Thanks so much for putting these videos up!!! Such a rare opportunity to see the greatest snooker player of all time playing straight pool at his peak. I always wondered how he'd get on!
I love the skill of straight pool. I love the skill of snooker. But let us just agree that 3 cushion players are the absolute best. I still find all games played with a cue exciting.
@omgitshideous I think anyone that has played both games would say that a 147 is generally much more difficult than a 100 ball run at straight pool. The frequency with which 100 ball runs are made compared with maximum breaks seems to back this up. It's 36 balls against 100, but shotmaking in straight pool is much more straightforward most of the time.
@chazdrumzalot The third leg was 9ball. Ive got that all on VHS except the last game! I am amazed to find this today just randomly looking, I missed the straight pool leg and I was 5 when this took place so I am today filling a void in my childhood. THANKYOU NUGGET147!!
Thanks for this info, Christopher! The commentators in this video mentioned the second leg was snooker. Did they play the snooker leg on a 12x6 table or a 8x4 table? I'm just a recreational/casual player. I've often played a few frames of snooker on a 12x6 before a pool league/tournament, to help get my eye in. But I have never played a snooker match after playing pool on a 8x4 table first lol that would be quite a difficult transition for a player of my skill level.
@GetMeThere1 If only we could see Ronnie play 14.1! His game is all about touch/positional play, intelligent shot selection, developing balls while still retaining position on his next ball and so on. He does all of this better than anyone I've ever seen, it's just a shame we're unlikely to ever see him play straight pool when he's so well suited to the game.
Unfortunately the closest I've ever seen is Ronnie playing 9-Ball. I'm not even familiar with the rules of 14.1 and I'd love to see Ronnie play it. Anything that involves a cue a ball and a table will be interesting so long as he's playing lol.
im an american, and i often play snooker in my local pool hall on a 12x6. love snooker, but lets be real pool and snooker are truly apples and oranges. the stroke is completely different, as snooker felt is 100% grade as opposed to like 60% grade found on most good pool tables. snooker players are fantastic shot makers, and the game has improved my shot making ability, although pool requires harder stroke to get up and down the table. a good snooker player stays on one side of the table usually.
@onehundredand37 Its actually pretty simple. You can shoot at and pocket any ball on the table. You get one point per pocketed ball. After 14 balls are pocketed, those 14 balls are reracked, and then the player continues shooting with the last ball and cue ball staying where they are. As long as you keep pocketing balls, you stay at the table. The game ends when one player gets to a predetermined number of balls pockted (usually 150 or so)
Steve Mizerak said that "a 20-ball run was a comfortable and outstanding achievement"? Come on now! I knew Steve in person, and he was being generous there, that's all. He won U.S. Open and World titles with tournament averages higher than that! And that (look it up in the B.C.A. rules and records book) is a fact! Now, could you please upload the remainder of the matches of this challenge? I'd hate to be the only one who remembers who eventually won the overall contest! Thanks so much!
@zenitius Steve won both Pool/Snooker challenges overall as he mostly won the pool disciplines, he lost both snooker matches to Davis and White in these events.
@rchan0 Well if you hold to the idea that a 100 ball run is roughly equivalent to a century at snooker, then maybe we could say 58 balls is equivalent to a 58 break. I do have video of Mizerak in a doubles match (with Ewa Mataya, against Hendry and Allison Fisher) making a break of 56.
@nugget147 : I agree. Ronnie's an absolute genius; and if he ever tried to move wholeheartedly to pool he'd have world domination. Of course...all that for about 1/10th the money :) Snooker realities are written so deeply into his nervous system that he'd really have to jettison snooker to take up pool with conviction--I could never imagine him doing that unless perhaps for VERY large money.
What happens if a ball ends up where you would rack the new rack? Also, you do have to call the shot, right? What if a ball you didn't call goes in? Do you get to keep the point as long as a ball you did call also goes in?
@13713 Now that would be entirely possible, because that would be roughly the average per inning he used to end up with for whole tournaments, but I'm sure Steve (Mizerak) was being kind here - it's just the way he was. He wouldn't belittle anyone ever, great guy.
@SirNoobs yep. i've played a little bit at 9-ball. But IMHO i prefer straight pool 'cause u can get to hit whichever ball u want. while u cannot at 9-ball or other games. just only straight pool permit u to get to hit every balls u want,so u can get very more options about what ball hitting and more amazing shots.
