Snooker Best Shots Championship League 2023 Recreated

These are the best shots of the season so far, but you almost certainly haven't seen any of them, because they took place in a secretive underground tournament known as the Championship League. So to try to catch you up on what happened and to find the best shot, I'm going to be attempting to recreate all of them as accurately as possible, before playing them in the fewest possible attempts. But who better to begin with than the tournament winner Sean Murphy. He made it all the way through the groups to defeat Mark Williams 3-0 in the final, and with shots like this one, you can see how he achieved that. Of course, I'm not playing this shot on a modern-looking shiny raston table, so I'm going to have to strike the cue ball incredibly well to get close to the amount of backspin that Sean achieved on this shot. But with the help of a magic solution, I was able to get this on my second attempt, which I was really happy with because it's a difficult pot at this speed. You probably won't have seen Mark Williams get a ridiculous amount of backspin on the cue ball, allowing him to spin round the angles for the next red, which is a shame because it looks fantastic. I didn't think I was going to have enough cue power to play this shot, but on my first attempt, I nearly managed it. Unfortunately, I just played the shot too slowly and screwed it off. I tried to compensate on my second attempt, but hit it slightly too hard, and my third attempt was a lot better. It looked good from where I was standing and I got on the red, but from the camera, you can tell I didn't really get enough spin on it. Now to Matthew Stephens, I'm not sure if this is how you're supposed to play this type of shot, but I usually use the opposite sidespin to which I want the cue ball to travel. So here I want it to go to the right, so I'm using left hand side. My first shot just had a little bit too much topspin on it and caught the jaw, and the second was a bit too hard. The third one went a lot better and ended up going right down towards the red. CJ weighs pretty straight on the green next, but he manages to strike the cue ball so well he forces it down the table, which is pretty good from where he started under the cushion. First time I set this up, I was able to play this shot really easily, and then I realized that the shot was a lot straighter than I thought it was. The green isn't quite on its spot here, and that makes a big difference. I just about got away with it on my second attempt, but that was only by hitting absolutely full power. Stuart Bingham's putting a ball down the cushion next, while screwing the cue ball back into bulk at the same time, which just makes it a ridiculous shot to try and play. In fact, I think it's the hardest shot I've had to play in some time, just because of how hard you have to play the shot to screw back into bulk, and that's not to mention the amount of distance there is between the cue ball and the red in the first place. I think it was a complete and utter fluke I managed to get this after just four attempts, because I was expecting it to take at least 50. Cao Yupeng's won the frame, so he's potting the green and trying to cannon the blue. Unfortunately, he gets a double kiss on the blue, so he doesn't end up bringing it away from the cushion, but he still ends up in good position on the brown. Potting the green and making some sort of cannon on the blue requires a really accurate shot, so that's exactly what I'm going for, but it's not going to be easy to get both of them at the same time, especially when I was having trouble just getting one. Eventually, I managed to pot the green, but just missed the cannon on the blue, so I had to try again. It took me a few more attempts to find the right angle again on the green, but eventually when I did, I'd learned the angle and got the perfect cannon. Well, got some sort of cannon anyway. He then screws the blue in, back off the top cushion and onto the pink, to make this insane clearance. I think this blue is going to be an even harder shot than the green. Yet another really difficult, powerful screw shot down the cushion to play, and on reviewing these shots, I noticed I was jumping up off them quite a bit, which couldn't have helped my accuracy, but the problem was, the only way I was going to be able to get anywhere near enough backspin on the cue ball to make it do what I needed it to do, was by throwing my whole body weight at it. So unfortunately, it doesn't really look great, and I'm not lining these shots up very well, but this is the only chance I've got of actually making this shot work, and somehow I actually pulled it off, and I very nearly got the cue ball back far enough. Robert Milkins has ended up really, really close to the blue, but he still manages to... Oh, no, he doesn't do that, that's a push. But he still manages to force an angle, to spin the cue ball back round the table for the next red. The left-hand side you put on the cue ball here, squeezes it out of the way, and helps you avoid the push. This worked really well for me on the first attempt, and actually ended up about the same place as Milkins. Judd Trump now, with an excellent positional shot off the brown, to win the match against Joe Perry. This would have been great as an exhibition shot, but he actually needs the red to win the frame. I had difficulty with this shot, getting the cue ball to backspin far enough to hit the top cushion. You really need to strike it perfectly, and the problem is, the harder you play it, the more it goes towards the side cushion, and you need the power to get back up the table for the red. But one thing at a time, I had to get between the pink and the black first, and that was becoming difficult. I put so much side on these couple of shots, I managed to get through, but I was still nowhere near the red. Getting this much spin and power on the cue ball at the same time was really challenging, but eventually I managed to get back past the middle pocket, although it wasn't anywhere near in the right position to pot the red, but this was about as good as I could do. Not happy with just having one long pot, where he screws all the way back to bulk, Sean Murphy's playing a second, and I'm not sure if this one's actually going to be a lot harder than the first. Although then again, maybe not, because the pot itself may be a little bit more of a challenge, because it's further from the pocket, but this means I don't have anywhere near as far to screw back, and I was really pleased to get this on my first try. Tapchara News using the jaws of the pocket here to help him get the snooker he needs against Sean Murphy. With this one, you just have to find the right angle, and crucially avoid the in-off. It needs