Why are there no women snooker players in any of the main competitions? It’s not a sport where strength has anything to do with anything so shouldn’t men and women be on equal footing? Or is is like women comedians?
The same thing is true in chess. The best women are far inferior to the best men. Beats me why.
There are a number of excellent women snooker players in the world. In fact there are women’s championships in the game (most consider it a game not a sport), but as was mentioned they are not on the level of male champions.
It is my contention that exposure has a great deal to do with the lack of truly great women snooker. In the past the game has been a gentlemen’s “club” game or a saloon game so women would virtually never see a table and have even less chance to play the game. I feel the same arguement could be made about billiards.
In more recent years, snooker (and billiards) has fallen by the wayside as recreation as pay pool tables have become the accepted form of bar entertainment thus little chance for a woman to emerge at the level of a male champion.
All that being said, it might be argued as it has about the derth of female mathematicians, women do not find the math-oriented game to their liking - but I still opt for the lack of exposure being at fault.
One more thought - Both snooker and billiard tables are larger than pool tables thus the games would favor the taller individual and the individual with the longer reach which traditionally has been males.
It is almost uncanny, some of these apparent gender dispersions. Men seem to be better at poker too… and Jeopardy… why chess?
There have to a lot of mental or physical games where women routinely outclass the men, right?
Or is it all a matter of upbringing, and a larger pool of competitors in the male gender?
Boggle, perhaps?
/Peggy Hill
Didn’t seem to affect Eddie Charlton, the very short Australian player who was Australian professional champion 20 times, won the world matchplay title and the World Open, and was ranked in the top three in the world for several years, played in 3 world championship finals and reached the final of the world billiards championship 3 times.
And do the smaller pool tables allow any women to beat the top men?
Yeah. If you’re good you’re good. I had a friend who would play me at pool one handed. He held the cue with one hand and used the rail as the bridge and beat me every time. We didn’t play all that often because it really wasn’t very interesting for him.
It’s not just billiards. Women don’t come close to men in 8-ball, 9-ball, straight pool, or any other cue game. And not by a small margin. The highest run ever by a woman in straight pool is, I believe, 89 balls. Even at the amateur level 89 ball runs are not unusual for men, and I’ve seen matches where a guy runs 150 balls and out to win. The highest run for a man is 526 by Wilie Mosconi.
Ewa Mataya, who was one of the best female players in the world, once said that the best female pool player is about the equivalent of a collegiate-level male.
As for why this is, I have no idea. But I don’t know why we can’t admit that men and women are simply different, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. When Larry Summers said that at Harvard, he kicked up such a storm of controversy that the faculty got together and issued a vote of non-confidence over him. But why is this so controversial?
Pool (billiards) seems to be gender-segregated in the games I see on TV here, so I don’t know how the best female players stack up against the best men, but it’s interesting to note that until quite recently you hardly ever saw the men - ladies’ pool seemed to be much better advertised and marketed or something. Recently it seems there’s more televised men’s pool tournaments. What are the stated reasons for gender segregation in pool? The only real dividing factor seems like it should be reach…
I’d be very interested to know if there’s a gender difference in, say, straight pool as opposed to 9-ball.
There is - see my message above yours.
The genders don’t have to be segregated in pool - it’s voluntary. Women can compete with the men if they so choose. Allison Fisher, who is the best female pool player in the world and also the best femals snooker player in the world, tried to make the move to the men’s snooker tour in the U.K. She wasn’t competitive, so she moved to the U.S. and joined the women’s 9-ball tour.
As for why the women are on TV more than the men, there are a couple of reasons. One is that they are more telegenic, but the main reason is simply because they have their act together as an organization, and the men don’t. The women are professional, they maintain a dress code, they’re unified behind one organization, and in general do a much better job at being pool professionals.
The men squabble, they split into factions, they refuse dress codes, and at the top of their organizations for a while were some real shady characters. As a result, they have a hard time gettng TV contracts.
She is #3 in the world (and a major league hottie!).
http://www.jeanettelee.com/
Unclviny
Well, that’ll teach me to preview. 
When you say the men can’t get together in a dress code, do you just mean “no paint stains on the jeans”? I see a lot of variation in the ways the women dress, but I guess they’re all pretty “professional”, although some are sexier than others. (Not too sexy, as pool is a game that precludes a lot of styles of top as when you bend over it’s probably against the rules to let your opponent see all the way to Miami.)
SLightly O/T but while I was in Italy I watched the Welsh Open and got hooked on Snooker in a major way. Are there any channels in the states that play the competitions? I’d love to watch it again.
As for chess, look at Susan Polgar’s situation. There was a Women’s Grandmaster Title and then a Men’s Grandmaster Title which is higher rated. (What kind of message does that send to women?) She won the Men’s Grandmaster Title at the age of fifteen.
I would like to see more sports and games that don’t require a longer reach or muscle power to be integrated. Curling perhaps?
I mean, some of the men are 300 lb monsters who routinely show up to play in T-shirts and jeans. Maybe the men have their act together a little better now, but seven or eight years ago when I was following it, the men’s pro tour was a mess. There were also different factions that kept splitting up the men - essentially Don King types who wanted to control the action.
The women all got together behind one professional association, and did a damned good job of producing a product that was very entertaining and television friendly.
Muscle still makes a difference in curling. At this year’s Women’s Canadian Championship, one of the tv commentators was Joan McCusker, Olympic gold medallist in curling. She commented that the men have an advantage in sweeping the rock, because of their larger upper body muscles. That enables them to sweep the rocks longer and harder, which in turn gives them greater control over the rock at the crucial last few feet of a throw.
Judith Polgar (Susan’s sister) was rated in the World chess top 10 before she started a family. I expect she’ll be back there soon.
Technically there isn’t a ‘Men’s Grandmaster title’. The original title is open to anyone. There is a Woman GM title (which is roughly equivalent to an International Master title.)
There is a FIDE (=World Chess Federation) Master title and a Junior World Championship. Both were introduced to ‘encourage’ more players. So countries with less experienced players could still claim an international title, and juniors could win something before going for the Open titles.
Chess is a game for individuals, which requires you not socialise during the long hours of play. It is largely played by men.
Bridge is a partnership game, where there is a chance to discuss things more often. Proportionally, far more women play this than chess.