You posted this 5 years ago, so you may not see this, but O'Sullivan has since done a TV show called American Hustle, and in the first episode of season 1, he plays straight pool against Jeanette Lee, aka Black Widow.
Agreed even top players can make a mistake or bad contact get unlucky when the balls r re-racked. Bank, straight pool, one pocket etc are really skillful games much more than 9 ball but 9 ball makes for better television.
If Davis had incentive to master straight pool, he would probably have a couple 400 ball runs. Maybe a 500. From what snooker I've watched, the break-building skills involved are similar. Too bad pool has never regained the popularity it had in the early 20th century. Guys like Ralph Greenleaf could actually make a living at it.
I don't think you can make a direct comparison between snooker and pool. Agreed, the equipment is similar and some skills are transferrable - but I find that the key to snooker is using simple stun shots as often as possible. In pool the potting is easier (for both players you must remember) so the important part of the game is control of the smaller white (for 8 ball) and knowing when to attack and what order to take finishes. I much prefer pool as it's my first game.
You've got to laugh at the way the commentators are desperately trying to suggest that Steve Davis has "got into difficulty". He could play this trivial game blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back.
@SirNoobs oh ok. I'm a fan of the movie 'the hustler' with paul newman,so he remembered a bit minesota fats. i get the feeling the movie is inspirated to a true story ,so i assume minesota fats is a real existing person. i don't know. i'm a poor boy who live in italy,so i know very little things about usa characters and famous persons. however that movie has inspired me to play at straight pool 14-1 continuous. it's the best pool game IMHO
I play snooker and am average at best at a club level - but pool, in my youth when i lived in tenerife was my 'job' i would lose maybe 1 in 20 games and more often than not would win off the break or on my first visit to the table. Small table big balls and pockets but most of all unless you lay someone who knows the game they dont plan 3,4,5, shots ahead, Much easier game - 9 ball my favorite but not many play this in the UK
@SirNoobs really? NY Fats LOLOL about the game 14-1 continuous ...what is either the correct name or teh 'slang' name/nickname. is Straight Pool? or is 150? is it still exist again or pool 9 has replaced it?
@vincentwu : Right. But the real deciding factor IS the money--there's a LOT more money in professional snooker than in professional pool. Ronnie has made MILLIONS playing snooker, directly from prize money. Only Efren Reyes ($1.7 mil) and Mika Immonen ($1 mil) have made even one million playing pool. O'Sullivan has career winnings over 6 million POUNDS (around $10 mil, depending on exchange rates).
I’m Not experienced with the rules of straight pool. You are required to nominate the ball and the pocket you are attempting. However if you are potting and splitting the pack and you pot your nominated ball but fluke another ball while splitting the pack is that considered a foul? So for example Davis’s shot at 8.16, had he fluked a ball into the middle pocket while splitting the pack would that be a foul/scratch as he didn’t nominate a ball into the middle pocket.
@LeonFleisherFan : Furthermore, I disagree with your characterization of pool. In fact, in many serious matches, it's the guy who misses ONCE when he shouldn't (shot or position) who gives up the game. i.e., the winner ends up being the guy with the RELENTLESS consistency--although, sure, great kicking skill can easily make the difference in any particular game. I agree about breaking: in a winner-break match, the best breaker has an enormous advantage between otherwise equal players (in 9 ball)
Snooker and Straight Pool may not be exactly the same game, but their pretty damn close. Straight Pool being a lot easier, you can shoot what you want and when you want. Plus he’s on a smaller table with bigger pockets, less balls, yeah I’d never count a snooker player out of any American pool game.
@GetMeThere1 Huh? That among players of similar run-out capacity, the one will win who gets an opportunity first? You're quite mistaken: modern-day experts in pool discuss virtually nothing else! It's similar in Snooker with the long pots that make modern-day Snooker players GET opportunities that veteran players (however great - but who'd patiently play safety and wait for an easier chance) won't: purely a matter of statistics. That's why Efren keeps abreast in pool, despite failing eyesight.
@MrPhilsd If true, I would think you the exception rather than the rule. If your claim is that you're a snooker player first and only sampled straight pool to find it that much easier, then I don't believe you. Unless they've thrown aside the call-shot element of the game, a sub-fifty break player is extremely unlikely to run 100 in 14.1 twice. Maybe if it's their main game. Otherwise, the cue ball control and consistency of execution just is not there to do it.
