I know how Efren plays. It's not like I've been saying Reyes sucks or something.

yeah i got that. i didn't think you were disputing it - was just pointing out how far ahead he is, imo.

Grunch.

The best cash player is the man who won the most in their life on the felt at cash games. This is probably Archie Karas from the little reliable info that filters through about nosebleed pool, although there are a few other solid claimants and this could easily be totally wrong.

The best player in terms of artistry/natural ability/ridiculousness/speed/aesthetic is Ronnie O'Sullivan by quite a margin.

The best all around player in terms of consistency across the most games (eg the person who wins overall playing every variant on every table against every player) is Efren Reyes imo, also by quite a margin.

The best in terms of temperament is probably Steve Davis, although there a lot of players who have a very credible shout at this title.

I'm not qualified to speculate on Karas, but agree it's down to best guess. O'Sullivan, Reyes, Davis - agree 100% with these. A shame the Filipinos don't put some hours in in snooker as youngsters as they could be a real force (maybe China will pump enough money into the game to make a it an option). Would love to see Ronnie play in one of the pool world championships during his break from snooker.

They'll have to market the game combatatively to the Chinese youth. Make it seem cool and remove the negative social stigma around cue sports that some of the older generation hold. Christ, my people's so bad at being rich PBR put their piss beer in a fancy bottle, market it as champagne/luxury type drink and sell it for a disgusting sum.

Actually I think you have it backwards, Wamy. Archie is/was a nosebleed player for sure, but he's more likely the guy who has LOST the most, not won it.

From what I know the undisputed champ at nosebleed pool is probably Jack Cooney, and I don't think that's really even close.

+1 to Cooney. What about Mike Carella? How would he compare? He died young, but I've heard that he was a monster player and big bettor.

Yah I'm purely basing this on his epic game that started his heater where he won a house full of money. You most certainly have more info about this than me so consider my post amended to Jack Cooney

Thats funny. The guy with the all-time high run in straight pool history would have a chance to win against Reyes? Your statement reeks of stupidity. Yeah, a guy that can run 34+ consecutive racks of 14+1 may have a chance against a guy who's longest straight pool run is 9+ racks, aka 141 balls. GTFO

Reyes most impressive run was running 9 straight racks of 9 ball vs Bustamante. Strickland has run more than that with 1,000,000 on the line. If anyone in the tourney could run 10 straight racks they would win, well Strickland ran 11.

The different games in pool take different skill sets. That is why if you want to be great in one game you need to learn all games, so you are good at everything. But to consider one guy the best at all the games because he is best at the most popular game of the era is foolish. And that is even with his weak 9 ball break.

LOL at someone else saying that reyes is nearly the best 10 ball player today, that is Shane Van Boening, by a mile. No serious pool fan or player wouldn't know that.

Reyes is mean in one pocket and deadly in 9 ball, but everyone knows that. In snooker, 3 cushion, 10 ball and 14.1 he is not the top player in those disciplines all-time.

And in response to the question for which this topic was started, the best money player of all time was clearly the guy who made the most money (adj for inflation). idk who that is and either does anyone else unless we had the numbers in front of us for all the money games ever played.

First off, put Efren, or any top pro, on the same table that Mosconi was on when he made that famous straight pool run and Im willing to bet it can be broken. Mosconi set the record on a 4X8ft pool table with pockets over 5 inches wide. While todays straight pool standards are played on 4.5X9ft with shimmed pockets just over 4inches wide. I already stated this in an earlier post.

Second, the race to 120 match with Efren and Earl was for 100k not a milly.

And third, SVB is probably the best 10 ball player in the states, but definitely not the world. Dennis Orcollo is the best poolplayer in the world at the moment.

SVB vs Orcollo from a few weeks ago @ the Hardtimes 10Ball tournament. Watch and learn. The following match made me a fan of Dennis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0H8UMyyQ3Y

I believe he is referring to the tournament in Dallas where Strickland ran 11 racks for a million dollars. It is the most impressive feat ever in American pool IMO.

wow, you're dumb. You are just plain wrong with the the way the pockets are cut today. I know you already wrote that in the post above, why are you repeating yourself? Depending on the table manufacturer and the amount of shims used in the pocket determines pocket size. Very few pockets in the world are smaller than 4 1/2 inches. Balls are 2 1/4 inches, test it with any pocket the the US and you will see that two balls fit, usually with a space of 1/4 - 1/2 inch. Pockets smaller than 4 1/2 exist but they are double or triple shimmed. That means the pocket used to be ~4 3/4 inches but someone else had them made smaller. Tournaments use standard production models. Know what you are talking about before speaking. ( I am not even going to get into the fact that the equipment the older players had to use was dramatically worse than the stuff we get to use today, but you never mention that) Did you measure the table that he made the run on? I didn't think so, you're just pulling number out of your ass.

"Second, the race to 120 match with Efren and Earl was for 100k not a milly."
Where do I start with this line? How about I never brought up the Efren and Earl race to 100? What I did bring up was the following: from wiki

Strickland once ran 11 consecutive racks against Nick Mannino during the first PCA tournament in 1996 where there was a stipulation that anyone who could break and run 10 racks would win US$1,000,000.[8] Jimmy Mataya, who was present at the event, witnessed Strickland's last shot, a tough nine-ball combination in which Earl showed no fear and "fired it in with authority" to win the prize.[6]

I don't give a f who you think the best 10 ball player in the world is. The best break belongs to Van Boening and that means he is the favorite versus anyone.

Just quit talking, the grown ups are trying to have a conversation here.

yeah, didn't see this post, thanks for corroborating.

