Have been playing this beautiful game for more than two
decades now. Have gone through periods of
up and down cycles in the sport and life but Snooker has been with me always. Such a wonderful game!
If you had asked me a short definition of ‘What is Snooker’
it would have varied from time to time over the years. It is part of the learning curve or infinite
loop, I don’t know but my understanding of the game has gone through heaps of
journey. So here I am capturing my understanding
of the game as on today to compare how far it changes in the years to come.
Mastering snooker comprises of 3 major skill areas –
Alignment, straight cueing, meditativeness.
The first two are technical skills and the third is a mental skill.
Alignment is the
first and foremost thing to perfect the game.
Alignment starts with sighting and involves stance, bridge, grip
etc. You can rightly align and still
miss the pot due to other errors. But
you can hardly pot a single ball if you are misaligned. Moreover, the effects of alignment error
exponentially gets magnified in the long shots.
If you are able to strike the cue ball centre every time consistently, it
means you are able to align right in various cue ball positions like near
cushion, rest shots, deep cutting shots etc. during the game.
Once the alignment is done right to perfection, the next
thing to perfect is the ability to cue
straight. Snooker is a game of
straight lines – yes, it is. Almost in
all the shots the balls travel straight, baring a few where a cue ball is
swerved or where the ball swings when out of the cushion when hit with power. Straight cueing irrespective of cue ball
position and striking i.e. cue ball on cushion, top ball, stun, screw shots etc.
is a coveted skill in Snooker where the precision required is at millimetre level
at times. If God comes and offers me to
select only one of the cueing skill as a boon, then I would opt for this
ability to cue straight. Such a
difficult skill this one to master. There
are three major variants to master straight cueing:
- Cue ball positions – near cushion, rest play etc.
- Cue ball striking points – top ball, center, stun, screw back, side play
- Power levels – soft, medium, hard/ powerful shots
Meditativeness is
the ability to focus, be in the moment and stay concentrated throughout the
duration of the match. Meditativeness is
the foundation on which the above two techniques (alignment, straight cueing)
stand on. If focus is lost, everything
is lost! When concentration levels go down, you will start missing simple shots
that you would normally pot 10 out of 10 times.
That is how critical this mental strength is. Typically concentration slips when you are
stressed or when fearful of losing. Also
focus tends to decline as the matches go for long duration. Typically, a best of 5 match could last for 1 to 2.5 hours. It is immensely important to
stay focused at highest possible concentration levels all through the game. Imagine you are in the Finals of the
competition, which means you would have focussed already for 6 hours in
Quarters and Semis put together, and now you need to do another 3 hours of
intense focus. Wooooooooh! That demands insane levels of mental energy. Have to be prepared with mental strategies to
keep your mental energy battery charged to stay focused for such long hours of
match play.
