VIDEO: Loss of frame or poor play? Ronnie vs Mark

[Terry Davidson]

Sounds like situation was far worse than the one Ronnie faced.

I forgot to mention I was also in a Chinese snooker over the brown ball and I had to drive the cueball around 20ft so I also mis-cued a couple of times.

When I play someone who plays this way I make it a point to take every opportunity I have for a roll-up snooker to let him see how it feels.

If the rule was interpreted correctly as it's written it would be OK, but this 'MUST HIT' interpretation drives me nuts.

Terry

[thelongbomber]

I forgot to mention I was also in a Chinese snooker over the brown ball and I had to drive the cueball around 20ft so I also mis-cued a couple of times.

When I play someone who plays this way I make it a point to take every opportunity I have for a roll-up snooker to let him see how it feels.

If the rule was interpreted correctly as it's written it would be OK, but this 'MUST HIT' interpretation drives me nuts.

Terry

Ya, that's a tough one. The only way I can see a referee being able to qualify a shot is if he was able to play at a top level. Perhaps the commentators need to participate in the outcome? I could see that being reliable at pro-level snooker

[magicman]

Ya, that's a tough one. The only way I can see a referee being able to qualify a shot is if he was able to play at a top level. Perhaps the commentators need to participate in the outcome? I could see that being reliable at pro-level snooker

Completely untenable scenario this though isn't it? Some venues have 16 tables playing with only one of them being commentated on. What rules do the other competitors play to?

Tough snookers are quite commonplace at a decent level, and that's the problem. I've seen players go from 30 in front to 30 behind.

I have a 65 year old man in my club that has played the game for better part of 40 years and he could. In fact, I KNOW that even I could, and I'm just a wannabe.

An incredibly talented wannabe I'd suggest! Whenever I watch pro's on TV or play them they often hit the pink when going off one cushion into the side of a pack. That's making an error while attempting an easy escape onto a large target. If you can come twice across the table and deliberately miss by a millimetre I'd suggest you put in some more hours and I'll look forward to seeing you on TV yourself!

[The Statman]

An incredibly talented wannabe I'd suggest! Whenever I watch pro's on TV or play them they often hit the pink when going off one cushion into the side of a pack. That's making an error while attempting an easy escape onto a large target. If you can come twice across the table and deliberately miss by a millimetre I'd suggest you put in some more hours and I'll look forward to seeing you on TV yourself!

But, the other side to that is that a player is unlikely to make that mistake three times (or even twice) in a row, so it's not going to extract millions of points.

However, two of the reasons the Miss rule is needed are (a) the two-cushion escape glancing off the pack of reds to come back to baulk, and (b) a player attempting to land on one isolated, difficult red when he has a whole pack to aim for.

In (a), it would be quite easy to miss this three times in a row, without the referee being able to confidently call it 'deliberate' and therefore ungentlemanly. In (b), it is difficult to argue that the player is making his 'best attempt' to hit a red when he's trying for such a difficult one. In both cases, there is not a very compelling argument to curb the Miss rule, because the player COULD ensure he hit a red if he really wanted to.

One possibility which I've thought of - and I'd be interested to see it trialled - would be that after three Misses, a Miss can continue to be called, but the oncoming player can only take the points if he doesn't take the Miss. He chooses whether to take the 4 points or have the balls replaced.

[thelongbomber]

Completely untenable scenario this though isn't it? Some venues have 16 tables playing with only one of them being commentated on. What rules do the other competitors play to?

Tough snookers are quite commonplace at a decent level, and that's the problem. I've seen players go from 30 in front to 30 behind.



An incredibly talented wannabe I'd suggest! Whenever I watch pro's on TV or play them they often hit the pink when going off one cushion into the side of a pack. That's making an error while attempting an easy escape onto a large target. If you can come twice across the table and deliberately miss by a millimetre I'd suggest you put in some more hours and I'll look forward to seeing you on TV yourself!

Going twice across as per the original scenario with ROS would be difficult, but in this case Ronnie was going once across and was - imho - deliberately missing

[thelongbomber]

One possibility which I've thought of - and I'd be interested to see it trialled - would be that after three Misses, a Miss can continue to be called, but the oncoming player can only take the points if he doesn't take the Miss. He chooses whether to take the 4 points or have the balls replaced.

Now that's an excellent idea and interesting to see how that could develop in a game scenario

[magicman]

Going twice across as per the original scenario with ROS would be difficult, but in this case Ronnie was going once across and was - imho - deliberately missing

To what end? What possible advantage does he gain by deliberately missing? The whole idea seems bizarre to me. The balls are going to be replaced over and over again if you miss, or you'll leave a free ball, which generally means end of frame at that level. In this particular scenario, Selby doesn't take the free ball because yellow to green is going to be very tough and ROS is showing signs of losing the plot. So Selby makes the right decision in my mind. Hate seeing this kind of snooker though!

[thelongbomber]

To what end? What possible advantage does he gain by deliberately missing? The whole idea seems bizarre to me. The balls are going to be replaced over and over again if you miss, or you'll leave a free ball, which generally means end of frame at that level. In this particular scenario, Selby doesn't take the free ball because yellow to green is going to be very tough and ROS is showing signs of losing the plot. So Selby makes the right decision in my mind. Hate seeing this kind of snooker though!

ROS was probably frustrated playing MS, or for whatever personal reason you can stab a guess at. In that frustration, he didn't put a full effort in to hit the yellow and then thought the referee might cut him slack. Intentionally hitting the green was a blatant disregard for sportsmanship, and showed his frustration. We already know ROS doesn't like playing MS - calling him the torturer is saying as much - but it would be wrong to guess that this was the reason he behaved that way. Even if ROS was interviewed and asked about what happened, he might lie to save any disciplinary action resulting thereafter.

[itsnoteasy]

When this was first introduced(to my memory, maybe one of the refs can put me right on that)it was called the deliberate miss rule, and as I recall it was to stop players who weren't able to find a route back to baulk just missing a clear red, and sending the white down and back up to baulk, this along with deliberately missing reds from what would be classed an easy snooker for a pro. I don't know when the referees discretion, was taken out of it, and it became a must hit rule as Terry says, as I didn't watch snooker for fifteen years or more. I think they should go back to the referee having some discretion on the shot, and if he thinks a reasonable table position has been left after the miss, he should just call a foul, as the snooker has done it's job and gained an advantage for that player, of course if the ref doesn't think he's trying hard enough, he can keep calling it.

[Inoffthered]

If you start messing with the rules you better make sure you cover all the loopholes that can be detrimental to the entertainment value of the sport you are selling to the public.
I don't watch pro snooker just to see who wins, I can go down the local club for that. I watch pro snooker to see the best at their best doing things that I can't and not to watch a referee replace balls all the bloody time for a player without the balls to take on a free ball and have a go.

And I don't care which player does it or to whom, I'm not just backing Ronnie here. The miss rule as it stands enables everyone to simply take the easy option, but not everyone does, some have belief and test themselves.

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