DD13,
It seems you are confusing physical talent with mental talent. They are two entirely different things. Efren is the greatest one-pocket player I've ever seen but he is definitely not the smartest. He quite frequently shoots the wrong shot but his physical talent so many times overcomes his wrong shot choice that he wins anyway.
Nobody who truly knows one-pocket would say that Efren is the smartest player of the game even if nobody could beat him playing even. Of course, then you'd have to qualify that statement by stating whether or not Efren was playing on his own money. I don't figure that happened too much.
As I said here one time about Efren, he may not always shoot the right shot but he shoots the wrong shot better than anybody in history
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P.S. Anybody who thinks that a player who beats a man in Galveston and then loses to the same man at DCC and is too "smart" to play the same man a third time is a "smart" one-pocket player is an idiot. I'd be fighting through hell & fire to play the guy a 3rd time. That man is a nit, nothing else.
Dennis