@Aniva66 Hehe, IMO, Fats was good but he was better at comedy and hustling in small pool rooms than playing tournaments with other professionals. I heard he never won a professional tournament. Straight pool and 14.1 are both correct names for the game. There are still straight pool tournaments around though 9-ball and 10-ball are much faster and popular.
@LeonFleisherFan : You're bringing up particulars (and, in a way, arguing against yourself). Ronnie O'Sullivan shows real GENIUS, like, say, Earl Strickland had. If that genius could be transferred to pool, then he would beat all "non-geniuses." Currently, there are really no historic-level pool players playing/upcoming. Among all pool/snooker players currently playing (and not at the end of their careers), Ronnie O "sparkles" the most.
@GetMeThere1 well, if he dominated pool, as in always get the first place prize, then im sure he will be able to make a lot of money in pool as well. there are so many tournaments and the tournaments are rather short. but its is nearly impossible to DOMINATE 9 ball. because the game is not so difficult for professional players, luck matters a lot. even if u dont make a mistake in a match, the luck of ur opponentsrolls can outplay u..
What I mean is not every good pool player makes a good snooker player and not every good snooker player makes a good pool player (though the majority can adjust quite easily). Slightly different skillsets. However, if you are a kid and want to improve quickly then take up snooker. It tests your cue action every shot.
@SirNoobs ohhh pooor Minnesota Fats,poor poor Minnie LOL .However he looks very nice. oh yes, and what about the hustler. it's existed anyone wich the movie has been inspired from? who is the most close to look like the character of the hustler movie interpretated from/by Paul Newman?
I've had a high run of 50 and to hear the commentators back then has me laughing. I'm just a well rounded player. I wonder what they would think of a high run of 200 lol.
@GetMeThere1 I'm a great fan of Ronnie O'Sullivan, and agree that he could be a top player at pool if he took it up seriously, but dominate - impossible! The problem is that to knock in balls and play position is what all the top players today are able to do - literally impossible to do appreciably better! Pool is a game of opportunities - who gets them usually wins. One needs the breaking skills of e.g. a Bustamante, and the kicking skills of e.g. a Reyes to dominate in the more popular games.
@GetMeThere1 Never said there aren't players who miss. What I said is in order to be THE best one will have to consistently beat those who don't miss. How do they who virtually never miss themselves (like Ronnie) get opportunities among those others who don't miss and virtually always run out given a viable first shot. Watch Efren Reyes, and you'll know how.
@GetMeThere1 that is true. i just looked up snooker tournament earnings, they are ridiculous. what is your take on snooker vs pool players skill. it seems to show up on every other pool video. i do agree that snooker compared to 9 ball is a much much more difficult game to compete at the professional level. but i am always encountenig arguments such as: "snooker players can clear a rack of 9 ball, pool players cant clear a rack of snooker", i find it a very very flawed argument, what is ur take?
@GetMeThere1 Like I said, I admire Ronnie O'Sullivan, but talking of genius, Efren Reyes may be getting old, but let's not behave as if he weren't still out there. He beat Ronnie in both pool and Snooker (ask Ronnie about it, if you know him so well). But more importantly, if one studies Efren's "magic", it's easy for an expert to see why: he doesn't use opportunities like the rest of them, he creates them for himself. Consistently! That, my friend, is genius!
Pool and snooker are two different animals, to say that a snooker player would handle a pool player is really naive. A snooker player may handle a pool player on a snooker table but the same would happen to the snooker player on a pool table.
With all due respect to pool players, they never look as comfortable or as precise with making the cue ball travel as a snooker player. That just seems natural to me since snooker involves much more distance and precision with cue ball placement as a matter of course than most pool. In pool you don't need to do 2 or 3 rails nearly as often with the cue ball as in snooker. Watching a snooker player work a pool table it just seems like they don't balk at having to run that cue ball up and down and all around as much as a pool player.
+BollocksUtwat False. With a snooker table you have much bigger zones to work with in getting position on the next shot. In pool, cue ball placement has to be more precise. This is something that pool players who play mainly on nine foot tables become aware of when they play someone whose experience is primarily on a bar table.