Since you like reading wiki, I found this under Mosconis

526 high run

Mosconi set the world record by running 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition in Springfield, Ohio on March 19–20, 1954. To this day the record has not been toppled and many speculate it may never be bested.[10][11] A handwritten and notarized affidavit[12] with the signatures of more than 35 eyewitnesses exists as proof of this feat.

The record was set on a 4 × 8 foot Brunswick table with 5 1/4 inch corner pockets at the East High Billiard Club. Today's standard for tables may be considered more difficult to play on than this exhibition table in the sense that longer shots are required (today's standard tables are 9 x 4 1/2 ft) with 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 inch pockets

First you say SVB is the best 10ball player today, then change it to him having the best break. Seems like you changed your statement to back up your arguments.

LOL at you calling serious shooters dumb and telling them to GTFO in a billiard forum. You come across as an idiot and a punk.
Its OK little buddy.

Orange crush, i don't get why you have to be so harsh/macho. Really immature.

you're trying to compare mosconi, who's bread and butter was 14.1, playing on 4x8 with buckets, vs efren, in 14.1, when he's only played the game a handful of times. it's pretty obvious that efren would have been one of the best ever in that game if there was any money in it for him.

reyes most impressive 9ball display was running 9 racks vs busty? really? that's all he's done in 9ball? and compare it to earls running 11 for the $1m insurance prize? not to take anything away from earl (he's obv one of the best 9ballers to ever do it) but didn't he make like 4+ 9balls on the break in that run? how many you break and run is a fun stat but it's not the way you determine who the better player is.

reyes today is obviously not nearly the best 10ball player today, but he could still compete at a high level even at his age. bring it back a decade or two and you won't find a person on the planet who could be called flat-out better at anything outside of the break.

Shane is definitely among the top 10ball players in the world today - but you don't think Alex or Orcollo or Alcano are in within a mile?

It's really cool that you know some stuff about pool and obviously you feel really good about it - but maybe tone it down a bit.

Alright, I got a little excited yesterday. I will tone it down.

To garth, shane is the best 10 ball player because of his break. That was my only point on the matter, I didn't change my reasons for it from post one to post two. Every pro can make a run balls, what separates them is how good they break. And lets not forget Shane's biggest advantage is being deaf. First, his other senses are naturally heightened. Second, he plays with no sound distractions, he can't get sharked by any noise.

LOL someone writing that the 400+ break of John Schmidt being better than Mosconi. There was a tournament one day after John made that run, he was at the place to play in the tournament. I do not recall If it was a 9 ball or 14.1 tourney. Guess johns record in that tourney? 0-2.

I will grant you, Mosconi's pocket size was slightly larger than we play with today, but as I mentioned the equipment was way way worse. These two factors basically become a wash in my mind. Do you have any idea the mental toughness required to make 34 consecutive 14.1 breaks?

Saying that Strickland made four 9 balls during his 11 straight streak for 1,000,000 doesn't bother me one bit, I already knew that. 9 ball breaks get you all pumped up and excited, running a rack of 9 ball to a pro doesn't. So he had to compose himself 4 separate times in that streak and get his heart rate back down to a normal level.

This thread hurts me. I don't think Americans realize that in the phillipines and elsewhere there are pro players who don't even tour and can beat some of our best players including shane. I play about A speed, and I went on a cruise ship once and there were 9 open players working in the basement. I played in the basement with them - they shoot lights out -- and they are the linen cleaners.

It's crazy to think we know the few privileged players who can live on $50,000/yr. Earl Strickland lives in someone elses apartment in NYC right now, hes not a millionaire, let alone comfortably wealthy. Get real.

agreed. pool players are not like other american pro athletes. they don't make anywhere near the money. they love the game and keep touring to try and win for the love of it. that makes a true athlete of the game imo.

Man my boy Richie 2 be runnin it.

The Magicians 2nd shot is just gross 2:45......

I dont think the pool players even come close. The snooker players have so much more control because of the size of the table and the relative small pockets.

~O'Sullivan is the style master, but for sheer consistency and accuracy when at his peak, Steven Hendry wins the contest as greatest cue sportsman of all time imo.

Comparing apples to oranges imo. Each game requires a different skill set but both are equally complex in their own right. Small table games require a far more diverse arsenal of shots that simply wouldn't be attempted on a snooker table, venturing far off center of the white with spin is a recipe for disaster on a tight pocketed 6'x12'.

FWIW, Alex won his 2nd consecutive canadian snooker championship earlier this year and is very capable of putting up sizable runs. To use an old adage, it's the indian and not the arrow...

Hendry has for sure won the most money, but don't forget he's a one-trick pony. Put him on, say, a three-cushion billiard table and he'll get his butt handed to him, to say nothing of a pool table.

When it comes to ALL the games, it's hard to get any better than Efren. Not only has he won titles in multiple disciplines at pool, he's also won them in multiple disciplines of billiards, and plays pretty close to world class snooker as well.

If the pool players were as good as the snooker players, you can be pretty sure that many would be converting to the game and trying to cash in as the money is so much more plentiful. This to me is probably the biggest evidence that snooker players area a step ahead of other cue sports.

Steve Davis played 9 ball for a while, but was well past his best and didnt take it seriously, yet he still beat many top pool players including Reyes. At
snooker Reyes wouldn't stand a chance against the top players.

Why not read Cueballs second paragraph in his last post.

Alex used to play a lot with Cliff Thorburn. Do you know who that is? Im sure Alex was taught a few things from him.

Id put money on Alex against Davis in a 9ball, 8ball, snooker showdown any day. Steve Davis is probably "the best all-around player" to come from snooker.