147s not really a big deal anymore?

shanew48 wrote:

LDS wrote:147s never were that big of a deal even in the 'olden days'. Willie Thorne had the nickname Mr. Maximum for a reason. He'd regularly knock them in during exhibition events.

Only 5 of Thornes 198 maximums were made in an exhibition, (not that many when you think how many exhibition frames he played) the rest were made in practice, still impressive I guess, obviously not any pressure in practice though is there as if you miss the black ala Ken Docherty masters style, no one would actually know would they.

Obviously much more of a feat in an exhibition situation as people have paid to watch in the expectation that they will see minimum 100 + breaks if not a 147.

Still don't think maximums in practice should be counted really for the above reasons.

LDS wrote::shrug:

In order to define the term regularly in relation to the thread then the OP would need to define their own version of regularly, as in every little tournament or just the big ones everyone watches.

Steve Davis made the first televised 147 in 1982 during the Lada Classic, but no-one really remembers that... because it was the Lada Classic, apart from folks like us, of course, but the whole nation knew when Cliff Thorburn did it a whole year later at the Crucible to the point where Thorburn's 147 might as well have been the first televised 147 in all but the pedantry of fact.

Who remembers or ever mentions Kirk Steven's 147 at the Masters in 1984?

Or Tony Meo's in the 88 Matchroom League?

Looking at the stats, there was already one per year in the 80s, it just didn't seem like it because not many people cared about the lesser events back then, there wasn't the sense of daily engagement you get from an internet world.

There were 5 maximums in 1992.

Here's the full breakdown by year:

82 - 1
83 - 1
84 - 1
87 - 1
88 - 2
89 - 2
91 - 2
92 - 5
94 - 1
95 - 2
97 - 3
98 - 3
99 - 10
00 - 7
01 - 3
02 - 1
03 - 3
04 - 2
05 - 2
06 - 2
07 - 6
08 - 7
09 - 2
10 - 7
11 - 9
12 - 11
13 - 6
14 - 8
15 - 6
16 - 8
17 - 10
18 - 12
19 - 9
20 - 3 ?

So, weirdly enough, the number of 147s is declining at the moment, so the OP might just be labouring a point they'd made some years ago but only now worked up the courage to write about it publicly.

Also, you cannot underestimate the fact that 36 of those 147s were made by just 3 people ;)

But the key here is that the yearly total seems really high for the last decade taken as a whole rather than looking at individual years, or since 07 really, as a general trend.

So what happened in 07?

I remember watching an interview with Neil Robertson where he was saying how different the tour is to how it was when he started, how he remembered there just being a few ranking events a year compared to 'nowadays'.

So lets compare the above maximum stats inflation with the ranking event inflation:

2006/7 - 7 ranking events
7/8 - 7
8/9 - 8
9/10 - 6
10/11 - 8
11/12 - 9
12/13 - 11
13/14 - 12
14/15 - 13
15/16 - 12
16/17 - 19
17/18 - 20
18/19 - 20
19/20 - 17
20/21 - 5 (so far)

so we see that the number of 147s per event is actually less now than it was in 2007 and that the true '147s at every event' mindset would have been only really in the years 99 & 2000.

It kinda makes sense that if you play more events you'll see more regular 147s.

And we're back to the definition of what one means by regular.

And we're back to the last World Championship 147 with a crowd being Hendry's in 2012 and the fact that the statisticians who created the above stats count 3 147s during the WSC qualifiers as official 147 stats, even though that's not really what people think about when they think of professional 147s. In fact, the word qualifiers appears 21 times. And that's before you start counting events like those with League in the title (accounting for a further 16 of those 147s). And another 10 from events that have the word Tour in the title.

Triple Crowns:

WSC: 2 in 10 years
Masters: 1 in 10 years
UK: 6 in 10 years

Which, all together, doesn't even make one per year.

It stands to reason, the more frames that get played and statisised, the more 147s there'll appear to be.

rekoons wrote:

rekoons wrote:I went through the data and listed the numbers 1 2 and 10 % +50 break scorers from the last 20 seasons:



For me this on it's own is enough objective data to state O Sullivan is the greatest snooker player from the last 2 decades.
Otherwise the whole GOAT debate feels too subjective to me.

Who knows where hendry would've been had he been born the same year as Ronnie, they would've pushed each other on to ever become better my guess.

I highlighted some seasons which seem to be more competititve than others in terms of % difference between numbers 1 and 2. (I forgot to highlight 11/12 with Ronnie and Allen, can't be bothered now to change)

another interesting observation is that over the course of 20 years the number 10 percentage has been rising smoothly, and faster than the # 1 spot, suggesting the top of the field is getting more competitive.

Seems like somebody else did the same with 70+ break percentages:

Same story at first glance, except for 2008/2009 Mark Selby, and 2013/2014 Ding Junhui.

https://www.reddit.com/r/snooker/commen ... er_season/

shanew48 wrote:He would have been doing exhibitions for maybe at least 20 years? if not longer? if you were generous and said it was only 20 years, that would mean that he made a maximum break once every 4 years, I don't think anyone, however contrarian, could class that as regularly unless they were being deliberately obtuse.

rekoons wrote:All those excellent stats

LDS wrote:How do you feel about the social pressure that modern players face with regards to their playstyle being at the core of why those stats materialised?

LDS wrote:And, as a result of this changed social imperative, isn't it more a case that games are just more open to bigger breaks generally rather than the players themselves being dramatically better break builders?

LDS wrote:I don't know how you'd look into this, stat-wise, but it's certainly something to consider.

rekoons wrote:Not a real TC, but Hendry made a 147 in the decider of the 1997 Victoria Charity Challenge against ronnie to win 10-9.

The_Abbott wrote:Is this a thread about Boeing's or am I on the wrong forum?

HappyCamper wrote:They just need to add more balls. That'll make it harder again.