WC Player Longevity?

[snookerfollower]

Hi I'm wondering if anybody here can enlighten me on this one. I'm trying to work out who the longest lived player to enter the world championship is. This is including all world championships since 1927 including the challenge era, the second 1952 world championship and the match play era. For players who I could ascertain age (or at least year of birth and year of death I've subtracted the two from each other for an estimate) for I've made a list. Obviously the majority of the 279 players who've competed in the world champs in that time are either under the age of 90 or died before they turned 90. I've then made a second list of players I couldn't find a year of birth and/or year of death for. Basically I'm looking for dates/clearer ideas of ages to make this more concrete rather than an estimate? Interestingly it appears no snooker player who had competed in the world champs lived to be 100 but there's still time for a few to get there.

(d.) deceased (a.) alive

Players Lifespan over 90
Maurice Parkin - 97 (a.?)*
Willie Smith - 96 (d.)
Geoff Thompson - 95 (a.?)*
Claude Falkiner - 94 (d.)*
Herbert Holt - 92 (d.)
Jackie Rea - 92 (d.)
Ray Reardon - 91 (a.)
Rex Williams - 90 (a.)
Rex King - 90 (a.?)

*estimate

Possible Lifespan over 90
Alec Mann (b. 1902 - d. ??)
Bert Terry (b. ?? d. 1958)
Bill Withers (b. ?? d. ??)
Clare O'Donnell (b. ?? d. ??)
Fred Smith (b. ?? d. ??)
Fred Van Rensburg (b. ?? d. ??)
Joe Brady (b. ?? d. ??)
Nat Butler (b. ?? d. ??)
Ron Mares (b. ?? d. ??)
Stephen O'Connor (b. ?? d. ??) (pretty sure he's alive and way younger than 90?)
Tom Carpenter - (b. 1887 d. ??)

[snookerfollower]

Just by way of clarification I've checked the main draw of the world championship. I've not included the various iterations of the qualifying stage.

[Siz]

I'm trying to work out who the longest lived player to enter the world championship is.

Can I ask why? It seems a bit random

[QUOTE=snookerfollower;n1037180Interestingly it appears no snooker player who had competed in the world champs lived to be 100 [/QUOTE]

This is not surprising. The probability of living to 100 is around 0.5%, or 1 in 200*

To have had a chance to live to 100, you would have to have been born over 100 years ago, so 1924 or before. That rules out all the players who competed in the championships after the snooker boom started in the 1980s. But before that boom started, there weren't many professional players. I have not looked at the stats, but between 1927 and 1980 I would guess that there are only a few dozen pros who played in world championships. And of course not all of these would have been born in 1924 or before.

So I would bet that there are nowhere near 200 world championship entrants who could have already lived to 100.

* this is based on the mortality for a male born in the 1920s who survives to age 30 (so had got past the neonatal mortality risk and also WW2 & the Spanish Flu), so will be an over-estimate.

[snookerfollower]

Can I ask why? It seems a bit random



This is not surprising. The probability of living to 100 is around 0.5%, or 1 in 200*

To have had a chance to live to 100, you would have to have been born over 100 years ago, so 1924 or before. That rules out all the players who competed in the championships after the snooker boom started in the 1980s. But before that boom started, there weren't many professional players. I have not looked at the stats, but between 1927 and 1980 I would guess that there are only a few dozen pros who played in world championships. And of course not all of these would have been born in 1924 or before.

So I would bet that there are nowhere near 200 world championship entrants who could have already lived to 100.

* this is based on the mortality for a male born in the 1920s who survives to age 30 (so had got past the neonatal mortality risk and also WW2 & the Spanish Flu), so will be an over-estimate.

There's no real reason to be honest, curiosity mainly. However thanks for the stats.

You're right though - there's only 279 (on my list) players who've played in a WC since 1927 to 2024 (for those who've already been seeded in this years tournament) so nowhere near enough for probability of 0.5% given at least 200 of those players played in the crucible era (I forget the exact number).