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Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Holden Chinaski

Interesting system, JB.

At the end of the day, Ronnie, Hendry, J. Higgins, and S. Davis will always come out on top. Nobody can deny those four are better than the rest.

I would place Ray Reardon at number five because he dominated his era and he was the blueprint for those top four guys. Reardon is often underestimated. He was great and definitely deserves a top five spot.

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Iranu

I think it's a colossal waste of time personally, interesting as it is.

There's no way to have a truly objective GOAT points system, and anyway we already have the official list <ok>

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Pink Ball

Iranu wrote:I think it's a colossal waste of time personally, interesting as it is.

There's no way to have a truly objective GOAT points system, and anyway we already have the official list <ok>

Whether you think it's a waste of time or not, I've seen worse methods of working out who is the greatest player ever.

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby HappyCamper

it's a lot of words and playing about with spreadsheets just to determine that o'sullivan is the best which is something that is blindingly obvious anyway.

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby HappyCamper

For a more substantive critique I think my main questions would be:

i) How were the co-efficients for the eras determined? Was there anything more to it than 'what feels right'? Then you're just pre-supposing the results. The modern era is stronger therefore modern players get a higher score and are 'proven' to be greater. It's not an unreasonable qualitative judgement; but it also isn't objective.

ii) The groupings of eras into decades I don't think can be justified. Was there really a difference between the 1989 and 1990 tours to justify a 50% increase in it's greatness? I think for this part you would need to take some average ability of all players on the tour in each given year, and compare this over time. to see where there were actual step changes in the level of quality. (The so-called class of 92 would be an obvious expected one).

iii) Same questions for the tournaments really. Again the Crucible being worth more is fair enough, but why twice as much? Beyond that; a (current season) China Open is not the same as a German Masters is not the same as an Indian Open. Should a distinction not be made between the old format UK and new? Ideally every tournament should be weighted appropriately by a combination of format (number and length of matches) and strength of field - ultimately these are what determines the level of achievement (probably).

iv) Why only titles? As much as winning events is ultimately the most important - completely discounting runner-ups and semi-finals seems wrong to me. White getting to so many World finals is definitely some sort of achievement.

v) Define 'greatness'. How can one be said to objectively measure something if we don't have a well defined starting point.

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Johnny Bravo

HappyCamper wrote:For a more substantive critique I think my main questions would be:

i) How were the co-efficients for the eras determined? Was there anything more to it than 'what feels right'? Then you're just pre-supposing the results. The modern era is stronger therefore modern players get a higher score and are 'proven' to be greater. It's not an unreasonable qualitative judgement; but it also isn't objective.

ii) The groupings of eras into decades I don't think can be justified. Was there really a difference between the 1989 and 1990 tours to justify a 50% increase in it's greatness? I think for this part you would need to take some average ability of all players on the tour in each given year, and compare this over time. to see where there were actual step changes in the level of quality. (The so-called class of 92 would be an obvious expected one).

iii) Same questions for the tournaments really. Again the Crucible being worth more is fair enough, but why twice as much? Beyond that; a (current season) China Open is not the same as a German Masters is not the same as an Indian Open. Should a distinction not be made between the old format UK and new? Ideally every tournament should be weighted appropriately by a combination of format (number and length of matches) and strength of field - ultimately these are what determines the level of achievement (probably).

iv) Why only titles? As much as winning events is ultimately the most important - completely discounting runner-ups and semi-finals seems wrong to me. White getting to so many World finals is definitely some sort of achievement.

v) Define 'greatness'. How can one be said to objectively measure something if we don't have a well defined starting point.


Those are some very good observations. I'm gonna try to improve my system, but as much as I'd want to, it seems it will never be perfect or completely objective. :sad:

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby TheSaviour

Surely Judd Trump also should be there. Stating that, I foresee the way he dispatched Ronnie was and is the best he can play. He´s always immediately at it, splitting the pack. Which is basically what the break-building is all about.

Some nice "silver-fox" style from Ronnie. I think it suits him really well. The silver-fox. Which goes without saying means a few things. But fair to play him; he played almost flawless snooker. Or could be said that as much flawless snooker and personality than it is even possible to have and to posses. Judd has some flaws and obviously as well some stunning playing qualities as well. But just can´t see any other outcome than that Judd´s playing will get only worse from now on. But still, he´s a top-10 player of all-time, me thinks.

But over the moon we have now finally solved this eternal trouble of ours !! :-D :-D :-D Some hard work has finally paid off. It is all about everyone does what the Polish or the Germans do.... They don´t do what I or Ronnie do, but what the Polish and the Germans have done...

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Badsnookerplayer

Can we all stop demonising the Saviour.

He knows about snooker and we should welcome him.

There is a lot of wisdom in those posts if you are prepared to look

P.S. He is ex-Mossad so you can snake hiss him off if you like but it might be best not to visit any snooker tournaments for a while.

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Cloud Strife

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Can we all stop demonising the Saviour.

He knows about snooker and we should welcome him.

There is a lot of wisdom in those posts if you are prepared to look

P.S. He is ex-Mossad so you can snake hiss him off if you like but it might be best not to visit any snooker tournaments for a while.


(((TheSaviour)))

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Ash147

Cloud Strife wrote:
Badsnookerplayer wrote:Can we all stop demonising the Saviour.

He knows about snooker and we should welcome him.

There is a lot of wisdom in those posts if you are prepared to look

P.S. He is ex-Mossad so you can snake hiss him off if you like but it might be best not to visit any snooker tournaments for a while.


(((TheSaviour)))


Oy Vey!

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby SnookerFan

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Can we all stop demonising the Saviour.

He knows about snooker and we should welcome him.

There is a lot of wisdom in those posts if you are prepared to look

P.S. He is ex-Mossad so you can snake hiss him off if you like but it might be best not to visit any snooker tournaments for a while.


The Saviour once taught me that there's nothing wrong with getting to know our cousins.

Then he said something about Ebdon going for a swim. <ok>

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Cloud Strife

Badsnookerplayer wrote:The Saviour should be as free to post and express himself as anybody on the Island.

If we don't want to read his posts we don't have to.

בְּהַצְלָחָה


Image

Re: Pink Ball's Top 10 Players of All-Time

Postby Johnny Bravo

At around 1:35 Ray Reardon says that the standard of the sport has gone up and explains why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPUHmQRJPCs&t=3961s

At around 10:00, Robbo says that ROS is better than Hendry and that Hendry wouldn't be that good in this era:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37gL4cdroZg

And to ad insult to injury, some of the media are saying that Hendry is not even second best of all time, and that that title belongs to John Higgins:
https://www.sportinglife.com/snooker/ne ... rld/158886

So that settles the debate and leads to the following conclusion:
ROS played against superior opposition and is the best of all time. :win:


   

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