ago, in BD, in the section up front titled "Yesteryear" where
> they do the "10 Years Ago," "50 Years Ago," "75 Years Ago" thing, I thought
> I read a quote from Willie Hoppe in which he said pool was much harder that
> 3C. Anyone got it?
I remember this too. And I also remember my grandfather (who was
Hoppe's good friend) saying somthing like this when I was younger. I
happen to agree to a point. I think there are more variables in pool
than in 3c. I mean, at any time during a pool game, the player must
consider game strategy and map out larger runs to be on the winning
side. In billiards, we have a game strategy, but it is rare we ever
think more than one shot in advance. So I think from a players
perspective, given equal skills, it is harder for a billiard player to
play pool than vice-versa, if you are just looking at scoring. But I
think it is harder for pool players to understand position play in
billiards, than it is for billiard players to understand postion in
pool. The reason..a typical shot in billiards requires accurate cue
ball control over a distance. TO play position, object ball speed is
key, and that is one thing most pool players never really get to see.
What I mean is that if the ball goes into the pocket, it is hard to
imagine where that ball would have gone if there were no pockets. SO
most of the pool player I have seen take up billiards, never really
start to play position, whereas, billiard players I see playing pool,
learn position much faster.
I guess there are things about each game that are easy and difficult to
pick up. But again, all things equal, I would rather play billiards,
because you never have the pressure of having to pot the ball! And that
IS pressure for those of us who have difficulty potting balls :(
Deno J. Andrews
Patrick Johnson
> [pool players don't have to control the speed of the object ball because...]
> if the ball goes into the pocket, it is hard to imagine where that ball would
> have gone if there were no pockets.
This is one of the big distinctions between other pool games and one
pocket. In one pocket, you must control position of both cue ball and
object ball in order to create threats while playing safe. That's why
(among other reasons) it's the pool game that demands the widest array
of skills.
And that's why I suck at it...
Pat Johnson
Chicago