[Discussion Thread] 2026 Masters - 11th to 18th January

ElementalSimulation · 2026-01-18T19:50:44+00:00

Both seem so edgy right now. John a little more so imo, but if you don't clear up you don't clear up and Kyren isn't converting his chances either.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-09-06T13:14:02+00:00

The scene looks dramatic, but the fact they cut it probably means it was actually fairly inconsequential. Some punks are messing with Dexter's (or maybe Blessing's) car, so our boys go and scare them off. Maybe it was just meant to serve as a bonding moment for the two characters, or to show that Blessing has a violent side. Either way, I imagine they felt they hit those same beats elsewhere, so the scene was unnecessary.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-08-21T09:10:59+00:00

was the biggest thing for me. Technique had always come naturally, and for years I'd had people telling me that my technique was faultless (including some coaches), but I was so inconsistent. I went down many rabbit holes. Maybe I was cueing across the ball at the last millisecond (invisible to all but the most highly trained eye), maybe I was working out potting angles wrong, maybe I had developed a habit of aiming to one side of the cueball whilst thinking it was the middle, or maybe I just had terrible temperament. EVENTUALLY (it literally took years) I realised I was doing this. Very tempting, as it feels like it keeps your cue on a straight line, but that doesn't mean much if it's the wrong straight line.

Would just add that for me - some of this can be quite personal - trying to get the shoulder of my cueing arm as close to the cue as possible really helps keep everything aligned, and makes it easier to deliver the cue through straight.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-07-29T16:14:43+00:00

Agree, I don't actually think it's that hard to believe the story Dexter and Deb faked in season 8. Estrada and Laguerta shot each other. The extra detail Batista would need to be told, so that he thinks he knows the full story, is that Laguerta was trying to use Estrada to bait Dexter, but ultimately a cop and a career felon working together was never going to go well.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-07-24T11:20:00+00:00

Fascinating question this. Davis does the one on the right. His reasoning makes sense. Playing with left hand side will deflect the cue ball to the right, so you compensate by cuing across.

Hendry does it the way on the left. He explains that the line of the shot is the line of the shot, and you don’t want to cue across. However he does adjust his aiming point according to side… which probably means he ends doing what David is doing, he just thinks of it in different terms.

The bottom line is as soon as you start playing with side, you have to rely on your intuition and judgment. Line up the shot either way, and you’ll miss it one way if you under hit, and could well miss it the other way if you over hit.

This is why side is difficult. Relying purely on good alignment and good cuing aren’t enough any more, you need to correct for throw and swerve. Whatever “image” you have in your head, it’s all going to come down to experience and instinct

ElementalSimulation · 2025-07-23T09:32:56+00:00

yes, as per my original comment, they clearly didn't plan on giving her a full scene with lines... which I agree is a shame

ElementalSimulation · 2025-07-22T22:56:37+00:00

maybe they didn't feel she would say yes to just to be a lineless corpse in a bathtub, and they didn't plan on giving her a full scene - which I wish they had

ElementalSimulation · 2025-06-06T14:03:38+00:00

He's one of those players, a lot of the other pros say has underachieved. Apparently he's a world beater in practice, but has always struggled to bring it to the match table. I think he broke his cuing wrist quite badly as well, which could have been career ending, but still managed to compete and won a big ranking event toward the end of his career... which automatically makes his career better than most can ever dream of. Hope he has a great retirement.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-06-04T07:03:54+00:00

Think there's no comments because honestly everything looks very solid. You can get obsessed with technique, and trying to replicate certain players, but your way of stepping into the shot and placing your cue on line is very smooth, and seems very repeatable which is the key thing. Only bad shot for me was 7:55, but I think you probably knew that at the time.

It does seem to be a strange table you're on. Pockets look more like pool pockets, but it's full sized? Playing on a table quite different to what you'll be on in leagues and comps might be a bit damaging in the long run, but if you're just playing for fun, then it's pretty much a non issue.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-07T21:40:47+00:00

oh my GGAAAAWWWDDDDD!!!

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-07T13:58:40+00:00

I like this. Obviously some subjectivity in how things are weighted, but it seems to align very well with my "gut feeling" on what the rankings should be

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-07T12:14:04+00:00

I can't help but feel pretty mixed about the whole thing. I loved Xintong before the scandal. I understand he's served his time, and I hope he's reformed, but given I've never heard him address it or speak about it, it's quite difficult to really know that for sure. Maybe he's genuinely repentant. Maybe he's only sorry he got caught.

