Snooker Selby v Brecel

Malaguena said:
"Turning his attention to snooker in the 1920s, he helped organise the first World Championship in 1927 .......... He beat Tom Dennis 20-10 in the final, winning the princely sum of six pounds and 10 shillings. Davis went on to win the World title every year until 1940, and then again in 1946. He then retired from the event, so never lost a match in the World Championship."

"His younger brother, Fred Davis was the only person to defeat Joe Davis in a competitive snooker match without receiving a start"

Not bothered how you define "best" @sherlock1969 but that looks pretty good to me
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Best of his era without a doubt, but your stats might say as much about the standard of his competitors as anything else.
In any sport it is unfair to try and identify the 'best of all time'. There are too many factors and variables.

What is clear though is that there are a greater number of players performing at a higher standard now than there were in the 1940s.
Would Joe Davies dominate today in the same way? Would he have been unbeaten against today's players? Or against Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan and so on?
I doubt it, but we'll never know.
 
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Andy_W said:
It's got to be one of the closest sports, that's for sure.

The only change to now, that I can really think of, is that there are probably a lot more snooker players, or a lot more playing at a high level, and thus competition has got harder, and so the best are just maybe better.

The below seems to back this up.

View attachment 57215
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Are the number of frames played today the same as previously? Even if so, probably not enough to account for all the extra century breaks but might flatten it a bit.
 
Kowalski said:
When Higgins beat Spencer in 1972, he won 37-31, it must have been almost as long as a test match
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Was that in the pre-TV days when each game was over a load of legs, but there were only 8 players (and only slightly more spectators) in a pub?
 
sherlock1969 said:
It does, but there are so many variables too.

What was the competition like? Were they all full time players who didn't have other jobs? etc. For example, 10 players in total entered in 1927. There is also match length to consider which made some of those games more of an endurance test (David won the 1946 final 78 - 67!!)

It's not an easy thing to determine really. I'd say with confidence that Alex Higgins was the most talented player I've ever seen but due to a lot of factors in his personal life, he never achieved the level of success his talent deserved. Same goes for Jimmy White to a lesser extent.

Impossible to definitively say one player was the 'best' of all time.
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Probably true, but in this thread it was suggested that snooker was the only sport where you can make a fair comparison between players from different eras - and Joe D could only beat what was in front of him at the time, and that's what he did ..... continually over nearly 20 years
 
Malaguena said:
Probably true, but in this thread it was suggested that snooker was the only sport where you can make a fair comparison between players from different eras - and Joe D could only beat what was in front of him at the time, and that's what he did ..... continually over nearly 20 years
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But would he have beaten Stephen Hendry? Maybe, maybe not.
Though I don't think looking at titles won tells you the answer. That only tells us that both were the best players of their own era.
They both won loads of legs ;)
 
Rofesleg said:
Are the number of frames played today the same as previously? Even if so, probably not enough to account for all the extra century breaks but might flatten it a bit.
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They used to be longer, didn't they? I'm not snooker expert mind, far from it.

They will have got better, knowledge and science have got better, and that matters for just about anything. There's been a tech boom, and that's dragged the standard of everything up massively. I bet even the standard of equipment has gone up, albeit by only a few percent.

But for me, the main thing is the standard of competition will just have gone up overall. People aren't playing whilst drinking 10 pints, and won't even be playing after going out the night before etc. More people play (all over the world), so the standard gets higher, so people do more to improve their standard, and then the standard goes up so people have to work even harder (and in a more efficient way), and get even better.

I bet to make it now you pretty much need a snooker table in your house, or one immediately accessible, as there will be a massive amount of people who have them in their houses who can practice more, and with more focus, effectively fitting it around life easier. Basically, it's necessary to compete.

I've not checked any stats, but I bet in the 80's and 90's not many pro's had snooker tables in their houses, whereas now I bet a lot of semi-pro's do, and even a lot of amateurs.

I would have said we may be nearing a peak of human performance, or at least passed the point of fairly quick increases, and things may go even more marginal. But having seen what AI can do in the last year or so, and how quickly that has moved, then the advancement of AI will probably push things again over the next few years. It won't take long before AI has figured out the best way to get 100% out of a human, and there won't be any optimisation left, not naturally anyway.
 
Andy_W said:
They used to be longer, didn't they? I'm not snooker expert mind, far from it.

They will have got better, knowledge and science have got better, and that matters for just about anything. There's been a tech boom, and that's dragged the standard of everything up massively. I bet even the standard of equipment has gone up, albeit by only a few percent.

But for me, the main thing is the standard of competition will just have gone up overall. People aren't playing whilst drinking 10 pints, and won't even be playing after going out the night before etc. More people play (all over the world), so the standard gets higher, so people do more to improve their standard, and then the standard goes up so people have to work even harder (and in a more efficient way), and get even better.

I bet to make it now you pretty much need a snooker table in your house, or one immediately accessible, as there will be a massive amount of people who have them in their houses who can practice more, and with more focus, effectively fitting it around life easier. Basically, it's necessary to compete.

