Very simple: watch a bit of snooker. You can do it from your desk/home by tuning into the terrific streaming coverage of live snooker from Sheffield, England.
HOW THIS HELPS YOUR POOL GAME:
– Observe the picture perfect strokes of these professionals
Seeing these gentlemen pot (pocket) balls in tiny pockets with rounded jaws (pocket openings) with incredible accuracy is simply amazing. The technique and delivery of the cue demands such precision that they know they must have near flawless fundamentals. Just look at the perfect set-up, still body, and authoritative cue delivery and statuesque finishing position. If all pool players (author included) stayed down on shots this well, we’d all run many more racks.
– Admire the complexity of the game
If you get lucky and watch the right match, you’ll see a game that has flashes of 8-ball, one-pocket, 9-ball, straight pool and maybe even three cushion billiards. The unique scoring system might take you a little while to get the hang of, but snooker has a bit of everything. It starts with a safety break like straight pool, might progress into a total clearance or a run of 36 balls without a miss. Some of these breaks (runs) resemble an excellent rack of 8 or 9 ball with some delicate position plays and some power shots to break open the rack of red balls to continue the inning. A player might not be able to catch up midway through a frame (game) and might have to snooker his opponent in hopes of a miss or foul to add points to his tally. Games of this sort can have some ingenious safety play and maneuvering like the best one pocket clashes. Jump shots are forbidden in snooker, so players will have to lag or kick at balls from the worst of positions. A little billiard knowledge helps. Frames may last eight minutes to nearly an hour long.
– See melt-downs and world class play
Players have reacted in all sort of ways under the pressure of “The Crucibleâ€. Players can choke or rise to the occasion. Last year there were two maximums in the WC for the first time ever. Earlier today, first time WC participant floundered to make even a 30 point break. The commentators were aghast. Word is that he had been making six or more centuries every day for weeks training for the tournament.
– See what we’ve been missing in televised pool broadcasts
If you watch for a while, you’ll want to phone up ESPN and scream. Sure, we’ve got quite a bit of streaming pool tournaments to watch in the last couple of years, but none compare to the BBC’s polished production. Most of the links at the end of the article are to fanatics who simply capture and pass along the high definition live broadcast put on by the BBC. They actually have two channels running simultaneously since the Crucible has two snooker tables for most of the event. Each telecast features about half-a-dozen cameras, wonderful (and useful!) computer graphics, and soothing, intelligent commentary be one or two snooker greats. Just listening to the patter is entertaining for any pool fan. You’ll pick up lots of British slang for pool terms.
– Fun tidbits from the Maplin UK Championships last year:
Cannon equals carom and a plant is a combination shot.
Ronnie O’Sullivan is every bit as amazing to watch play snooker as Efren Reyes is to watch play one pocket. Ronnie missed 2 makeable balls in succession in the eighth frame and brought his pot percentage from 95% down to 94%.
Red into the right center (or right middle) means side pocket.
The online screen graphics are actually very meaningful, unlike the nine ball graphics that show which balls the players pocketed in the ESPN telecasts.
Feature match April 21-22
The World Championship is being held at the fabled Crucible Theater from April 16 through May 4. That’s correct-seventeen days of snooker. The first round of coverage is underway. Today, an interesting match is Australian Neil Robertson vs. the legend Steve Davis. The young lefthander from down under has incredible cue action. That’s a monster stroke for us yanks. He’s 27 years old and he faces off against a snooker living legend and Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire knighted twice over. Steve Davis, OBE is 51 years old and has career earnings of over 5.5M British Pounds. With today’s conversion rate, that’s over 8 Million US Dollars! He won the World Championship six times in the 1980’s and fought through qualification matches to reach the field of 32.
These are the best links for streaming I’ve found:
This has been my favourite. It is a bit larger by default and has no distracting chat. The video and stream is EXCELLENT quality:
http://atdhe.net/watchtv.php?b=x
These all have decent coverage and chat windows:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mordane
http://www.justin.tv/sportstime
Here are some reference sites to follow the action and news.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Snooker_Championship_2009
http://www.worldsnooker.com/ws_championship_venue.htm?tid=124
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/snooker/default.stm
Not too sure about this feed:
These is the odds to win outright from the new WC sponsor BetFred.com
Selection Price
O’Sullivan, Ronnie 7/4
Selby, Mark 7/1
Maguire, Stephen 8/1
Higgins, John 10/1
Carter, Allister 10/1
Murphy, Shaun 14/1
Junhui, Ding 16/1
Hendry, Stephen 25/1
Robertson, Neil 25/1
Day, Ryan 25/1
Allen, Mark 28/1
Ebdon, Peter 33/1
Fu, Marco 33/1
Perry, Joe 33/1
Dott, Graeme 40/1
Cope, Jamie 50/1
Wenbo, Liang 80/1
Lee, Stephen 125/1
King, Mark 125/1
Swail, Joe 125/1
Walden, Ricky 125/1
Holt, Michael 150/1
Higginson, Andrew 200/1
Davis, Steve 300/1
Bond, Nigel 500/1
Burnett, Jamie 500/1
Gould, Martin 2000/1
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