Well the pocket is dependent of the size of the balls being played, English pool is pretty much the same size pocket as snooker where American pool the holes are a lot wider as the balls are bigger
if you look at some of the shots down the rails, and how much room for error you have... i.e how far along the rail you can hit and still make the ball in the pocket because of the pockets size, there really is no comparison against snooker, as you really have a lot less room for error on a snooker table because of how small the pockets are @@VenomETB
@Aniva66 Minnesota Fats is half real. There's a fat pool player known as Rudolf Wanderone who wasn't from Minnesota at all. He was from New York and was known as New York Fats before "The Hustler" came out. After the movie, he called himself Minnesota Fats lol. If you search Minnesota Fats on RU-vid, he's playing 7 ball and 9 ball.
a 100-ball run can be made by snooker player that scores 30 / 40 breaks... 147 can be made by pro snooker player that can me a 1000 - ball and still be waiting for you to tell him "when to stop.. now ... now ?(1567, 1568 , 1569, .. 10643,10644 etc.)".
Snooker is way more harder. Bigger table than pool with smaller balls. Also you have to hit the heart of the pocket as the rails surrounding it encourages it to miss. However pool table pockets encourage balls and pots that's shouldn't even be possible in a game of snooker. When have you seen a top pool player destroy a top snooker player playing snooker?? Never.
Well, Steve Davis never was one of the besat break-builders of snooker. In his 34 years of professional snooker, he scored a maximum-break only once and also only 325 competitive centuries. His strength always was the safety-game. I believe, someone of the kind of Ronnie O'Sullivan with his incredible cue-ball-control, nice little nudges of the balls, his shot selection and his unbelievable break-building would be amazing in this kind of game, as would be John Higgins.
Any player can miss any shot, in pool just as difficult shots exist as in snooker or any other game, frequent half-pocket blocked shots, triple combination shots, banks, kicks, etc.....the idea that any 1 game is far 'easier' than any other is just nonsense from people who obviously don't play the games themselves but are onlooker fans only.
Cloud Strife I think there's a lot of people who likes both, like me. It's just this debate about who's got the biggest dick in billiard world which makes me always sick.
+Bobby Crush Please come to a pool hall in America and play one of the better players in the house in a game of banks, or one-pocket. Then after you have been destroyed, tell them it's a kids game you punk.
+Bobby Crush Bullshit. If you tried to play a long money session with a good player in America you would be demolished. If you actually think it would be that easy for you why not take some of our money and play a high stakes game in one-pocket (Assuming you know what that is). Don't bother bringing the cash to back up your wager, because surely you'll win, right? LOL
@SirNoobs i've found it,i've found it!! .ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ASAk7ry07bE.html is he,right? look how he 'swings' and what a smart and what a delicacy! LOL it he is!! LOL it is Minnesota Fats even if he come from NY! LOLOL
Well, a lot of snooker players admit that in pool you have more suprising situations. There are less ways of solving breaks in snooker so snooker players, playing snooker have more ways to escape from bad situations on the table
im a billiards player, but i might agree with snooker players on this one. billiards players who play 14.1 tend to have a rigid format and structure to hitting the balls (bottom corner pockets, specific run patterns, key ball is required). snooker players on the other hand dont have a fear of long shots and can get position through speed, not requiring certain angles. snooker plays coming in to the game will run well, but are not not instantly supreme over straight pool masters.
That is such ignorant argument, Russian pyramid has even tougher conditions for the pot, but that does not mean that pyramid players are destroying pool players, pool is different game
@@AngrierGorilla Actually I think that's bound to happen, the buckets "pockets" allow less skilled players to beat people better than them. American pool is designed so anyone can enjoy a game, even small children can pot a few balls. So ya it's not surprising to see a snooker player beaten on these pool tables, the size of the table and size of the pockets greatly depreciate the level of ability to clear a table. Let's see some of these pool players clear a snooker table. Now that would be a surprise.
Sorry but I made a 37 break in snooker (Which is my best as a first month snooker player) .. And yesterday I did 112 run in straight pool so.. But that video was old as fuck. So if Steve Davis skills are nowadays. He. Is. God.
what most snooker players dont get is that they see a bigger table and think snooker is harder because shot making takes more skill. but because there's more space, there is less positional importance compared to billiards. try 8 ball on a bar table, it's a mess
@@RockSpoon123 his point is that a snooker player would never be schooled in a snooker match by any pool player, so snooker being the much more skilled cue sport.
