What is a good pool rating?
Answered with the actual spread across 2,511 rated players
A pool rating only means something next to other ratings, so the useful answer is not a number but a position. Across the 2,511 players rated here, the middle of the field sits at 520. Break 595 and you are in the top tenth. The best in the world are around 684.
Everyone on this list already competes in tournaments, which matters: the median is the middle of people who enter events, not the middle of everyone who has ever picked up a cue. Against a general pub population the whole table shifts down.
The spread
Where each rating sits among rated players.
Lowest rated 321, highest 684, average 520.
Some players you might know
Rating, and the share of rated players they are above.
What the number actually promises
A gap of 100 points means 2:1 odds in a single game. So a 620 against a 520 wins about two racks in three - which is a smaller edge than most people expect, and it is why short races are so unpredictable. Over a race to nine that same gap wins the set about 92% of the time.
The honest summary: a hundred points is a large gap in skill and a modest one in any single rack. Work out any matchup on the handicap calculator, or find your own rating from matches you have played.