Snooker Pro Why Not

That looked good, but this is the type of shot I simply don't pot enough of. To be competing at the top of the game, I'd need to be potting about three quarters of shots like these. So if I'm only getting somewhere between a third to fifty percent of these shots at best, how far away am I? To explain this, I've created this scale from game changing, where this one single ability will help you compete against almost any opponent, all the way down to problem, where once again this single factor will this time almost certainly ruin your chances. Depending on how well I'm playing, my long stun and screw shots are somewhere between a liability and a problem. However, I don't have a problem with all long shots, so if I'm running the cue ball through, then I just about might be able to creep into the competitive category. Moving on to cue ball control and general positional play, this is something I've improved a lot over the last few years, but it's something unfortunately I think still just about fits into the liability category. Generally speaking, I get the cue ball going on the correct line, and if it was this on its own then it probably would be competitive, but we also have to take into account how hard you need to hit the shots, and I'm usually just a little bit out with this, which is a problem because professional snooker players are just so accurate in this area, so all in all it's just about a liability. Because of this and another factor I'll mention in a minute, I'm just not as confident as I should be going into the reds, meaning I don't do this as often or as early as I should do in breaks, and this can make the game just so much easier because if you open the balls up like that, you have a lot more options and it makes things increasingly simple. It's not necessarily that I have a problem playing these shots, it's just that I lack the confidence to do so sometimes, and this puts it somewhere between a liability and a problem, probably more a liability because it doesn't come up often enough, but I do find I don't make enough for the chances I get, and when chances are at a premium, this could be a real difficulty, so I'm definitely putting this in a liability category. And that shot there, where I almost certainly should have played a cannon, brings us on to shot selection, where most of the time I do choose the right shot for my ability, but unfortunately sometimes, like this example, I just don't choose the correct shot, or don't know the shot I should be playing. So I'm going to put this on borderline between liability and competitive, because I think most of the time if we're including all types of shots, including whether you should be taking on pots or playing safe, I get this right, but I think, yeah, this I do need to improve and I do need to learn, especially on positional shots like these, exactly which shot I should be playing. Rest shots, I'm okay tapping them in on basic shots like this, and in the past I was actually quite good at them. It would have probably fallen in a competitive category, for whatever reason since I've had my new Q, it's dropped back to probably a liability. I don't know why this is, it's just with my new Q, I find it very difficult to see which way the shot's going. I really haven't figured out why this is yet, but I think if I did enough practice with my Q and the rest, I'd eventually learn to play them as well as I did in the past. So this is something I'd have to do more practice on if I wanted to take anything seriously. Generally speaking, I like to get the moving around the table with spin or just play the shots slower. I don't really like the more powerful shots like this one. I don't have to hit this that hard, but I'm a little bit wary of punching it properly up for the black, so decide to play it a little bit slower and leave the cue ball a little bit further away from the black than I normally would, or I would like to. I usually find if I can keep in perfect position, I can play around this problem, but obviously you can't do it all the time, and that's why this is definitely a liability, because I find if I've got to inject any power into the shot, then more and more my cue action goes wrong and things just become harder. Possibly because I don't like injecting a lot of power into the shot, and playing a shot with side spin sometimes can help you move the cue ball further around the table or maneuver it into a position without using so much speed on the shot. I play shots possibly with more side spin than other players. Now I do think I'm actually quite good at this. I think this is definitely in a competitive category for me, but it's something I think I use a little bit too much, and I rely on too much. Like this shot for example, I'm going to play it mostly as a stun shot, and it's not something I necessarily like doing. I'd have been happier playing that shot with side, but it just wasn't an option that time, and because I'm so used to playing that shot with side spin, I've run out of position because I'm not used to playing that as a stun shot. And also because of this, if I'm playing on a different cloth, then I have to get used to how much the side spin allows the shot to move on the cloth. Although as you can see with this next shot, like I explained before, I'm quite good at controlling it. So it's something that gets into the competitive category, but because of that it's something that I rely on far too heavily. I'm speeding this bit up because here we've got a few more examples of how my cue ball control is okay, but not necessarily good enough. For example here I got very close to the pink, and I feel like a better player than me could have controlled that shot better. I've actually spun the cue ball back the wrong side of the blue here, leaving a horrible angle. I can't power one of the bolt colors in that I'm sure a professional would play. I've had to take a chance and hit the reds there, which could have gone wrong. It's actually dropped really nicely, but I've still got to pop this ball into the middle pocket, which again shouldn't be a problem and isn't. I'm able to retain position, but it's just bits every now and again like that where it can go wrong. And this brings us on quite nicely actually to the next thing I want to talk about, which is focusing on complex situations. I hear them on the black, but there's a couple of balls making things