2014 World Championship - Discussion

[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

[scottley]

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

[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]

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!

[Looki]

First time ever that O'Sullivan was put under real pressure in a world final and look what happened. Right man won there and well played!

[Masterdoctorgenius]

First time ever that O'Sullivan was put under real pressure in a world final and look what happened. Right man won there and well played!

ahm. didnt u watch last years final. barry beat selby along the way and played brilliantly in the final too and had ronnie on the ropes. and some of the steals from ronnie were unreal.

shame his form wasnt clinical in this year but you cant have them all. selby won fair and square. ronnie could have won he hadnt miss tha black off the spot or that simple pink

[The Statman]

Why am I not surprised to come on here this morning and read some idiotic comments about Selby. Snooker is not just about the way Ronnie plays. Yes, he is a genius and i love to watch him, but i love to watch snooker in general and what Selby did yesterday and the tactics he used was the way to win the world championship. If you have that in your locker to beat O'Sullivan, why would he not play that way? It was class and its snooker. If you don't think it 'pretty' then watch something else. I actually thought it was pretty and what happened last night was GOOD for the game. Selby is a deserved winner and I'm pleased for him. Giggity1984 also got it spot on. Selby was potting some amazing balls but not getting the rub of the green so had to lay snookers. And that final clearance....wow.

(By the way, I am a huge fan of Ronnie....I'm a huge fan of the sport)

Well, quite. Just popped onto TSF for the first time since returning from Sheffield yesterday and, having scrolled back through 4 or 5 pages of this thread, I must say many of you were watching a different match from the one which I had the pleasure of witnessing.

I was pretty neutral; you can hardly not enjoy O'Sullivan when playing well but I equally like Selby. Either of their prospective achievements of 6-times and first-time winner would have been a good story too.

All in all, I thought Selby was pretty good, especially on Monday and was good value for the one-frame lead going into the evening session. I think overall the luck probably favoured him, but not by much; those four consecutive snookers created quite a fortunate episode, though. There were many times on the Sunday when he was left nothing from O'Sullivan misses, and I think it roughly evened itself out over the match but any imbalance of luck was certainly not on O'Sullivan's side.

But, having said that, I lost count of the number of times Selby went to open the pack and landed on nothing - end of break.

I do get what people say about Selby seeming to overthink simple situations, but for me it is one of the fascinations. Maybe the atmosphere in the arena made it less of a distraction for me compared with those watching on television. In any case, his average shot time was only something like 25 or 26 seconds, which is not awfully slow and after all it isn't a race. In Selby's defense, I would suggest that there is very real reason for his deliberations and anyone who thinks otherwise obviously doesn't have a very imaginative snooker mind - I find his calculations of the very best position to leave the white safe, and indeed what reds might be available to him if he gives his opponent a tough escape, very intriguing indeed and very seldom unfathomable. (In fact, it is one of the more fascinating traits of O'Sullivan, too - he always makes time to study the baulk cushion when he's run out of position and it was until relatively recently a much underappreciated facet of O'Sullivan's game. He too exhibited it quite often during this final.)

Actually, Selby has in the past bogged both his opponent and himself down with much more negative play than he displayed this week; not right up to his most fluent but by no means all that negative. There were a couple of surprising shot selections, though - one that springs to mind was when he needed one snooker on the last red. O'Sullivan escaped but left the red easy with automatic black to follow, which with two of the baulk colours close together that could have provided a good snooker opportunity. I don't know whether it was mentioned in commentary but I was surprised that he didn't take the 8 points while they were on offer. (Sorry I don't know which frame it was, but I'm almost sure it was Monday afternoon and not Sunday.)

I thought it was an excellent and absorbing final and it was a credit to both players. O'Sullivan was very competitive even after Selby
had taken the lead (the O'Sullivan of a few seasons ago might have caved in, but not this time). In the end, he was caught out by a few very uncharacteristic misses - just a few more than Selby - and this was ultimately the difference.

Another thing for which O'Sullivan I think should be praised is his interview afterwards. As with the Welsh, he was speaking openly and articulately, providing soundbites rather than summarily answering the questions put to him, as he sometimes does. Along with the atmosphere of the Ronnie O'Sullivan Show on Eurosport, I think this puts him in excellent light, which is no bad thing for the biggest draw in the game. (Oh to think how many records he might have smashed if he'd been like this all his life - but that's for another thread!)

