A lot of good answers here. I agree with most of them.
Having lived in England for 8 years, I got the chance to go to many of the professional snooker events and watch players like O'Sullivan, Hendry, Higgins, Davis, White and many more. I dabled playing snooker a while with a high run of 72, but in no way does that even make me good at the game. I mainly play pool and have a deep love for all games billiard related. I can watch and love to play all of them.
That being said, each game has their own special characteristic that makes them tough. In snooker, the basic size of the table, and the round pockets makes playing difficult. I played snooker on a table that was 6' x 12'. The safety part of the game is one of the main differences in the game. On a snooker table all you had to do is leave somebody at the other end of the table and that was normally enough. The pro's are good enough that they can also put you behind one of the colors on the "D", but if that's not successful, the length alone acts as a safety. That's not always possible in pool. In pool you have to lock somebody down in order to draw a foul.
The MAIN reason the safety play is different is because in pool after you make contact with the object ball, something has to be driven to a rail or pocketed. You have to worry about the cue-ball and the position of the object ball. In snooker you can roll up to a ball or to the pack. Nothing has to be driven to a rail, so you normally only have to worry about the position of the cue-ball. If there are reds on the table, but you fall out of position on a color ball, you can simply roll up to the color and leave the cue-ball behind it, leaving the color ball between the cue-ball and the reds.
Having to drive balls to a rail when playing safeties or kicking out of safeties is a BIG part of what makes safeties a little tougher playing pool over playing snooker.
I will say that you will not find better potters of the ball than snooker players, where the snooker players fall short on are safety play and breaking. It only takes a little time for the good snooker players to learn those particular skills. Good snooker players can adapt to playing pool a lot easier than pool players could adapt to playing snooker.
JMHO
Having lived in England for 8 years, I got the chance to go to many of the professional snooker events and watch players like O'Sullivan, Hendry, Higgins, Davis, White and many more. I dabled playing snooker a while with a high run of 72, but in no way does that even make me good at the game. I mainly play pool and have a deep love for all games billiard related. I can watch and love to play all of them.
That being said, each game has their own special characteristic that makes them tough. In snooker, the basic size of the table, and the round pockets makes playing difficult. I played snooker on a table that was 6' x 12'. The safety part of the game is one of the main differences in the game. On a snooker table all you had to do is leave somebody at the other end of the table and that was normally enough. The pro's are good enough that they can also put you behind one of the colors on the "D", but if that's not successful, the length alone acts as a safety. That's not always possible in pool. In pool you have to lock somebody down in order to draw a foul.
The MAIN reason the safety play is different is because in pool after you make contact with the object ball, something has to be driven to a rail or pocketed. You have to worry about the cue-ball and the position of the object ball. In snooker you can roll up to a ball or to the pack. Nothing has to be driven to a rail, so you normally only have to worry about the position of the cue-ball. If there are reds on the table, but you fall out of position on a color ball, you can simply roll up to the color and leave the cue-ball behind it, leaving the color ball between the cue-ball and the reds.
Having to drive balls to a rail when playing safeties or kicking out of safeties is a BIG part of what makes safeties a little tougher playing pool over playing snooker.
I will say that you will not find better potters of the ball than snooker players, where the snooker players fall short on are safety play and breaking. It only takes a little time for the good snooker players to learn those particular skills. Good snooker players can adapt to playing pool a lot easier than pool players could adapt to playing snooker.
JMHO
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the man does not walk on water and there is no proof he can do anything on a snooker table.
