tadhg.com
tadhg.com
 

Some Snooker Clips

23:57 Thu 01 May 2008. Updated: 01:58 02 May 2008
[, , , ]

Snooker is an oddly hypnotic sport to watch. I used to get sucked into it when it was on television in Ireland, but it’s not the kind of thing that gets airtime here (and I don’t watch television per se here anyway). You can still find it on YouTube, which is great, but to really watch it for a long time you need high quality and a large screen.

Snooker players are extremely impressive in terms of skills. The table is larger than even old-school pool tables (snooker is twelve feet by six feet, old pool tables were ten by five), and of the pool variants I’m aware of only straight pool might be close in terms of rewarding position play, good potting, and the ability to concentrate over long periods of time.

I know that I’m an okay pool player, having made eight- and nine-ball clearances occasionally over my lifetime (not a high bar), but I’m an appalling snooker player. I think my highest score (not break) is in the thirties, and my highest break is probably either nine (red-black-red) or at best in the teens (from the stage of the game when only colors are available). And whenever I come to the table I feel as if I need golf shoes and field glasses. So to see the pros knock in century breaks is quite something.

This year’s World Championships are currently underway, and Ronnie O’Sullivan, widely regarded as the most talented player in the game (and possibly of all time), recently made his record-breaking ninth competition 147 break (15 pairs of red and then black, followed by all the colors):

Competition 147s are not that common. For the first time ever this year, there have been two in the same competition, as O’Sullivan’s feat was shortly matched by Ali Carter:

I also dug up some older, and very different, snooker footage:

One Response to “Some Snooker Clips”

  1. Niall Says:

    We’ll watch some when I see you next.

Leave a Reply