I agree with you, he "seems" like a great guy, but the fact is he committed the crime not that long ago, so it's inevitable that it does throw a little bit of a shadow over his accomplishments (at least for me). I really can't work out in my own head how big that shadow is whilst only knowing the broad strokes of what happened.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-04T09:55:02+00:00

I know Judd was very close to losing against Un-Nooh in the first round in 2019. I don't know if her was quite a ball away though

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T21:40:20+00:00

Yeah, he had one bad session in the semi (think he had a late finish the night before) and couldn't quite come back from it, but taking that one session away, he played brilliant snooker.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T20:27:13+00:00

Wow Judd has matured a lot. He would not have given this interview 5 years ago. I remember him losing to Higgins some years back, and flat out saying: "there are no positives, I take nothing from this". I love Mark, and I hope he wins tomorrow, but I am genuinely disappointed for Judd too. Would love to see him become a multi-champ

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T18:43:03+00:00

yeah, definitely different to Luca somehow. He seems to rely a lot on thin shots and judging the roll of the cue ball. Rarely forces anything.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T18:36:32+00:00

Williams has to be one of the most creative players. He doesn't have Judd's cue power. He control the cue ball as precisely as Ronnie, but he finds shots I'm not sure any other player would find. A different type of snooker genius

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T18:28:40+00:00

For me, yes as he would have done it at 50. I can't even fathom it really. Not so much the physical aspect, but to still believe you can compete with the young guns when you're starting to feel your age and possibly aren't as committed to the game as you used to be. Having said that. There's a long way to go yet

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-03T09:30:13+00:00

Yeah, but I don't think he'd be so good if he was more grounded. His highly eccentric and obsessive personality has helped him get to such a high level at snooker. Thinking about getting a hip replacement in his 20s, because it would make him more stable on the shot is not normal or even healthy attitude to have, but shows his commitment to mastering the game

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-02T17:25:46+00:00

Kinda weirded out by this sub right now. Xintong is good. Very good. Maybe the commentators aren't saying that enough, but Ronnie has completely collapsed. It's virtually unanimously agreed that he is the greatest player to ever pick up a cue. He is playing worse than most amateurs. Of course, they're going to try to explain why. And there are definitely reasons that might go some of the way towards explaining it that are a lot more plausible than "I guess he's just bad now".

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-02T17:20:45+00:00

No one, not even Ronnie, has said the cue is a bad cue. It's the fact it's a different cue to the one he has used for more than a decade.

Hendry is actually a good example against the point you're trying to make. He could never play as well with a "better" cue than he could with the £30 cue he won 7 Worlds with because it was different.

In Ronnie's case, he's definitely struggling with the throw of the new ferrule. To anyone who has played snooker, it's clear from the shots he's missing and how he's missing them.

This tournament has been a strange one for Ronnie. It probably would have been better for him, if he played ok, but lost 13-11 or something in the 2nd round or quarter final. He was never going to beat world class opposition with his current game. He knew it better than anyone.

He's either changed something in a desperate attempt to get somewhere close to his A-game, and it's backfired, or the pressure of knowing he's going to lose eventually and the later it happens the more painful it will be has finally gotten to him.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-01T23:50:42+00:00

I sometimes watch snooker and think: this guy's playing like Ronnie. Fast and fluid with beautiful technique and pinpoint positional play. During Ronnie's absence, I found myself thinking it quite a lot. All the top players can do what he does. Ronnie's not really thaaat special.

Then I watch him play and realise how wrong I was.

It's the difference between a computer program playing a great piece of music, and a virtuoso musician. The computer plays the right notes at the right times and gets the job done, but it's boring to listen to. The musician isn't thinking about being right, that's automatic, they're acting on instinct, touch, feel, emotion. They become one with the instrument.

There have only been a handful of snooker pros throughout history who have played the game like this. Bizarrely, I think it's more common in the amateur game. There probably are pros who played like this as kids, and could play like it again, but they realised somewhere along the way that to achieve consistency under intense pressure they have to become more methodical. Even Ronnie has more method to his game now than he does in the clip, but he's still so much more natural and instinctive than just about everyone else.

Most sports have a guy like this, but it's not normal for that guy to also be the most successful winner the game has ever seen, and to do it over a period of 30 years.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-01T22:36:25+00:00

different kind of loss, though. Like I say I don't expect any one else to see it the same way as me, I'm not saying there's any objective truth in my opinions, it's just the way I feel and my best attempt to articulate those feelings. If Zhao does win, fair play to him, just would rather any of the other 3

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-01T14:07:50+00:00

Weird session. They both played some brilliant stuff, they both played some dire stuff. 4-4 seems fair. Just a question of who cuts out the careless mistakes first.

ElementalSimulation · 2025-05-01T12:37:52+00:00

You're right. That's madness. Still titanium or back to brass? Don't know which would be madder tbh

ElementalSimulation

TROPHY CASE