Ronnie OSullivans American Hustle Season 1 Episode 1 on Youtube
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Good point actually, as that particular shot requires what commentators always refer to as 'a Rolls Royce cue action'
I could never play that shot in a million years (well not on a club table, it would be nice to see if I could even get close on new cloth)!
All good points and yes, you're correct we are all looking at it from different viewpoints.
My stance is effectively to purely look at the fundamental difficulty, hence on ball potted at snooker is harder than on a pool table, therefore I'm comfortable its harder to pot balls on a snooker table, so the game is harder.
I'd also say the same in your example of a 20 break vs a rack of 9-ball, the reason being in a 'race to 1' match, I could beat any pool pro in the world (if I break), in theory. In snooker, I could play 1000 frames and never win one against a pro player.
And why is that?
Because snooker (mainly due to the equipment) is more difficult than pool.
The point that the player is expected to miss more and commit more errors in snooker escapes you. 850-900 Accu-stat level 9 ball over a race to 11 is just as difficult as playing professional level snooker, which is 40-50ish points per frame.
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I'll have to go back to cricket and baseball. You too easily dismissed them as team sports to suggest the comparison isn't a good one. I think it is. Both sports are kind of individual sports masquerading as team sports and the primary objective for the batter in both is to hit the ball where the fielders aren't to score runs.
This objective is monumentally more difficult in baseball because of the equipment and playing dimensions. Small rounded bat vs. a wide flat board. More restricted area in which to hit the ball (i.e. you can't hit a baseball in all directions like cricket) You have to run after a fair hit in baseball vs. choosing when to run in cricket. If you faced a professional cricket bowler, you could perhaps stay alive in the crease for 10 bowls, blocking your wicket a few times and maybe snatching a lucky run or two. If you faced a professional MLB pitcher, you might manage to make contact with the ball for a foul ball in 1 out of 100 tries.
Since it's easy to hit the ball once or twice or more in cricket, that just means you must hit more of them during your turn for a good offensive showing. The game, per its design, found its standard level of difficulty.
Oh, and as far as individual sports go, let's look at golf. A Par 5 is roughly twice the distance of a par 3 on average. Par 5 harder? No. The designers of golf equalized the difficulty of the two holes by altering the standards for each. Hell, in most cases, par 5s are actually easier. Change a 560 yard hole to a Par 4, and the difficulty factor jumps through the roof. This is an example of how rules change difficulty. Rule sets change the difficulty far more than equipment. I can invent a pool game where you have to kick every ball in. I now instantly made a game where making balls is much harder than it is in snooker.
As for the rotation games, it's true anything can happen in one game or even two or three. You could beat the best player in the world winner breaks in a race to 3 by snapping in two 9 balls off the break and him rattling the 9 in the jaws during his turn, leaving you an easy shot to win the match. Funny thing is, no one would be impressed with your victory, since it was lucky.
Now whether or not the rotation games are bad games because of the luck factor is up for debate (I think they're great games, more so 10 ball, but they need to be race to 15 minimum. Tourneys would last too long, though). End of the day, you're just as likely to shoot a 850-900 Accu-stat over a race as you are of beating the snooker pro (we're of course assuming you're a low level player with equal experience at both games). And if we change the game to straight pool, you're not winning one match out of 1000 vs. a pro, either.
I also don't like the "x game is harder" mentally regarding any sport because it suggests the players of the the supposedly less hard game are inferior or playing a children's game, etc. Okay, snooker fans keep preaching to pool fans about snooker's difficulty factor? What exactly are we supposed to do here? Pretty much all pool variants would be terrible on a 12 foot rounded pocket table (imagine the monotony of watching or playing a "safety battle" on the 9 ball. Both players would just play distance back and forth for eternity). They're even bad on a 9 foot rounded pocket table, despite being not much more difficult (I dislike Chinese 8 ball. And the BnR and run out stats in Chinese 8 aren't much different from regular 8 ball).
Ultimately, snooker has the correct equipment for its rule set to make the game interesting to watch and play (harder game doesn't always mean more interesting/rewarding to play. My pool game where you have to kick at everything would be boring to play and watch), while pool's equipment works for its variants. And even more ultimately, difficulty really is defined by competition. You're playing both games against other players.
Yeah, cause pool pockets have flat facings and a bit larger ball to pocket ratio. Fascinating concept.
In any event, if we want to make pool somewhat less offensive, move the game to the 10 footer, keep the 4.5 inch standard pro cut buckets, but go with the nap cloth the IPT used. Cloth choice can make pockets play big or small. My home table back in the day with 4.75" pockets and nap played tighter than the Simonis 760 covered Gold Crowns with 4.25" pockets. Slow nap would also require more power stroking. Every time this is suggested, though, players here have been resistant. "Thank God for Simonis! I could never go back to having to hit a ball 50mph to draw it down table." Is what it is. Either we embrace pool as a high octane offensive game, where even baby strokes can draw the ball 8 feet, or return to classic conditions where you really had to juice a ball up to get action.
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I've never seen a snooker table on levellers like that before!
