World Snooker Championships Discussion

[nrage]

Ignoring the snide remark at the start

.. a lot of these people who say luck evens itself out are obviously quite lucky in life themselves that they tend not to notice their bad luck so much because they probably don't have much of it.

Actually, you've hit on the issues here.

Humans evolved to avoid lions on the savannah, they're built to understand a macroscopic world and biased towards detecting patterns which may not even exist. Mistakenly seeing the lion in the long grass is far better than mistakenly not seeing it - so we're predisposed to see patterns that may not be there. Luck is a manifestation of this, we see a pattern "player X is luckier" which doesn't necessarily exist.

Add to this that people remember events which are "significant" to them, so you'll remember winning (or loosing) a specific frame in a specific match 10 years ago because it was very significant to you for some reason, whereas I as your opponent might not - because it was less significant to me.

Likewise you'll remember a player having bad luck at the end of a frame near the end of a match, but not recall the same sort of luck at the start of the first frame of a match - because to your mind it holds less significance, when in fact it holds the same - the opponent wins the early frame, or wins the later frame, either way they win 1 frame more than you and it doesn't matter when it happens.

The point I've been making all morning regarding Murphy and Trump is that although both played pretty poor, it was Trump who wasn't getting away with his misses as much as Murphy was, and naturally that has a negative impact on your game and shot choice. As Murphy got away time and again with his misses it raised his confidence because he knew he was going to get another chance. Whereas the player who gets no run tends to come to the table all the time with a negative mindset. TBF to trump he never got too down about it, he kept going for his long pots to make something happen but nothing came out positively for him.

Sure, a player getting bad luck can drop his head, loose confidence and play worse.. or, he can shrug it off it's all about mental toughness - this is something the great players do all the time.

Murphy didn't "know" he was going to get another chance, that's not the way the world works. Getting 1 piece of good luck does not guarantee another piece of good luck - the two are not connected in any way. Believing this is a fundamental miss understanding of reality I'm afraid.

That is snooker in a nutshell at this level now, its why Selby won the UK and Masters titles and also why the likes of Trump might not win the titles he should because he's not this lucker that everyone lables him as.

Selby won because he is a good player, who competes for everything and doesn't let a bad run of the balls get him down.

Ronnie is an incredibly lucky player, as was Hendry because they seem to always get a better run of the ball against their opponents who's luck tends to run out against them.

They're not luckier, they're simply better. If you're a better player then you don't need to rely on luck to win, if you're a worse player then you're always relying on luck somewhat. Better players don't have to be as lucky to win.

I genuinely do believe that a lot of the most successful sports people and teams are luckier than their counterparts and this helps them maintain a more positive approach because they feel that luck will be on their side.

It might help them to believe this, but it's simply not true. Successful sports people are confident because they know deep down that they are good, simple as that. Confidence brings out your best performance, and if you're a better player you'll win, simple as that.

[Billy]

But as someone has already explained on this forum, better than I could, there's really no such thing as luck. Luck is just something humans have invented to explain instances of randomness and probability.

[Masterdoctorgenius]

ronnie what are u doing

bingham gets the snooker he needed

[Masterdoctorgenius]

2-0 ronnie

stuarts efforts in vain

good long one by stuart

[Masterdoctorgenius]

ronnie long potting has improved dramaltically

[Masterdoctorgenius]

3-0 in no time

ronnie on a mission

[aderion]

He is genius .. its given . but how does he goes from 48% long pot success to 100% over night ??? just wow.

[Masterdoctorgenius]

and a century to do so

didnt miss a long pot so far

[cally]

It's like he's practicing now... keep it up ron show all the haters who's the best buddy....

Few more centuries too take hendry's crucible centuries now will do nicely...

[Gerry Armstrong]

This could be a massacre, this luck stuff must be really powerful stuff.

[carlosportsman]

Important frame for Bingham, he's looking like stopping the rot but still up against with the mood Ronnie is in

[Favre04]

Ronnie could have a rest day

[Masterdoctorgenius]

this would be a steal

[nrage]

This could be a massacre, this luck stuff must be really powerful stuff.

Yeah, I've heard the way to get more is practice so I'm going to give that a go

[montoya10]

As good as Ronnie has been, it was Stuart throwing away that fourth frame. Missing a sitter when your opponent is in such a good shape is inexcusable.