difficult. Now what I need to do here is make a cannon on the top red of the balls that are slightly apart, and that way I should be almost certainly in position on possibly two or three balls. But I've really got to focus on this, and I lose focus. I miss the pot, and I get the wrong cannon because I'm just too confused at this stage. Again, focusing on the shot is another thing that's going to fall into the liability category, and if I ever wanted to play at a higher level than this, I would really have to work on this part of my game. When it comes to safety, it's rare for anybody to get the better of me. Now this doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, because I do, and it also doesn't mean that I don't leave potential long or difficult pots that others are better at taking. And because I don't play the long pots as early, or I don't feel confident playing some long pots, I can lose out because I don't effectively play attacking enough. But I do think this area of my game would easily be in the competitive category, as well as escaping and getting snookers, which I also seem to be pretty good at, or at least good enough to compete with pros. Something else I wanted to have a look at is how well I'm able to deal with pressure, because this can make a huge difference, especially at the top of the game when you have all the eyes of the world on you. So I've set up this chance where, let's say my opponents miss the pink, it's run up the side cushion, they're 60 points in front. Any professional now would think this is a great chance for me to win the frame if I can just make the clearance. There's nothing on that's too difficult here as I just rattle that red in. As long as I can pot these fairly comfortable reds and colours at the top end of the table, then I should have a chance to at least make it to the pink. And I think if you left a professional in this situation, they'd almost certainly clear up every time. Now the first error I had is I missed the first red to start off with, so technically this is my second attempt, but if we go from here and just see how well I can do. So while I'm making my way through this clearance, let's look at consistency of straightforward pots like these, because if you're missing these shots, or every now and again you're missing one, it can cause huge problems. I don't think, again, I have a huge problem in this area, and I'm probably somewhere between a and competitive in this one. It's something I definitely have to improve slightly, but I think with a bit more practice this would be possible to get this to a high enough level that I would be able to be competitive. But a lot of that will be due to how well my technique holds together, and quite often you find yourself feeling more under pressure when you know your technique is either not quite good enough or a long way from being good enough to play the shot and you're a bit more worried about it. You can actually see on a few of these shots I jump up on a little bit, or like that shot there, I just get into it a little bit too much because I'm worried about getting in position and I wasn't able to stay straight on the blue. So here I've got to leave myself a yellow at distance, which should have been simple, but I've overscrewed this and I've left myself a difficult yellow. Again this is putting me under pressure and I've got to have confidence in my cueing to be able to pop the ball. So again this is one of those where I think it's again somewhere between liability and competitive because I think at the top level it would let me down. It's not quite good enough. I've managed to pop the yellow there but I don't think I could rely on it 100%. Again with more focused practice and competitive match play I might be able to do a bit better though. Now it may be the previous two factors that are going to cause me here to be unable to hold the cue ball in position for the blue. I just need to be just off straight top side and I'm going to ever so slightly over hit it. I'm playing with right hand side to slow it down and maybe I just didn't have the confidence to put enough right hand side on it, or maybe my cue action let me down and I just over hit it slightly. Either way I finish straight on this blue. Now it is possible from here to widen this angle with a trace of opposite side. You'll see I hit it on the left here and punch it wider and get the cue ball going further down the table but I don't have the confidence to do that at this stage of the break because possibly I'd risk missing the blue or just running the cue ball on too far and not getting on the pink. So I'm having to run this shot through and leave the pink at distance which I'm pretty confident I can get if I just drop it in. It's gone in but it's left me a black close to the cushion so am I going to be able to cope with the pressure and finish off the clearance from this position and this tough black? Nope I was unable to deal with it in the end and I put coping with the pressure as a slight liability. You've got to remember this involves the technique as well because it's not having trust in the technique that means you end up getting more under pressure than you would if you had faith that if you just pushed the cue through everything you wanted to happen or everything you wanted to see happen in front of you would all go right. Which gives us these results? I think I'd have to have most of them if not all of them at least in the competitive category for me to have any chance against the majority of professional snooker players and ultimately I'd probably have to have one or two in game changing if I wanted to get anywhere near the very top of the game. So you can see where I'm struggling here and you can see how much I need to improve to do any better. It would also be interesting to know how well you think you do in all of these categories and if you think you're doing any better or worse than me in some of them. Also you've probably noticed I've had a bit of a cold through all of this and if you haven't noticed that then I've managed to do quite well here but I'm really struggling to say anymore so I'm going to end the video right here but at least this should show why I'm not really anywhere near the pros but if you like this video and you want to see more about snooker have a look at these two which will help you play better 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