2014 World Championship - Discussion

[scottley]

haters will always be haters right? They look for things to criticise and make up things that isn't true, Selby's average shot time was like 26 seconds, compared to O'Sullivan's 21 seconds, and Robertson's 31 seconds in the Semi final, this is the World Championship Finals and you're complaining the players aren't quick enough? 26 Seconds isn't slow, the players aren't supposed to rush themselves so they start making careless mistakes, they're supposed to think through the possibilities before rushing to play a shot! Selby's shot selection was perfect in a way that he won the Championship by a great margin 18-14 against one of the top players in the world who also happens to be the player in form, O'Sullivan also happens to have had a few easy match where he won by a good margin with sessions to spare, plenty of time to relax and rest, and practice, he also have his top sport psychiatrist Steve Peters to help him settle mentally, O'Sullivan also had the luck of the 15 minutes mid-session break, and also the 1 hour 30 minutes rest, when both times the momentum was clearly in Selby's favour and O'Sullivan's head was all over the place cracking under pressure especially missing the straight pink in the middle with his hand on table, after all these environmental advantages, Selby still won 18-14!! Coming back from 10-5 down to win 18-14 against O'Sullivan I'd like to see anyone else here doing better!

Snooker is not a game that you play to race against the time, I'm sure O'Sullivan is not complaining as there's no excuse if a certain player can't even cope mentally with a guy that is averaging 26 seconds at the table, he shouldn't be playing snooker! What about other sports like Golf, are we going to have people complaining the guy is walking too slow to his next shot, that he's taking too long on his putt that it's putting off the next player?


If you want to watch quick fire snooker I guess you shouldn't even be watching the World Championship, or the snooker pro-circuit for that matter, you should just watch some exhibition where there's no such thing as safeties and balls are smashed around without consideration of the consequences then we can hold a brainless snooker world exhibition championship that way!

Well said, top post!

[lk8]

haters will always be haters right? They look for things to criticise and make up things that isn't true, Selby's average shot time was like 26 seconds, compared to O'Sullivan's 21 seconds, and Robertson's 31 seconds in the Semi final, this is the World Championship Finals and you're complaining the players aren't quick enough? 26 Seconds isn't slow, the players aren't supposed to rush themselves so they start making careless mistakes, they're supposed to think through the possibilities before rushing to play a shot! Selby's shot selection was perfect in a way that he won the Championship by a great margin 18-14 against one of the top players in the world who also happens to be the player in form, O'Sullivan also happens to have had a few easy match where he won by a good margin with sessions to spare, plenty of time to relax and rest, and practice, he also have his top sport psychiatrist Steve Peters to help him settle mentally, O'Sullivan also had the luck of the 15 minutes mid-session break, and also the 1 hour 30 minutes rest, when both times the momentum was clearly in Selby's favour and O'Sullivan's head was all over the place cracking under pressure especially missing the straight pink in the middle with his hand on table, after all these environmental advantages, Selby still won 18-14!! Coming back from 10-5 down to win 18-14 against O'Sullivan I'd like to see anyone else here doing better!

Snooker is not a game that you play to race against the time, I'm sure O'Sullivan is not complaining as there's no excuse if a certain player can't even cope mentally with a guy that is averaging 26 seconds at the table, he shouldn't be playing snooker! What about other sports like Golf, are we going to have people complaining the guy is walking too slow to his next shot, that he's taking too long on his putt that it's putting off the next player?


If you want to watch quick fire snooker I guess you shouldn't even be watching the World Championship, or the snooker pro-circuit for that matter, you should just watch some exhibition where there's no such thing as safeties and balls are smashed around without consideration of the consequences then we can hold a brainless snooker world exhibition championship that way!

[scottley]

Now it was luck, ha ha ha, get over it, the best man won!

[Dave Walton]

You are right...the problem is the rest of the folks tell us that we are haters....they want us to respect their opinion about the" genius" Selby, but they are not willing to respect our opinion about the meschin way Selby plays the game

For the record, I would have much preferred to have seen Ronnie win his 6th world championship with 18 centuries in the final with a session to spare.

Also, I don't believe Selby is a genius, obviously Ronnie is much more naturally talented.

However, I don't think this thread has been very fair to Selby. He can be a prolific break builder, the rolls just didn't go his way in the final, otherwise he could have scored much heavier.