I have however tried to play 8-Ball on a snooker table...we gave up pretty quickly...by the end it was a case of just wanting it to be over, rather than care who won
I've never seen a snooker table on levellers like that before!
I have however tried to play 8-Ball on a snooker table...we gave up pretty quickly...by the end it was a case of just wanting it to be over, rather than care who won
Yep. As I said, pool variants don't make a lick of sense on a snooker table, which is why I never understood the snooker vs. pool comparison in the first place. Growing up, I always saw them as completely different, and never realized pool fans or players had some kind of penis envy toward snooker's "difficulty" or fetishized it in comparison to pool, until the Internet.
You make a pool table too tight and too big, it'll ruin pretty much all of the games. Eternal distance safeties in rotation games and 8 ball. Cowardly play in 14.1, with rack clearances and games to 100-200 points taking forever, since in 14.1, so many balls invariably wind up on the cushions.
I've never seen a snooker table on levellers like that before!
I have however tried to play 8-Ball on a snooker table...we gave up pretty quickly...by the end it was a case of just wanting it to be over, rather than care who won
I once played 8 ball on a snooker table set up for Golf. That was absolutely brutal.
I think this debate is basically people coming at this from two different perspectives. I think we know that the middle ground is that we all think the likes of SVB and Orcullo are incredibly talented players. Correct? I am also assuming most of us agree that the average snooker pro is not more talented than the average pool pro. There have been some successful snooker crossovers, but one thing that has been clear from the World Chinese 8 Ball events which have seen guys like Trump and Murphy have a go, is that not all snooker pros can jump into pool. I remember some of the snooker pros looking totally at sea.
So I think the differing perspectives is really just one side is trying to convey that pool is difficult and challenging in it's own way where the focal point of that challenge isn't pocketing balls. The other side is trying to argue that the snooker is an inherently more difficult game to 'play' as in, if you take two beginners and put one on a snooker table and the other on a pool table, the snooker beginner will often give up without a little help. But I don't think anyone denies that point.
The thing is that the harder the table becomes the more shots become unavailable and you have fewer options. If we go to the one extreme, Russian Pyramid, pocketing is extremely difficult. But shots down the rail are out, thin cuts are gone and position play is limited. It's all about accuracy. Snooker is a happy medium where the ball to pocket ratio is such that I can spin the ball around the table but nothing like I can in pool. Bank shots (doubles) are played but almost always as a shot to nothing. Pool allows for aggressive shot-making, cue ball control and specialty shots. You take advantage of the easier table and you do more with it.
Pool would be easier if my shot selection didn't change between pool and snooker, but it does. If I only ever rolled balls down the rail and refused long distance pots if I couldn't play a shot to nothing I'd lose 7-2 to any B level player or better. Even when going between a 12 ft snooker table to a 10 ft, my shot selection changes which manages the difficulty somewhat. The long blue on a 12 ft table is a recovery shot and on a 10 ft table, I play position for it.
So yes, it's harder to play at snooker. Pocketing balls is tougher and multi-rail positional shots require more accuracy. But context is key and we don't play by ourselves in a vaccuum. It's the expectations which drive the difficulty of the game. I often think about how Golf's difficult is driven largely by the fact that every hole has the expectations set at the very start. It's either a par 3, 4 or 5.
If you took a beginner who knew nothing of golf and told them to play and took down the par's, it's not that difficult of a game when isolated from the performance expectations. Anyone can chip the ball down the fairway if they don't care how many strokes they play. But once you are told you need to finish the hole in 4 strokes, that standard is what drives the challenge because now you are trying to make a full swing and get distance and accuracy as opposed 10-15 little chips. That is roughly the equivalent of barroom players, who have never seen good pool players, potting 1-3 balls in a row and think, wow I'm really good at this. The context is what drives the challenge not just the game itself. If it were the latter, then I think hockey would have to be the most difficult game in the world.
Great post. The bold point is key, and something that seems to be totally ignored by the snooker side in this debate. As I keep saying, no one is impressed if you can run an open table of 8 ball or 9 ball once in a blue moon, or run 20 balls in straight. The "performance expectations" for high level play in those games is running out 95% of the time when you have a open table and running at the very least 50 balls from a good opportunity in 14.1. I would confidently say your average beginner has the same chances of performing high level offensive feats in both games. Where pool gets the reputation for being "easier" is precisely because of the reason you stated about beginners being able to make a couple of shots in a row, where it might take them a week of practice before making their first snooker shot. But making 2 or 3 balls in a row and then missing is just as bad as missing in snooker, while 3 balls in a row for a 6-9 break is respectable "C level" snooker play. If the best you can do with an open 9 or 8 ball table is 3 balls, you're basically still a beginner.
That's the thing.
When a pro is playing 9 ball and has an open table and a make able shot, it's almost a guarantee that they get out.
The same can't be said when a pro is playing snooker and has an open table. Really, the only time a pro is probably guaranteed to be out is when it's just the colors and they are all on their spots.
It's almost like both games have different offensive standards. 9 ball comes down to rack stringing ability and also lock up safety ability. This is another flip side you don't consider. You can get away with a lot of defensive play in snooker that would be unacceptable in ANY pool variant.