The Best Pool Players of All Time
Arguing about the best pool players ever is half the reason to hang around a pool room, and a few names turn up in every serious version of the argument. This list sticks to players whose records hold up: world titles, long runs at the top, and skills the other professionals of their day openly admired.
Ranking across eras is messy. Straight pool ruled the first half of the twentieth century, nine-ball ruled the second, and the modern game is faster and deeper than either one. So read this as a defensible short list, not a strict one-through-eight order.
How do you judge greatness in pool?
Three things count. Titles, obviously. Then dominance over the people they actually played, and range across different games. A player who wins one world championship had a great year. A player who keeps winning for two decades, in several disciplines, against anyone willing to face him, belongs here. Head-to-head reputation counts as well. When the top professionals of an era all point at the same person, that tells you something the record books cannot.
Willie Mosconi: the straight pool machine
Mosconi won the world straight pool championship roughly fifteen times between the early 1940s and the mid 1950s, back when that title was the whole ballgame in American pool. In 1954 he ran 526 consecutive balls in an exhibition, and the number stood as the recognized high run for decades. His precision and pattern play set the standard every straight pool player since has chased. He also worked as technical advisor on the film The Hustler, which dragged pool back into the American mainstream.
Efren Reyes: the Magician
Ask a room full of professionals to name the greatest ever and most of them say Efren Reyes. The Filipino won world titles in nine-ball, took the biggest one-pocket events in America away from the specialists, and escaped from trouble so inventively that people started calling him the Magician. His kicking and safety game changed how nine-ball gets played. The range is what settles the all-around case. Reyes beat the best in the world at several different games, for decades, and he was usually the one player everybody else game-planned for by name.
The rest of the short list
- Shane Van Boening: The most decorated American of the modern era. Multiple US Open nine-ball titles and a 2022 world nine-ball championship, plus the best break of his generation.
- Earl Strickland: Five-time world nine-ball champion and a multiple US Open winner. Volatile, brilliant, and at his peak about the purest nine-ball shotmaker anyone has seen.
- Mike Sigel: Owned American pool through the 1980s, with world titles in straight pool, nine-ball, and eight-ball.
- Ralf Souquet: The German metronome, a world nine-ball champion and one of the steadiest performers the sport has had.
- Allison Fisher: She came over from a great snooker career and won so many WPBA titles in the late 1990s and 2000s that the tour was effectively hers. The strongest case for greatest woman ever to play.
- Jean Balukas: The dominant American woman of the 1970s and 1980s. National titles as a teenager, then years where she barely lost.
The modern era: Gorst and Filler
The argument is not closed. Fedor Gorst won the world nine-ball championship at 19 and has been piling up majors ever since. Joshua Filler of Germany took a world nine-ball crown at 21 and plays at a pace and aggression that suit the streaming era. Either one could land in the top five if they keep it going. Today's fields are also the deepest the game has ever had, and beating a hundred killers in a modern bracket is a different job than beating twelve rivals in 1950. Which is why cross-era ranking stays an argument instead of a settled fact.
Our picks
Links open the current selection and price on Amazon so you can compare real reviews before buying.
The Hustler by Walter Tevis
Classic pool readingThe novel behind the famous film, from the author of The Color of Money and The Queen's Gambit. It gets the hustling world that orbited Mosconi's era exactly right.
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Aramith Premier billiard ball set
Playing like the prosPhenolic resin balls from the same family the professional tours use. If the legends get you playing, cheap polyester balls will hold you back long before your cue does.
Check price on AmazonPlayers two-piece maple cue
A real cue to start withA straight, well-made maple cue with a decent leather tip is all any of the players above needed to learn the game. Players sells exactly that without a big price tag.
Check price on AmazonFrequently asked questions
Who is generally considered the greatest pool player ever?
Efren Reyes gets the most votes from professionals, mostly for his range across nine-ball, one-pocket, and eight-ball. Willie Mosconi is the counterargument for pure dominance, since he owned straight pool for about a decade and a half.
What is the highest run in straight pool?
Willie Mosconi ran 526 balls in a 1954 exhibition, and that was the recognized record for decades. In 2019 John Schmidt reported a documented run of 626 balls, which much of the sport now treats as the new mark.
Who is the best pool player right now?
Fedor Gorst and Joshua Filler trade the top world ranking spots in the mid 2020s, with Shane Van Boening still among the elite. The rankings move event to event because modern fields are so deep.
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