to be played at a little bit more pace than what's necessary to rattle in the jaws. To be fair, I was really lucky to get this after my first attempt. To be honest with you, I'd never heard of Longzhuang before the start of this tournament, but after seeing some of the pots he's been getting, I think we're going to be hearing quite a lot more about him. It's interesting how many times these types of shot have come up in this video, because we usually only get one or two with that. I'm wondering if maybe the star tables and the raston tables react differently and allow for this type of shot, or maybe it's just a longer tournament, so it's more likely we'll get more of these shots. Either way, I was pleased to get this in the end, even though I didn't quite screw back the white in the right direction. This skillful in-off leaves Robbie Williams on the black next. I'm not sure this shot's going to be that difficult, but it certainly looked good. I was expecting to get this after just one attempt, and I'm not exactly sure what happened. I think the first red just broke a little bit wider than I thought it was going to, but I definitely got it well enough on my second. Rebecca Kenner rolls in a good red off the bolt cushion and pots the resulting black, creating a great chance out of nothing. It's almost the same type of shot again, but at least this time I don't have to screw the cue ball back or play it at quite so much power. But it does sort of show what makes this shot difficult is not the amount of power you have to play it at, but how close the object ball is to the cushion and how little of a target you have to aim for. It definitely took me a few too many attempts, but then again there have been a few shots today that rattled in straight away, so I can't really complain. I was a little bit too short with this one, but pretty good. Long Zhuang again. I said we'd be seeing more of him. This time he's potting a red down the cushion in a similar way to the Stuart Bingham shot we saw earlier. Yes, yet again another one of these shots. And to start off with, I thought this was going to be harder than the Stuart Bingham shot before I realized you didn't really need to strike the cue ball as hard, so that probably made it a little bit easier, even though the red's a lot further from the pocket. But it's one of those shots that requires side spin more than backspin, so it's a little bit harder to line up. But once I got the line, I managed to get it pretty quickly. Rory McLeod's nearly taking the back of the pocket off next as he tries successfully to force the cue ball back down the table. It didn't really make sense why he struck this one so hard until I could see the angle from behind the cue ball. This is a really straight shot, and to make the angle you need to punch it across to the other side of the table. For me, that meant hitting the shot absolutely full power, and I still wasn't getting very close to it until it suddenly went in. However, I still didn't manage to hit it as hard as I needed to, but that's the best I could do. A snooker escape is next for Liu Haotian, who manages to spin the cue ball around four cushions perfectly, landing safe on this red. The good thing about snooker escapes is you can see the line a player's taken and just try to copy it, which is what I did with my first attempt, but that was just a little bit too wide. I hit the red but not in the way I was intending. I tried to correct this but stupidly went the wrong way, and this meant it took me a couple more attempts than it should have done because I had to readjust, and this time I was a little bit wide. I would almost certainly have got this on my second attempt if I'd made the adjustment the right way. Possibly I wouldn't have hit it hard enough, but when I finally got it, it was about right. Long Zhuang is next, so you know we've got another long pot, and with this one he's screwing the cue ball all the way back down the table, like with most of his shots. After having success with some previous shots where the object ball was that close to the pocket, I felt quite confident with this one, but unfortunately it took me a couple attempts to get anywhere near right, and I ended up splitting the reds everywhere, which was pretty annoying, but that annoyance must have made me even more determined as I got it straight away afterwards. We've got a knop-on-sand-cam shot coming up next after we find Daniel from Block Island, which I'm pretty sure is that one. There. I think that's the most accurate pin I've ever had to place, but now on to an equally accurate positional shot. As knop-on-sand-cam is playing around three cushions to cannon the brown out, he eventually pots the brown and makes the clearance. As it turned out, this shot was sort of a natural angle for me, as if I put as much right-hand-sided backspin as I could get on it, I pretty much made the cannon. Not to the right pocket, but this is still pretty good. Not to be outdone, Tian Penfei is playing his own phenomenal cushion shot. I'm starting to wonder at this stage if there's something wrong with that pocket, because everything seems to be going in. Whereas on my table, it was definitely a lot more challenging than that. Again, this is just a shot to use sidespin rather than backspin to spin the cue ball across the table, and even though I got a few shots close to start off with, it took me a number of attempts before I was comfortable putting that amount of sidespin on the cue ball and playing the shot at the right angle. Eventually, I managed to get closer and closer every single shot, but there were quite a few here where I was a long way out. Again, this was another really, really difficult pot. The positional aspect of it wasn't too difficult, but I think I got it pretty quickly considering. So for the results, I'm giving third place to Judd Trumbull this positional shot of the brown. He mostly gets in because this was for the frame. Second goes to Cary Eupeng with this blue. I know he was just messing around, but this is absolutely ridiculous. But first place goes to Stuart Bingham because this shot just felt harder than anything else I had to play. So after all that, what have we learned? Well, to start off with, it's called the Championship League, not the Champions League, and it was won by Sean Murphy 3-0 in the final against Mark Williams. Also, it seems to produce a high standard and give a lot of opportunities to lesser ranked players. It's just a pity it's hidden out of the way where no one's really watching it. But if you want to see some tournaments that people definitely are watching, then have a look at these two videos where I recreate the shots from them. And remember, don't just watch play, and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later.