I've not checked any stats, but I bet in the 80's and 90's not many pro's had snooker tables in their houses, whereas now I bet a lot of semi-pro's do, and even a lot of amateurs.

I would have said we may be nearing a peak of human performance, or at least passed the point of fairly quick increases, and things may go even more marginal. But having seen what AI can do in the last year or so, and how quickly that has moved, then the advancement of AI will probably push things again over the next few years. It won't take long before AI has figured out the best way to get 100% out of a human, and there won't be any optimisation left, not naturally anyway.
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The standard of the top professionals is amazing.

I remember in my playing days years back playing alongside a lad called Jon Birch. I was a good player (had a ton plus break to my name) but he was many, many times better.

He turned professional as we all expected and then didn't really achieve anything in his professional career - just wasn't good enough to live with the top pros.

The standard has improved loads since then as well, the consistency of the players is incredible.
 
sherlock1969 said:
The standard of the top professionals is amazing.

I remember in my playing days years back playing alongside a lad called Jon Birch. I was a good player (had a ton plus break to my name) but he was many, many times better.

He turned professional as we all expected and then didn't really achieve anything in his professional career - just wasn't good enough to live with the top pros.

The standard has improved loads since then as well, the consistency of the players is incredible.
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Yeah, I don't think people quite understand how far the top level of anything actually is. They're better than the top 1%, of the top 1%, most of us probably never even play against a top 1% player, never mind the top 1% of that.

It's not so much the playing at a high level, albeit this is hard anyway, it's doing it under pressure, doing it every day, doing it for years, sacrificing a lot, and then playing against guys who are doing exactly the same every single game.

Lots of players (in any sport) may be able to get fairly far on natural ability, certainly a long time ago, but as soon as they come up against someone with some ability who has trained better, or someone who has less ability but has trained optimally then they're going to be in trouble, and there's a lot more doing that nowadays.
 
Andy_W said:
Yeah, I don't think people quite understand how far the top level of anything actually is. They're better than the top 1%, of the top 1%, most of us probably never even play against a top 1% player, never mind the top 1% of that.

It's not so much the playing at a high level, albeit this is hard anyway, it's doing it under pressure, doing it every day, doing it for years, sacrificing a lot, and then playing against guys who are doing exactly the same every single game.
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I beat Jimmy White in a one frame exhibition he did at a local snooker centre. He was ***ed mind you ;)

I remember playing against friends and always winning comfortably. They'd say to me 'you should be a professional' just because I was much better than them. Used to make me laugh because I wasn't anywhere near good enough to ever kid myself I could be more than a good player in local leagues.
 
sherlock1969 said:
The standard of the top professionals is amazing.

I remember in my playing days years back playing alongside a lad called Jon Birch. I was a good player (had a ton plus break to my name) but he was many, many times better.

He turned professional as we all expected and then didn't really achieve anything in his professional career - just wasn't good enough to live with the top pros.

The standard has improved loads since then as well, the consistency of the players is incredible.
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Jon Birch got to No.42 in the World and had some good wins in his career...
If you had a ton break that's incredible, I prefer to rank my top break in balls potted...4 🤣
One of those was the white 🤣👍
 
sherlock1969 said:
I beat Jimmy White in a one frame exhibition he did at a local snooker centre. He was ***ed mind you ;)

I remember playing against friends and always winning comfortably. They'd say to me 'you should be a professional' just because I was much better than them. Used to make me laugh because I wasn't anywhere near good enough to ever kid myself I could be more than a good player in local leagues.
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Who was the local old guy who was playing in that era, snooker but mainly billiards who was really good, I saw him playing many times in local clubs ???
 
Nobby_Barnes said:
Jon Birch got to No.42 in the World and had some good wins in his career...
If you had a ton break that's incredible, I prefer to rank my top break in balls potted...4 🤣
One of those was the white 🤣👍
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My point is to us mere mortals he was incredible, in the actual professional game he was a journeyman pro really. Don't think he ever won anything of note. Same goes for Mike Dunn who was around at the time too. Great players to most of us, but to the top ranked players they'd expect an easy win.

108 was my best break. Remember it well. I'd had breaks in the 80s and 90s loads of times and always bottled it. Finally did it, only once, and it felt amazing :)
 
Nobby_Barnes said:
Who was the local old guy who was playing in that era, snooker but mainly billiards who was really good, I saw him playing many times in local clubs ???
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Could be a few you are referring to, what do you mean by old?

I played billiards too. Main players around in my time were the likes of Martin Goodwill, Peter Gilchrist, Mike Russell etc but they weren't old. Can you remember which club he played for, that might help?
 
sherlock1969 said:
Could be a few you are referring to, what do you mean by old?

I played billiards too. Main players around in my time were the likes of Martin Goodwill, Peter Gilchrist, Mike Russell etc but they weren't old. Can you remember which club he played for, that might help?
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Suddenly came to me
Alf Nolan he was playing into his 70's couldn't believe my eyes 👍Legend
 
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