About those Buckets

I noticed a lot of instances during this tournament where I'd see the cue ball travelling towards the pocket and instantly think "nope", only to then watch as the ball dropped into the pocket with barely a shuffle.

And then throughout the tournament I didn't notice many balls doing the pocket jarring that is normally a very common site during the World Championship, they'd either go in or shoot off somewhere else. The pocket wobble was such a rarity I can't even remember one specific example.

And then MJW tweeted about Buckets. And then some commentators were talking about the pockets being different this year. And then snooker islanders were guffawing about the misses going in, with the term Buckets becoming a bit of a meme.

So what was the deal with the tables this year? Did they actually change them? And, if so, in what way?

Don't know about buckets. Going by MJW performance in the quarter final perhaps they weren't big enough!

The Bouquet residence, lady of the house speaking.

It's not just this year.

They don't want misses at the crucible it's been obvious for years, they want centuries and it devalues the tournament.

eraserhead wrote:It's not just this year.

They don't want misses at the crucible it's been obvious for years, they want centuries and it devalues the tournament.

Yeah it’s not a new thing.

The thing is, the quality this year still didn’t seem high despite all the centuries.

These buckets thing started in 2009, and it was no coincidence that was the year when the record of centuries was broken.

Before 2009, I hardly remember there being wide pockets or buckets as we call them.

But yeah, 2009 was the first year we started to be baffled by how some of the balls were falling in.

Past couple of years it feels like it's been so bad that the commentators and players can't ignore it. Pretty sure one year we had a propaganda BBC piece about the templates the table fitters use, jog on.

eraserhead wrote:Past couple of years it feels like it's been so bad that the commentators and players can't ignore it. Pretty sure one year we had a propaganda BBC piece about the templates the table fitters use, jog on.

Hendry in particular is never afraid to call it out. One of his best qualities as a commentator/pundit.

This year, the BBC despite going on about the centuries seemed to stop short of lauding the quality of the tournament, which I think said a lot.

You notice players look shocked/embarrassed at how some shots have gone in. They're probably practicing on much tighter tables as well.

eraserhead wrote:You notice players look shocked/embarrassed at how some shots have gone in. They're probably practicing on much tighter tables as well.

Well I seem to remember Robbo has his practice table slightly tighter than pro regs.

The BBC did a great feature on cloths a few years back. One of the things they mentioned was that they hold back the 'best' cloths for the world championship, so maybe that makes the pockets play bigger.