Selby got every roll going, played poor and took 0 risks, carried a **** load of luck to get away with multiple mistakes which will have frustrated Ronnie even more than Selby's bore tactics. Everyone is on about it being great matchplay, it wasn't, it was Selby playing poorly but carrying so much luck he kept fluking snookers or losing position and rolling up, the bloke is terrible to watch, if Ebdon had played like Selby did everyone would be calling him a cheat, because Selby is more popular people aren't. His tactics worked but for me you should play the table not use gamesmanship to put your opponent off! Not sporting at all, did what he felt he had to do to beat Ronnie and along with an unreal amount of luck it worked, made for terrible viewing and made me dislike Selby even more than I already did

[gem]

Why not? Surely each player can play at his own pace(within reason, some are extremely slow!!). If Ronnies talent makes the game look easy, so be it.... Are you saying he should he try to make it look more difficult???

I was being sarcastic.
He does the opposite to Selby with similar results on the opponents. Each to their own.

[ayrshire_top]

Why not? Surely each player can play at his own pace(within reason, some are extremely slow!!). If Ronnies talent makes the game look easy, so be it.... Are you saying he should he try to make it look more difficult???

[gem]

Why does no-one give Ronnie a hard time when he wins frames in minutes, making it look so easy which unsettles opponents and doesn't allow them to settle. Surely this isn't fair either?

[Masterdoctorgenius]

So both higgins and ronnie bottled matches against selby this season after having a commanding lead. Something in common. Would have loved a selby and higgins quarter this year.

[WelshPhantom]

Selby potted some good long pots, but made sure they were to nothing, and played the roll up snooker so many times, played the roll up into the pack so many times, walked around the table looking at balls he could and couldn't pot from every angle so many times. Ronnie called him out on this during The Masters and it was seen as very controversial, but as Ronnie said at the time, people think he's being mentally strong when he's doing that, but they have no idea of what's really going on out there.

Both Robertson and Selby were doing it to each other in their semi, and that match was an even bigger drag than the final. Lucky for them that Ronnie's semi finished a session early and they could continue their morning session into the afternoon, otherwise they would have been still playing at 3.00am on sunday morning.

There is nothing mentally strong about deliberately taking too long to do something simply to p1ss off the bloke you're playing, it's actually very cowardly, and Selby didn't play at all well until he knew that he had gotten to Ronnie and had him playing without focus and disinterested.

People say that it's Selby's natural game, BOLLOCKS !! but hey ! if he also does it when he's practising I'll take it all back.

Here Here '

[itsnoteasy]

Ok, I see where you're coming from. I'm going to rewatch a few frames with this in mind. I still can't shake the fact that he was unlucky quite a few times when trying to construct a big break.

Potting a ball and running out of position, isn't unlucky, it's poor play, keeping position is an absolute must not just for pros but for everyone, we all know fantastic single ball potters but they will never improve until they get a hold of that cue ball, but for a pro to constantly do it, it's unforgivable.

[Giggity1984]

Giggyty mate, it isn't the fact that Selby plays defensive snooker, that's all well and good if that's what you believe will bring you success.
It's the incredible amount of time he takes over what everyone knows he's going to do. If he simply rolled up behind a baulk colour immediately rather than walk around the table four times and pointing his cue at the group of reds from all angles for three minutes before the roll up then it wouldn't be gamesmanship but simple defensive snooker.

The fact that he makes such a song and dance over almost every iffy decision makes it unsporting gamesmanship designed purely to annoy and create discourse in his opponents mind so that he plays poorly.

Ok, I see where you're coming from. I'm going to rewatch a few frames with this in mind. I still can't shake the fact that he was unlucky quite a few times when trying to construct a big break.

[P.Smith]

Ronnie had a car crash. His son was also there. Both shaken but not hurt.
When ****s gets going ....

Apparently it was near Leicester. Ronnie obviously saw the sign to Leicester and started having flashbacks to the final. He lost his concentration and the car spun out of control.

I'm allowed to joke about it now we know they're ok.

[dino]

Ronnie had a car crash. His son was also there. Both shaken but not hurt.
When ****s gets going ....

He was tired and he might have fallen asleep behind the wheel...Happened to me a week ago, my toddler, a 4 month old baby, my wife and our au-pair were in the car...I was 1 millisecond from crashing...terrible feeling!!!

[Masterdoctorgenius]

Ronnie had a car crash. His son was also there. Both shaken but not hurt.
When ****s gets going ....

[vmax4steve]

I saw the match. I have plenty of honour and quite a bit of self esteem. Selby was no coward. Look at the break in the final frame for proof. You're just plain wrong.

Giggyty mate, it isn't the fact that Selby plays defensive snooker, that's all well and good if that's what you believe will bring you success.
It's the incredible amount of time he takes over what everyone knows he's going to do. If he simply rolled up behind a baulk colour immediately rather than walk around the table four times and pointing his cue at the group of reds from all angles for three minutes before the roll up then it wouldn't be gamesmanship but simple defensive snooker.

The fact that he makes such a song and dance over almost every iffy decision makes it unsporting gamesmanship designed purely to annoy and create discourse in his opponents mind so that he plays poorly.