Sports Digest: Snooker

Preamble to Sports Digest series: Here I unveil my first post in a series of sporting summaries, which happens to start with snooker. First, a quick introduction. Any sport contains a multitude of stories, from sporting tales of particular matches or tournaments to the human stories behind the champions or nearly-champions or journeymen. There are also more stats than you can imagine, political intrigues amongst the sporting bodies, and, occasionally, crossover stories into mainstream news. You’re not going to get any of that! The plan here is to give the gist of the sport in terms of its history and major champions—you’ll see how the sport’s run, what the major championships are and who the top champions have been. And maybe we’ll find a story or two along the way.

Summary: Now for the snooker. In brief: Joe Davis won the first fifteen world titles, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry won six and seven world titles in the golden TV age, Mark Selby’s the current world champion, and The World Championship started in 1927 and has been held in Sheffield since 1977. We should also mention Alex Higgins, Jimmy White, Ronnie O’Sullivan, the 1985 World Championship final and 147 breaks. There’s also a ladies’ circuit, with Reanne Evans winning the world title eleven times. We need a bit more than this though….

The Rules: You need to pot the balls in the correct order, you get points for balls potted, and once all the balls are gone the winner is the one with the most points. The real rules are a bit longer, and I’ll mention a couple of extras in passing. The balls on the table at the start are: 15 reds (1 point), and, worth 2-7 points, in order, yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black. A foul (missing the balls or hitting or potting an incorrect one, mostly) gives points to the opponent. The maximum break, if you pot everything in one break and always pot a black after each red is 147. There is one unlikely circumstance when a break greater than 147 is possible: if there’s a foul and a consequent free ball before anything is potted (because the player can’t see a red), the player can nominate a colour as an extra red to pot and effectively have 16 reds on the table, making a maximum possible break of 155. More of this later. See Wikipedia-rules for the subtleties and a cure for insomnia.

The Governing Body, The WPBSA: Professional snooker is run by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA). As the name suggests, this is the governing body for not only snooker, but billiards. We’re not going to get side-tracked by billiards here, but a quick scan of the world champions shows that India and England are the most successful nations. In fact, the WPBSA runs four subsidiaries: World Snooker, World Billiards, World Ladies Billiards and Snooker, and World Disability Billiards and Snooker. It was founded in 1968, is based in Bristol and sets the official rules. World Snooker is the commercial arm and WPBSA holds a 26% stake, but it’s majority-owned by Barry Hearn’s Matchroom Sport, a sports promotion company. Barry Hearn acts as the chairman of World Snooker and has been influential in bringing snooker to a global audience, as indeed he’s done for other sports including darts. The WPBSA website gives player profiles, rankings, the rules and more. The current chairman of the WPBSA is Jason Ferguson, an ex-player. The International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF), based in Dubai, governs amateur snooker and billiards.

The snooker season: The snooker season runs practically all year, but the official end of season is after the World Championship, held in late April / early May. For example, the 2016/17 season started with the Vienna Open from 5 to 8 May, 2017, and finished with the World Championship, which completed on 1 May 2017. The 2018 season started with the Vienna Open on 4 May 2018.

How World Rankings work: A little care is needed here as the details of sports rankings can stroll into anorak territory. The nuts and bolts are that snooker rankings are based on prize money over the last two years in designated ranking tournaments (there are 19 of them right now). They update after each tournament with prize money from more than two years ago dropping off a player’s total. The prize money is greatest for the most prestigious events, headed by the World Snooker Championship and the UK Championship.
How World Rankings used to work: The current system has only been in place since 2014. Prior to this, a points system was in place, with points allocated depending on the round a player reached and the prestige of the tournament. In addition, until 2010, the ranking list only used to update once a year (at the end of the season, after the World Championship). There’s all kinds of history here, with initially only the World Championship having ranking points and then…. Let’s not go there. Check the finer details on Wikipedia-rankings. The ranking system is run by the WPBSA and started in 1975. One final oddity—seeding for tournaments works like this: instead of purely using the rankings like, say tennis, the top seed at an event is the defending champion and the second seed is the world champion, and only then is the ranking list used for the remaining seeds. You also have provisional seeding lists and ‘race to’ rankings to predict qualification for tournaments or end of season rankings, but I’ll stop myself here.

The Main Snooker Tournaments: The World Championship is the biggest event and the UK Championship the third biggest by prize money. The Masters is actually the second biggest event, but is invitational and not a ranking event. These three tournaments together are called the Triple Crown. For your diaries, the current venues and dates are: the World Championship is at the Crucible Theatre (Sheffield) in April, the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre (York) in December, and the Masters at Alexandra Palace (London) in January. As well as the World and UK Championships, the ranking tournaments include events in China, India, Germany, Scotland, Wales, Latvia and Gibraltar.

