Why Snooker?
Many friends of mine ask me the question; why snooker?
Not why do you like snooker? Or why do you watch snooker?
Or even, d’you enjoy playing snooker?
It is always just why snooker? Often followed by the exclamation… I’d rather watch paint dry.
And I get it.
Snooker is a quintessentially English sport.
Two guys walk out with dickey bows on, shake hands and then proceed to take as long as they possibly can to pot 22 balls.
To make this immaculate process of snooker enlightenment even lengthier, they don’t pot all the reds followed by the colours in a certain order… but rather one red, followed by one colour, and on like that until even the heartiest beer-bellied, pie and chips engorged, snooker enthusiast’s eyes are drooping in sympathy with the commentators slow drawl about the ball needing to be both a good line… and a good length.
But wait I hear you exclaim!
If you don’t like snooker why the hell are you writing about it raj808?
Well, the answer is I do like snooker, in fact...
I love it.
I love the boredom; I love the fact that if I reclaim the armchair it is a fight between sleep and how many coffees I can cram into me to keep the concentration going.
I like the Zen of snooker.
The tale of how I learned to love this most leisurely of games can be told in a tale five-fold. A tale of enlightenment, a sutra or scripture describing...
1: Curiosity, Consequence, and the Noble art of the Piss Take
I remember sitting with my grandfather watching the snooker on a warm sunny day.
Steve Davis was playing… yes I am that old.
While my Grandfather bitterly declaimed how he hated Steven Hendry. “He’s got no personality” my grandmother piped up and I sat bemused staring out of the window musing on the indefinable idea that anyone could think that Steve Davis had more personality than the other Steve guy.
“Can’t I go outside and play in the garden” I piped up “m’bored.”
My grandfather’s eyebrows bristled and his fists clenched at the sides of the sofa “if you can’t concentrate enough to watch a frame of snooker, how do you expect to get anywhere in life.”
This was the magical moment I realized the joy of snooker. “So why is he going for the yellow ball if the black ball is worth seven points?”
I asked with child-like wonder cruelty.
“Because the black is the other end of the table you stupid boy” my grandfather thundered, brandy laced coffee spraying from his lips in outrage.
“But if he gets the black he'll have more points.”
“And he’ll never get the black from the other end of the table moron. If he keeps stringing the reds from the yellow, he can eventually get to to the black.”
I nodded sagely and smiled at my grandfather, dispenser of wisdom, prophet of the hallowed sport of snooker. He allowed me the slightest nod of approval.
“I’d still go for the black first” I trilled as I ran out of the front door to his bellows of outrage.
“Stupid Boy!”
2: The Hypnotic Power of Spin
Not all of our snooker watching sessions were like this though.
I distinctly remember being allowed to stay up as late as 10.30pm to watch the snooker finals, where I discovered – partly due to the fact that I was about 6 years old and knackered from playing football – that once you understood the concept of spin (top/back/side) watching the snooker balls expertly maneuverer around the table was a wonderfully calming.
This was the time of peace.
My grandfather had often reached maximum nap potential by now and swung between a state of muttering agitation (because the guy he had bet on wasn’t winning) to brandy-fuelled moustache quivering snores.
Every five minutes or so my grandmother would wake him up with a screech “Davis has just potted the black.”
To which he would respond “he’s still bleedin 40 points down woman.”
You know, good old-fashioned 70’s banter between man and wife.
Invariably My grandmother would get fed up with his grumpiness and when Steve Davis did start to win would refrain from waking my grandfather, winking at me and whispering “serves the grumpy ald so and so right.”
Yet all through this drama, my eyes would get heavier, and heavier with the hypnotic power of spin until one of them (usually my gran) had to carry me upstairs to bed where I’d dream strange dreams of moustachioed snooker balls bellowing at each other across a windy football pitch.
3: Playing Snooker is Where the Zen Begins
At around the age of eight, I had to go to an after-school care center as my mother worked until 5 and I never knew my dad. This was where I discovered the Zen of snooker.
There was a half-sized table at ‘the park center’ as it was known, and due to my enforced indoctrination into watching snooker by my grandparents, I seemed to have a natural aptitude for this game.
I used to strut around smirking like a dog that can smell its own farts every time I managed to stop the ball dead with stun, or even better draw it back the length of the table using backspin to land perfectly on the black. But beyond all my smugness, and the begrudging respect I got from the other kids, I can remember this being the first time I felt the feeling of flow.
The reason why playing any cue sport is 100% better than watching it, and also strangely why watching snooker stops feeling like watching paint dry once you’ve felt this feeling of flow.
When in that flow state it’s like you’re on a three thought routine; which ball to hit, what spin to leave the white for the next one, hit the ball.
Rinse and repeat.
4: Graduating to the Big Table – Life is Struggle
This is where it all goes to shit 🤣
On the half-size table, you can pot anything if you have your spin sorted out. You’re the master of your own destiny… and balls.
Using the power of your lengthy rod you can place them balls wherever you please… Ok, enough of the innuendo.
When you move to the full-sized snooker table you quickly learn that life is a series of uphill struggles that require great patience, practice, and perseverance to overcome... to reach the hallowed state of snooker master.
Or like me, you can just give up and start playing amateur pool 😂
5: The Way of English Pool – Break and Dish
Seriously, I still love watching snooker. It is because of my knowledge of how hard it is to even become a decent amature pool player that watching snooker can keep me fascinated for hours.
It is completely possible, after 3-4 years of constant practice and regular competition to reach the point on an English pool table where you can break and dish at least once/night. That means you break, pot one of the balls when you break them up, and then clear all your colors and pot the black without the other player even getting to touch the table.
And yes... it makes you feel like a kind of cue wielding Thor destroying your opponents with one mighty strike of your bit of ash shaped into a pointy stick
But when you watch a professional snooker player make a 147 break without the other player getting a sniff at a pot that is just a whole other level of godhood.
Honestly, once you know how hard it is on a pool table you have no choice but to admit that they have truly reached what you’ll never achieve... the professional’s hallowed state of the five immaculate stages of snooker enlightenment.
Thanks for reading 🎱🙂
All pictures used in this comedy post are my own. Remember, you too can find the way... the five immaculate stages of snooker enlightenment.
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