Ronnie O'Sullivan does it again, Oct 5, 2019

Another reason you cannot compare snooker and pool-
It’s not about pocketing balls. It’s about scoring points.
Safety first.

pt109 said:

I feel Ronnie would be a 200 ball runner in a month.
Snooker players are no stranger to pack play.

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I'd say that number might be low , they live in the stack and breaking balls out the skills are very similar unlike rotation where the skills are much different,


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one stroke said:

I'd say that number might be low , they live in the stack and breaking balls out the skills are very similar unlike rotation where the skills are much different,


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true. Once he got used to the black not showing up under the stack

ShootingArts said:

The first time or two you play snooker you fight the table. Instead of accepting it is different you keep trying to make balls go without knowing where they have to be hit in order to fall. The shots are doomed before you shoot because your aim is wrong. Once your aim is recalibrated for those pockets snooker gets a lot easier.

It is harder than pool, but not nearly as much harder as it seems on the first try or three. It is also more fun than pool. Unfortunately it is a tough sell in the US. I didn't have a snooker table to play on for years, then one was put in down New Orleans way. I don't get that way very often but played on the snooker table every chance I got. Went down there yesterday, no more snooker table. Damnit! Buff said nobody played on it. Apparently my once every six months wasn't enough to justify keeping the table!

Hu

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To some extent that's true in the beginning but that's where it ends , Alex who may be considered the best all around pool player basically went all in to try to just qualify and he has vast snooker experience it and he failed to do that ,

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one stroke said:

To some extent that's true in the beginning but that's where it ends , Alex who may be considered the best all around pool player basically went all in to try to just qualify and he has vast snooker experience it and he failed to do that ,

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Alex waited too long to take up snooker...when he went to the UK, he was only four years
from playing on the senior tour.....40 years old to qualify.
He said he wished he had fell for the game when he was 21.
I think he would’ve made top 8.

pt109 said:

Alex waited too long to take up snooker...when he went to the UK, he was only four years
from playing on the senior tour.....40 years old to qualify.
He said he wished he had fell for the game when he was 21.
I think he would’ve made top 8.

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Ya that may be true then but he partly cut his teeth on snooker in Canada he's never been a stranger to the game he's played it all his life it's not like he had to relearn the game , I think top 8 is a big stretch of the imagination
I think DO would have a much better chance to qualify as he's a straighter shooter than Alex is and a better 14-1 player which transcends better to snooker
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one stroke said:

Ya that may be true then but he partly cut his teeth on snooker in Canada he's never been a stranger to the game he's played it all his life it's not like he had to relearn the game , I think top 8 is a big stretch of the imagination

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I’ve known him since he was 15....he was a pool player....98%.
He started to play some snooker to improve his accuracy....
...won the Canadian within a year.

BasementDweller said:

I'm sort of surprised Ronnie hasn't tried or converted an all pink, blue, or heaven forbid brown, green, or yellow clearance. He seems like the kind of guy that would do something so crazy.

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I think he did do an all pink, as I watched it last week? It might have been another player, but I thought it was Ronnie.

ShootingArts said:

Ronnie may be the best at any cue sport that involves pockets. You can see when he decides he can make a 147 and it is often well before 80 points. I think it is often before he hits a ball. One of my favorite runs of his is a 146. The usual fund at an event for 147's seems to be 25,000, pounds or euros. While there is usually only one 147 if any, the fund is split if there are multiple 147's. Anyway, that was just a side note. This particular event decided to pay only 10,000 for 147's. Ronnie didn't think this was adequate compensation so very deliberately when it was obvious he could get on the seven, he shot a six ball. Then he continued his runout with all reds and sevens then the number balls to score a 146 and a giant FU to the event!

The professional tables are set up tighter than club tables so it is a bit apples and oranges to point out that nonpro's sometimes score 147's. It is true, but also true it is usually on club tables. Impossible to compare pro 147's to anything else, a lot like trying to compare carom to pool. I think there are usually multiples a year but there are also multiple events without one.

Hu

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Yeah, maybe only Raymond Cuelemans or Walter Lindrum can compare when throwing all cue games into the mix..

DaveK said:

His touch on those shots is what blows my mind. He can carom off and plow through balls and end up with shape that could only be improved by hand placing the cue ball. He hit that ball very hard and it ended up dead solid perfect !

If you watch a lot of Ronnie and pay attention to how he breaks up the pack you'll see that skill in action. Sometimes it takes a lot or power, sometimes not ... sometimes a lot of spin (follow or draw) and sometimes not ... but he almost always understands exactly what he intends and then executes. An amazing mind for snooker combined with unworldly skill.

Dave

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That comes from superior knowledge of the carom lines at varying speeds, which Ronnie often displays when he has to punch draw along a specific line to bump a specific ball. Knowing the exactly carom line at speed allows him to judge the amount of momentum transfer to the first hit ball, second, etc...

Bob Jewett said:

I don't know if anyone has ever done back-to-back 147s, but here is an exhibition with two 147s in three frames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJbpiODJO0g

Something else for Ronnie to shoot for.

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Thanx, Bob

This is well worth watching

alstl said:

Not related to this video in particular but the thing I find odd about snooker is the kicking rules. Don't have to catch a rail and if you miss the kick they guesstimate where the cue ball was and you kick again from the same position on the table.

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One could make a case for it being American-style pocket billiards as having the odd kicking rules... The requirement to hit a rail after contact almost certainly creates many many more fouls, and when combined with one foul ball-in-hand, creates a situation where (relative) power in kicking is prioritized over finesse. Even with Efren's finesse kick shots, he was handicapped by the rules. As good as Efren was at balkline, with the cloth they played on, Efren might not have ever lost a tournament if not for the rail after contact rule. That rule served to basically reel him back in a little closer to the field.

And given that snooker predates all American style games, one could also make the case that we bastardized kicking with our rail after contact rule. I've played small bar table 8 ball tournaments in which there was no rail after contact rule, and it very much favors the tactical minded player. And not nearly as slow as you'd think when played between runout players. I personally would not mind some tournament promoter holding such a tournament, and streaming it, to give us an idea of what that would look like. With the supreme firepower of today's players, I think we might end up liking the result. Wood rack, , 9 on the spot, and no rail after contact rule. We might see a lot more clever shots. Or, maybe the requirement for ONE ball, any ball, to hit a rail.