by Ck147 » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Pink Ball wrote:TheRocket wrote:Tier 1: Hendry,O'Sullivan, Davis
Tier 2: J.Higgins,Williams,Selby, Reardon
Tier 3: Trump,Robertson, A.Higgins
Tier 4: Ding,Murphy, Parrott, Ebdon, White, Doherty
I'd put Ding in tier three, but other than that, that's sound judgement.
Ding is tier 4, deal with it
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by SnookerEd25 » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Iranu wrote:I’d have Alex Higgins in tier 2. But there’s an argument for 2 or 3.
Weird that he’s the only two time world champion. I wonder who’ll join him first.
Well, for 15yrs Mark Williams was having a beer with him...
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by Ck147 » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Iranu wrote:Trump has a looooooong way to go before cracking that top three. It’s far too soon to say he’ll “probably” get there.
Yep
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by TheRocket » 22 Oct 2020 Read
If Ding wins a World title he'd be Tier 3 without a doubt. As it is, he hasnt won the most important title yet despite having a lot of success in other tournaments.
@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
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by Ck147 » 22 Oct 2020 Read
TheRocket wrote:If Ding wins a World title he'd be Tier 3 without a doubt.As it is, he hasnt won the most important title yet despite having a lot of success in other tournaments.
@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
Agree with that
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by Johnny Bravo » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Iranu wrote:Trump has a looooooong way to go before cracking that top three. It’s far too soon to say he’ll “probably” get there.
True, but in order to get there all he needs to do is to:
1. win another 3-4 world titles
2. win another 3-4 Masters
3. win another 3-4 UKs
4. win another 10 rankers
Given that he has at least another 10 years at the top of the game (if not more), all of these are pretty achievable.
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by Johnny Bravo » 22 Oct 2020 Read
TheRocket wrote:@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
Agree with you on that he's not greater than Davis, but he's definitely better.
JH has had to fight with ROS, Hendry, Willo, Robbo, Trump, Selbo.
Davis's competition was nowhere near as good.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Johnny Bravo wrote:Iranu wrote:Trump has a looooooong way to go before cracking that top three. It’s far too soon to say he’ll “probably” get there.
True, but in order to get there all he needs to do is to:
1. win another 3-4 world titles
2. win another 3-4 Masters
3. win another 3-4 UKs
4. win another 10 rankers
Given that he has at least another 10 years at the top of the game (if not more), all of these are pretty achievable.
“All he needs to do”
have to admire your optimism, Johnny.
I wouldn’t put it past him at all but his performances in the majors (whatever they happen to be by the time he retires) needs to improve quite a bit.
10 more rankers he’ll do in 5 seasons let alone 10. Probably within 3.
The rest? They’re a much tougher proposition, particularly the Worlds. I’d say it’s very possible but too soon to be considered likely. And I say that as someone who thinks Judd’s a fabulous player.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
TheRocket wrote:If Ding wins a World title he'd be Tier 3 without a doubt. As it is, he hasnt won the most important title yet despite having a lot of success in other tournaments.
@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
Davis would also be equal to Higgins in ranking tournaments if his first two UKs were ranked.
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by TheRocket » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Johnny Bravo wrote:TheRocket wrote:@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
Agree with you on that he's not greater than Davis, but he's definitely better.
JH has had to fight with ROS, Hendry, Willo, Robbo, Trump, Selbo.
Davis's competition was nowhere near as good.
yeah I obviously agree with this. When it comes to level of play and stuff like that the Tier list would obviously look different. Higgins then would be above Davis for sure. And a few other players.
Last edited by
TheRocket on 22 Oct 2020, edited 1 time in total.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Johnny Bravo wrote:TheRocket wrote:@ JB
John Higgins wasn't an easy decision but I decided to put him in Tier 2. Tier 1 players are players who are even beyond your normal All-Time Great level. They are GOAT candidates while Tier 2 players are "only" All-Time greats. And as good as Higgins is, he isnt really a GOAT contender. His career stats are clearly inferior to Hendrys and O'Sullivans. And Davis has won more Worlds,UK's (back then it was truly a proper major) and Masters.
Agree with you on that he's not greater than Davis, but he's definitely better.
JH has had to fight with ROS, Hendry, Willo, Robbo, Trump, Selbo.
Davis's competition was nowhere near as good.
Well that’s true. But Davis was a large but above his peers, Higgins never has been.
Davis also made over 300 centuries even though his best years were on 80s cloths that weren’t designed for them. He’s still in the top 20 after all this time, that’s pretty remarkable.
I don’t know who’s better. I think it’s close.
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by TheRocket » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Always difficult to compare eras anyway. Rod Laver is considered a GOAT candidate in Tennis even though we know that Fed or Nadal would crush him. But during his time , in his era he was the best.
We can only predict what they would do in the current era. Would they still the be the great champions they were when they came through now? Would they adapt? When the standard is much higher than it was back then. We just dont know.
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by Dragonfly » 22 Oct 2020 Read
TheRocket wrote:Tier 1: Hendry,O'Sullivan, Davis
Tier 2: J.Higgins,Williams,Selby, Reardon
Tier 3: Trump,Robertson, A.Higgins
Tier 4: Ding,Murphy, Parrott, Ebdon, White, Doherty
Good post. I can go along with this. It's about right in terms of achievement and greatness.
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by HustleKing » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Pretty solid tier system, but you should have placed an asterisk next to Trump to denote his inevitable ascension to Tier 1
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by Pink Ball » 22 Oct 2020 Read
John Higgins should be tier one. He is better than Steve Davis. The others in tier two are not.