Number-One Ranked Players: Rankings for the first 23 years (from 1975) is easy. Ray Reardon was number one for six years, Cliff Thorburn for a year, Ray Reardon for another year, then Steve Davis took over for seven years (1983-1990) and Stephen Hendry for eight (1990-1998). After that no one’s dominated in the same way, with the longest continuous period at number one a couple of years…until now, with Mark Selby who’s been number one for the last two and a half years. Several players have attained and lost the top spot multiple times, with Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Mark Williams and Mark Selby prominent among them. The record for total number of weeks at number one is headed by Stephen Hendry (471), followed by Steve Davis (365), Ray Reardon (362), Ronnie O’Sullivan (260) and Mark Selby (236 not out). In total 11 players have held the top ranking. If you want the full details, check Wikipedia-number-ones.

World Championships: Now this is interesting (honest) and real sport. Snooker holds a World Championship each year, so the world champion is easily identifiable—as opposed to something like tennis or golf which have four equal-rank majors. As usual, Wikipedia is good at giving us the details – see Wikipedia-world-finals for the winners and scores in each final and Wikipedia-world-championships for the structure and a brief narrative of each tournament. Here’s a few details I can’t resist telling you.

• Ten players entered the first championships in 1927, and they arranged their own dates and venues for the matches up to the semi-finals.
• Joe Davis (1901-1978) won the first 15 tournaments and retired unbeaten after the 1946 tournament. He continued to play other events, and retired in 1964, having lost only four matches in his career, all against his younger brother Fred Davis.
• The closest Joe came to defeat in the world championships was in the 1940 final against his brother Fred, winning 37-36. Fred had led 21-15, but Joe reeled it back and made a 101 break to seal a winning 37-35 lead (dead rubbers were played at the time, and Fred won the final one to make it 37-36).
• The highest break in the initial 1927 championships was 60. Joe Davis gradually improved this through the years, making the first century break in 1935 (110) and his best of 136 in 1946.
• Other multiple winners in the early years were Fred Davis (eight between 1948-1956) and John Pulman (eight between 1957-1968). Apart from the 1957 match, all John Pulman’s matches were challenge matches as a knockout tournament wasn’t played, so one player (presumably with the best credentials) challenged him. No tournaments were held for six years between 1958-1963, so Fred and John may well have won more.
• Latter-day multiple winners are: Ray Reardon (six in the ’70s), Steve Davis (six in the ’80s), Stephen Hendry (seven in the ’90s) and Ronnie O’Sullivan (five between 2001-2013). The current champion is Mark Selby, who’s won three of the last four.
• A thought for Jimmy White, who lost six finals including five consecutive ones from 1990-1994, the last one 18-17 against Stephen Hendry.
• Since 1980, the finals have been the best of 35 frames, but in earlier days the matches could be much longer—for example, the best of 145 from 1946-1949 and in 1952, with the match playing over two weeks.
• The most boring World Championship final is reputed to be that between Graeme Dott and Peter Ebdon in 2006, Dott taking the match 18-14 at 1:00am on the second day, so long were some of the frames. Fair play, though, you can’t take away the glory of being world champion, and if you prowl the Internet you’ll find many other sleep-inducing candidates such as a two-hour frame between Fergal O’Brien and David Gilbert in the final qualifying round for the 2017 World Championships (it was the deciding frame with the score at 9-9). Dott had previously lost the world final in 2004, to Ronnie O’Sullivan. He battled depression soon after the 2006 victory, due to a series of personal events. He recovered to reach a third World final in 2010, losing 18-13 to Neil Robertson, and published his autobiography (Frame of Mind) in 2011. His ranking stayed in the top 16 until 2014 and he’s currently at number 30. Peter Ebdon also has one world championship (in 2002) and two losing finals (1996, as well as the 2006 match against Dott) and is now ranked 40.
• The venue for the 1946 final, the Royal Horticultural Hall in London, seated 1,250 spectators for each day of the two-week 145-frame match; this compares with a capacity of 980 for the present-day location at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.