As a ticket-holder for the last 21 world finals, I'll tell you that you need either (a) brilliant snooker or (b) a tense, close finish, and if you get both that's a great bonus! This year's final ranks right up there among the best. Many finals have had (a) or (b) in abundance (in fact, the 2006 final is the only one which really had neither) but not many have scored so highly overall for both factors.

[Censor]

Selby played to win. What's negative about that?

Anyway. I'm very happy for him as he's one of my favourites and I was hoping he'd get his first title this year. His resolve, intelligence and discipline deserved to be rewarded. People who moan about the way he plays have a very narrow view of snooker, in my opinion. It's not simply a game of non-stop potting but also one of snookers (the clue is in the name) and safeties and forced errors. I like that Selby brought that fact back to the forefront of people's minds, and also that his matches were all long and tense rather than forgettable and fast. I like it when matches have some meat to them.

Selby is also a very nice person, reportedly, and quite popular among his colleagues. It's a little sad/ridiculous that fans pour so much vitriol on him for playing his own game (and supposedly taking too long to do so--as the statistics revealed in this thread show, that's not actually true), while his fellow pros show a much greater appreciation for him.

Anyway. I'm also a fan of O'Sullivan and would like to see him come back stronger next year. I hope he has another title or two in him. He simply did not play at the level expected of a world champion this year, though, and I wouldn't have been happy to see him win the whole thing with his B game at the expense of younger and hungrier players. Frankly, he didn't deserve it. I think he knew it too, which is why he was so gracious in his post-game speech. Let's hope it was simply a mediocre tournament for him, and not the start of a steady decline.

Overall, a great world championship. Some people need to grow up and accept there's more than one way to play the game, and more than one player who can win. Let's hope for more of the same next year, with more young players stepping up (no Trump, though, please).

[Dave Walton]

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!

Never mentioned anything about slow play! Anyone who can't see just how much luck Selby carried and how many mistakes he got away with through luck is kidding themselves, the last session Selby played very well but still got a lot of luck at the right times. It wasn't pressure that made Ronnie miss it was frustration at Selby's negativity and the luck he was getting, the amount of fluked snookers Selby had was incredible, enough to mess with anyone's head, Selby knows how to get in Ronnie's head and set his game plan to do just that, it worked perfectly, Ronnie should have kept his head and been more patient instead of trying to open things up. Selby carried an awful lot of luck but outsmarted Ronnie rather than outplayed him, credit to him, doesn't mean I have to like it or like Selby and how he plays, always be a lucky boring grinder in my eyes, id rather watch paint dry as watch Selby play

[Dave Walton]

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

So Selby didn't constantly fluke snookers or get lucky kisses to leave nothing through the whole match? Sorry but he did and you're deluded if you think he didn't. Selby's luck was only part of it, you can't win on luck alone but it damn sure helps

[Looki]

ahm. didnt u watch last years final. barry beat selby along the way and played brilliantly in the final too and had ronnie on the ropes. and some of the steals from ronnie were unreal.

shame his form wasnt clinical in this year but you cant have them all. selby won fair and square. ronnie could have won he hadnt miss tha black off the spot or that simple pink

Barry played well but he was never in front. Also it was a game that suited O'Sullivan, they played his game and when he plays well there are not many players (if any?) that can beat him. This was a different type of match, lot of great safety there and especially the second day Ronnie was losing the battle constantly.

[scottley]

So Selby didn't constantly fluke snookers or get lucky kisses to leave nothing through the whole match? Sorry but he did and you're deluded if you think he didn't. Selby's luck was only part of it, you can't win on luck alone but it damn sure helps

He had a bit of luck, but no more or less than anyone else, your hatred for Selby is shining through here, and if you can't see that you're the one who is deluded!

[itsnoteasy]

Is that a fact, that Selby shot time was only four seconds behind Osullivans? Where did that stat come from, it's quite amazing if it's true.

[j6uk]

the balls don't forgive you.. ron played bad safty, missed too many bog standard balls and, most importantly lost his focus.
i hope he takes the summer off, gets his pipe cleaned proper by a pro and comes back stronger

[scottley]

O'Sullivan escaped but left the red easy with automatic black to follow, which with two of the baulk colours close together that could have provided a good snooker opportunity. I don't know whether it was mentioned in commentary but I was surprised that he didn't take the 8 points while they were on offer. (Sorry I don't know which frame it was, but I'm almost sure it was Monday afternoon and not Sunday.)

I think everyone was amazed he didn't take a red and black and use the yellow to snooker behind the green.