Ding is a hell of a lot closer to those in tier three than he is to those in the tier he has been put in. He's arguably better than Alex Higgins even, although I agree that Higgins should be tier three.
By the way Johnny, if Neil Robertson is greater than Steve Davis then I am a carpet. A walking, talking carpet who can use the internet. A bucking carpet.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Pink Ball wrote:John Higgins should be tier one. He is better than Steve Davis. The others in tier two are not.
Ding is a hell of a lot closer to those in tier three than he is to those in the tier he has been put in. He's arguably better than Alex Higgins even, although I agree that Higgins should be tier three.
By the way Johnny, if Neil Robertson is greater than Steve Davis then I am a carpet. A walking, talking carpet who can use the internet. A bucking carpet.
Ding may be closer to tier 3 but he’s not there yet. As much as I love Ding there has to be a point where the World Championship becomes a factor, and he’s already in a tier with four other world champions.
As for John Higgins, I know you don’t consider the UK and Masters to be majors in the same way as most people but the players do (at least for now, and definitely did when Hendry and Davis won them) and he’s sorely lacking in that department outside of the Worlds compared to the other Tier 1s. Davis was as good as he needed to be to utterly dominate two of those, at least. Higgins has one more than Selby and SIX fewer than Davis.
Higgins is the best of the tier 2s and I’d argue by a reasonable distance (Williams should be closer to him but squandered too many years.) But he just misses out on tier 1 for me.
Alex Higgins won the big one twice, ten years apart. Yes his status is inflated by his impact on the game but I would argue fairly.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
And it’s not just that John Higgins has failed to win more UKs and Masters. His record in them is terrible for early exits.
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by Pink Ball » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Iranu wrote:And it’s not just that John Higgins has failed to win more UKs and Masters. His record in them is terrible for early exits.
The quality of player he was up against was far, far superior in his prime to what Davis faced. I'm not saying Davis should be bumped down to tier two, absolutely not. I'm saying that Higgins is just as worthy if not more worthy of tier one than Davis.
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by Iranu » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Pink Ball wrote:Iranu wrote:And it’s not just that John Higgins has failed to win more UKs and Masters. His record in them is terrible for early exits.
The quality of player he was up against was far, far superior in his prime to what Davis faced. I'm not saying Davis should be bumped down to tier two, absolutely not. I'm saying that Higgins is just as worthy if not more worthy of tier one than Davis.
Well, that’s true. So were the opposition for Hendry and Ronnie, though. Those two overcame them.
It’s a tight run thing and I don’t mean to disparage Higgins, he’s a tremendous player. But in the Masters he’s reached the semi finals twice and lost in the first round five times in the last ten seasons, and I’d argue the standard has been lower than the previous ten years from 2000-2010. And he’s lost at the quarter finals or earlier in his last nine UK championships, six times BEFORE the quarter finals. For a player of his class that’s an utterly dreadful record. He hasn’t threatened in the Players Championship or the Tour Championship either. He’s lost before the quarter finals eight times in the Shanghai Masters with one win and two semi finals as a ranking event or invitational. He hasn’t won the China Open in over 20 years.
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by Pink Ball » 22 Oct 2020 Read
Iranu wrote:Pink Ball wrote:Iranu wrote:And it’s not just that John Higgins has failed to win more UKs and Masters. His record in them is terrible for early exits.
The quality of player he was up against was far, far superior in his prime to what Davis faced. I'm not saying Davis should be bumped down to tier two, absolutely not. I'm saying that Higgins is just as worthy if not more worthy of tier one than Davis.
So were the opposition for Hendry and Ronnie, though. Those two overcame them.
I would strongly argue that Hendry did not. He won one 'major' past the age of 27.
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by Iranu » 23 Oct 2020 Read
Pink Ball wrote:Iranu wrote:Pink Ball wrote:Iranu wrote:And it’s not just that John Higgins has failed to win more UKs and Masters. His record in them is terrible for early exits.
The quality of player he was up against was far, far superior in his prime to what Davis faced. I'm not saying Davis should be bumped down to tier two, absolutely not. I'm saying that Higgins is just as worthy if not more worthy of tier one than Davis.
So were the opposition for Hendry and Ronnie, though. Those two overcame them.
I would strongly argue that Hendry did not. He won one 'major' past the age of 27.
It’s a fair point. Honestly I was thinking more of Ronnie than Hendry on that point. The fact remains that Higgins has failed to get past opponents to even get himself in contention during this era that, tactically at least, I would say is the weakest I’ve seen it in the 15 years I’ve been watching the sport. And that’s one of Higgins’ main strengths.
Honestly if it weren’t for his WC exploits in the last 4 years, and his relatively high ranking tournament wins, I think he’d be talked about far more as having been left behind by the other tier 1 greats.
And again: Higgins is an excellent player. Just want to make that clear. I expect him to win at least one event this season.
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by Pink Ball » 23 Oct 2020 Read
Doctors differ, patients die.
Anywho, I think we can agree that there is a clear top four of all time. Both Higgins and Davis are in that quartet, no matter order you go with.
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by Johnny Bravo » 23 Oct 2020 Read
Pink Ball wrote:By the way Johnny, if Neil Robertson is greater than Steve Davis then I am a carpet. A walking, talking carpet who can use the internet. A bucking carpet.
When did I say he was ?
I never claimed that.
I do believe Robbo is better if both are at their best, but he hasn't achieved greater things in his career.
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