The 1985 World Championship Final, Steve Davis v Dennis Taylor: In selecting a featured match, there’s only one I can possibly choose. Steve Davis had won three of the last four World Championships and was overwhelming favourite against Dennis Taylor. He led 8-0, but was pulled back to 9-7 at the end of the first day’s play. Davis then led 11-8 to be pulled back to 11-11, then 15-12 to be pulled back to 15-15, and finally 17-15 before Taylor levelled it at 17-17 and forced a deciding frame. The final frame of the championships was the longest of the whole fortnight’s tournament at 68 minutes, and the match itself remains the longest-ever 35-frame match. The match finished at 12:23am (roughly) and 18.5 million viewers remains the largest post-midnight British TV audience. Davis led 62-44 and Taylor needed to pot the final four colours to win. He potted three difficult balls and then just missed a double into the middle pocket which would have won the championship. So now it’s a black ball game, gone midnight and a fantastic climax. There’s an excellent safety shot from Davis; an unlikely and missed double from Taylor; an even more unlikely double from Davis leaving the first clear chance, a middle-distance pot; which Taylor missed leaving Davis with a cut into the corner pocket for the match…which he famously missed, overcutting the ball. Dennis Taylor potted his fourth attempt at the black to win. Wikipedia-snooker-final describes it better than me, and this seven-minute-YouTube-summary is well worth watching. For some fun, you can also watch this 2010-attempt-to-replicate-the-match by Davis and Taylor—if you don’t have time for the whole 44-minute video, skip through to the 25th minute for the colours. Anyway, Steve Davis went on to surprisingly lose the next year’s final to Joe Johnson, before winning three on the trot from 1987-1989. Dennis Taylor had previously lost the World Championship final in 1979. He didn’t reach the same heights again, but remained a top-ten-ranked player into the early nineties and became a match commentator and has made many TV appearances outside snooker, as has Davis. They met again in the World Championships in the 1991 quarter-finals, Davis winning 13-7.

147 breaks (and 148): Joe Davis made the first officially-recognised 147 in an exhibition match in London in 1955, Steve Davis had the first 147 in official competition (which was also the first televised) in 1982 at the Classic tournament in Oldham, Cliff Thorburn hit the first 147 in the World Championships in 1983, and Ronnie O’Sullivan has the most in competition (13) and the fastest (5 min 20s). There were eight maximums in the 1980s, 26 in the 1990s, 35 in the 2000s and, so far, over 50 in the 2010s. Does that mean players have improved over the years, or at least their potting skills? Maybe, but past against present is a perennial debate in sport and I’ll leave you to it. There’s been exactly one break higher than 147 in professional competition, achieved by Jamie Burnett in the qualifying stages of the 2004 UK Championship, when a free ball allowed him to take the brown ball as an extra red. He cleared the table, potting (effectively) 16 reds, 12 blacks, two pinks, a blue and a brown, followed by all the colours to achieve a 148 break. He said he didn’t realise it was on until the break was over 100 and initially thought it no big deal. Higher breaks have been recorded, but not in professional competition; Jamie Cope made the first witnessed 155 in a practice frame in 2005, though others have also achieved the feat in private practice.

Ladies Snooker: There are no gender restrictions on the main tour (the professional world tour run by the WPBSA) and ladies can enter events if they qualify. Reanne Evans has twice played in the qualifying rounds for the World Championship (the ladies’ champion is invited to play in qualifying): in 2015, she narrowly lost 10-8 to Ken Doherty (a former world champion), and in 2017 she beat the world number 51, Robin Hull, 10-8 in the first qualifying round, but lost in the second 10-6 (out of three qualifying rounds in total). She became the first woman to reach the final stages of a ranking tournament, The Wuxi Classic in 2013. Reanne also played on the main tour in 2010-11 (although she didn’t win any matches), as did Allison Fisher in 1994-95. There are various ways to qualify for the tour including qualifying schools and discretionary invitations. So, in theory, there are no barriers to women competing with men, although snooker clubs have a traditionally male image and there’s not much money in the ladies’ game. The World Ladies Snooker Championship started in 1976 (known as the Women’s World Open Championship until 1981) and has been dominated by Reanne Evans (11 World Championships) and Allison Fisher (7), with Kelly Fisher (5, not related) close behind. Reanne won 10 titles from 2005 to 2014, before Hong Kong’s Ng On Yee beat her in the 2015 semi-finals and won the tournament. Reanne beat Ng in the 2016 final, but Ng won it back in 2017, again beating Reanne in the semi-final. Allison Fisher became well-known and played in Barry Hearn’s invitational Matchroom League in 1992 and 1994, beating and drawing with some of the top male players. She retired from snooker in 1995 and moved to the US to play on the pool circuit, where she’s been very successful and made far more money than she could on the women’s snooker circuit. The highest women’s break in competition is 143 by Kelly Fisher.

