Snookered

There are still some sports I can't watch without being bored to tears – such as Cricket, Horse racing and baseball; snooker is not one of them.

I've been watching snooker for years now, keeping tabs on ye olde familiar faces. Some have left now, but others have remained. I haven't been watching snooker for that long, but long enough to know the strengths and weaknesses of some of the cue arms which draw the crowds. Snooker, for many, is probably a paint drying affair for some, not being able to see past the limited scope of the play area on the table. The geometrics of the positional play, the spins, the escapes and the visualisation of cause and effect are essential for any top player. It's not just a case of hitting the desired ball into the pocket. With the ergonomics of competitive play, you would make a poor player if that was your only ace. With the current standard in snooker, safety play is as important a component as potting balls. Obviously you cannot win without doing so, but the reality is that you are seldom left easy shots when its your turn on the table. The interesting thing about snooker, is that you can still lose if you never miss. Two players use the same table, and so the other could be fortunate with opportunity where the first wasn't. I think the hardest thing for the current snooker player is managing his/her emotions when they are forced into their chair as the opponent clears their table. It's that brooding over missed opportunities or simply missed shots which can massively dent confidence in the player. It's remarkable at just how much confidence plays its part into sport, without having it, you often can't fully visualise the play, and without the visualisation, you wont be scoring very heavily. Thinking makes it so. The reality of snooker and in fact, any competitive sport is played half in the mind of the player, and half on the table.

The appeal of the game comes from the systematic eradication of balls and the predictions as a viewer of what will happen next; will the player pot the ball and which direction will he/her go next with the cue ball? You can lie there saturated in dough-like couch material and lull yourself into a quiet calm as the balls bounce around the table and disappear from view. But then be biting your nails as it comes to the end frames where a simple overrun of the ball or a bad contact can make all the difference between winning and losing. Of course you begin to have favourites, as all who spend time watching others. Their styles rapidly become obvious in their differences, and their on-table personas become greater than their cueing. I mean at the heart of it, it's essentially man hits ball with stick, ball goes in hole. But at the heart of any sport is a very simple construct. The other appeal is that it is perhaps one of the most technical of sports; a precision of millimetres and not yards, where you, as a viewer stare straight into the eyes of the cueist, like you may do when getting the low-down of any individual. It's a personal affair and exposes the character of the player up for the whole world to see – an exposed arena stuffed with people and cameras on a very small stage. This fact unearths some of the more hidden psychological tics; strengths and weaknesses, for which the opponent can take advantage of, and the player has to master them.

It's a psychological game.

When Ronnie O'Sullivan is playing at his best he likens the pockets to buckets and the balls magnetised to will. Everything is manageable and everything is comfortable to do. Though, on bad days, it's as if the pockets become tiny and the cue ball has a will of its own. The ability of the organism hasn't changed; they still have the same technical skill they did when last they played well. Unless of course they were in an accident and lost an arm or a leg. So, the only difference in playing well and playing badly is in the mind of the player. Mood factoring.

Though, I must confess, without big players like O'Sullivan, Robertson, Selby and Trump, the game becomes more of a day at the office than a spectator event. There are still glimpses of magic which splurge onto the table, but with some of the more unsettled novice players coming into the big leagues, you can't but help think that some of them shouldn't be there. The problem with watching the more inexperienced players is that a lot of them play too many 'safe' shots than to go and take risks and chances on some more of the interesting shots. Then the game gets dragged down into various safety shots at the start of a frame, and not move into the more intense safety exchange which happens at the end of a frame. It's kinda annoying when a player has a chance to make a break and instead just plays a naff safety when all previous frames have been like that. I find this play comes more so from the lower ranking players who rigorously stick to a safe game when they find themselves further ahead than expected in tournaments.

In any case, Snooker is seeing its heyday; the viewing figures and prize money are as high as they have ever been. With more competitions and more competition about, the saturation of the sport into the mainstream is increasing by the year. A silent exchange of pure Newtonian physics at work on a simple table by a couple of people in waistcoats it may be, but a feast of tactics and precision motion where a player must keep his/her cool under amounting pressure. What's interesting as well is that even if a player makes no 'wrong' moves, they can still lose – the table is also a clear display of chance, and even the best has his/her day.