Snooker Today: Mark Selby is the player to aim at, being well clear at the top of the rankings and the world champion for the last two years. The players closest to him are John Higgins, Judd Trump and Ding Junhui. Mark Selby also holds the UK Championship, while Ronnie O’Sullivan holds the Masters. Snooker’s popularity has ebbed and flowed over the decades, reaching a peak in the ’80s (thanks to UK TV coverage, and the UK only having four channels), and declining through the ’90s and 2000s. Now it receives a large global TV audience (with thanks to Barry Hearn’s promotion skills) and is highly popular in Asia (and especially in China, where Ding Junhui is a superstar), though slightly less so in the UK than the past. On the ladies’ side, Ng On Yee holds the world title and will therefore attempt to become the first lady to qualify for the World Championship in April; and will also resume what looks a close rivalry with Reanne Evans, who had dominated ladies snooker from 2005 until recently. Here are the last few world finals:

2012: Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Ali Carter 18-11
2013: Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Barry Hawkins 18-12
2014: Mark Selby beat Ronnie O’Sullivan 18-14
2015: Stuart Bingham beat Shawn Murphy 18-15
2016: Mark Selby beat Ding Junhui 18-14
2017: Mark Selby beat John Higgins 18-15

2015: Ng On Yee beat Emma Bonney 6-2
2016: Reanne Evans beat Ng On Yee 6-4
2017: Ng On Yee beat Vidya Pillai 6-5

Brief Profiles 
Alex Higgins: Alex “Hurricane” Higgins was Northern Irish and twice world champion, at his first attempt in 1972 and in 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He was popular, and known for his fast and flamboyant play but also for self-destructive behaviour. His break of 69 against Jimmy White in the 1982 World Championships semi-final is considered one of the finest made—he was 15-14 frames down and 59-0 points down and needed to win the frame to avoid going out the tournament. He made a series of ‘extremely challenging’ pots for a clearance of 69, won the final deciding frame and went on to beat Ray Reardon 18-15 in the final. He was a heavy smoker and struggled with drink and gambling, and was twice banned from snooker for violent behaviour. After retiring in 1997, he was dogged by ill health, including battles with throat cancer and drink, but continued to play regularly in clubs and made attempted comebacks at the Irish Professional Championships in 2005 and 2006. He died in 2010 at the age of 61, bankrupt and in reduced circumstances, but he stood at the pinnacle in his heyday.
Fred Davis: I originally thought Joe Davis, winner of the first 15 World Championships and virtually unbeatable, would be the second person to feature here. I’ll leave that story to you though, because once I looked further, his brother’s sheer longevity and involvement at the top-level is stunning. Fred Davis first reached the World Championship semi-final in 1938, at his second attempt, and repeated the feat forty years later, in 1978 at the age of 64. He only narrowly lost the latter, 18-16 to Perrie Mans. In between he won eight World Championships in the ’40s and ’50s; was runner-up six times (although three of those were challenge matches instead of knock-out tournaments, as snooker’s popularity waned in the ’60s); was called up for the war in 1940, five days after his marriage; was awarded the OBE in 1977; and experienced two heart attacks. We haven’t finished yet—he won the World Professional Billiards Championship in 1980 and 1981 (actually in May and November of 1980 because they changed the date of the championships, but hey); he made the 1979 world snooker quarter-finals and the 1983 world billiard final and continued to beat the top players of his day through the ’70s and early ’80s; and was ranked world number eight as late as 1980. His last appearance in the World Championships main event was 1984, but he continued to play the qualifying tournament and other events. He announced his retirement in 1990 after losing a playoff match to retain his professional status, an arthritic knee causing him to limp from the arena to the press conference where a standing ovation was given from ‘spectators, players on other match tables and even those on the practice tables, who all ceased playing to acknowledge the moment’. One moment to applaud a sixty-year career and we should leave it there. To finish off, he did play a bit more because the rules changed, his final professional match coming in 1992, and he died in 1998 at the age of 84. His brother Joe had died in 1978 at the age of 77, two months after collapsing while watching Fred’s 1978 world semi-final.
Ronnie O’Sullivan: Nicknamed “The Rocket'” and known for his fast and exciting play, Ronnie has been the biggest box-office star of the last fifteen or so years. He currently stands on 28 ranking titles (joint second with Steve Davis and John Higgins, eight behind Stephen Hendry), including five World Championships (in 2001, ’04, ’08, ’12 and ’13). It’s well publicised that his father served 18 years for murder from 1992, he’s battled depression, he’s written a crime thriller (Framed), and has an ambivalent attitude with snooker, ‘taking sabbaticals and frequently threatening to retire’. He’s a keen motor racer and gifted runner (running the 10k in under 35 minutes), and regularly broadcasts for TV (Eurosport) and radio.

Media: There are plenty of non-fiction books about snooker, but here are a couple of fictional creations.

• The Rack Pack—a 2016 UK film about snooker in the ’80s, featuring the rivalry between Alex Higgins and Steve Davis.
• Snooker Loopy—if you dare, this is a song by Chas & Dave, released in 1986, featuring many of the snooker players of the day, and reaching number six in the UK charts. With apologies, although the comments under the YouTube video do say this is ‘probably the greatest song of all time’.