Safety

I believe we are currently in the best era yet for safety play at top level snooker.

The big four showed that if you have a pot on, there is nearly always a path to a clearance if you can play flawless snooker, and it usually starts with a long red. Yes the tables have played a part also because now there are more possibilities to maneuver the white with the super fine cloths - a positive byproduct of progression in table technology.

Today most players in the top 16 and further down the list are capable of winning the frame with one good scoring chance, a very high percentage of times. What is starting to separate the top 4 players from the rest though is not so much the devastating scoring game as the safety game.

This week I've noticed that Judd Trump and Ding Junhui as well as (finally) Shaun Murphy have caught up to the likes Higgins/Williams/Selby in terms of excellence of safety and it's making them look a hell of a lot more dangerous. Whereas 10 years ago you could leave the cue ball on or near the baulk cushion and a shot to nothing or other long red for your opponent, these days you have to make sure the opponent can go at NOTHING!

Currently in my opinion Mark Selby is the best at this - if he knows you are capable of winning the frame with any chance of a pot, then he will try his damnedest not to give you a sniff of even a half chance at a long red from under the rail. The only way to combat this is to match it, and to match it you have to think about what you are doing otherwise you will lose.

The two Masters finals between O'Sullivan and Selby, and this years German Masters final between Selby and Williams and the Crucible Dott v Selby semi contained some of the highest quality of sustained safety exchanges I personally have ever seen. There is no doubt in my mind the safety play we are witnessing in today's game is a level or ten above anything in the 1970's and 80's, and some of the young players are starting to cotton on (Ding and Trump in particular) that if you want to win, you need to be as good at safety as you are at scoring.

Of course when you have high quality safety exchanges they can go on for several turns and involve quite a bit of thinking time given that any slight error could result in loss of frame. You are also liable to have a few long frames where balls get messed up and there are also a higher amount of re-racks than ever before as players are determined not to lose out by an error in risking an end to the stalemate.

It's pretty obvious when you see snooker through the eyes of a Selby fan that he is unfairly criticised for slowing players out of their natural rhythm. If you want to beat him, you have to get the better of him tactically, you have to break him. If you get frustrated and go at something you shouldn't, you'd better get it otherwise you risk not having another shot at a pot for half an hour. Get the better of him at safety and you can have your rhythm back.

The game has progressed yet again from the time of the big four. The reason three of them (Ronnie if he gets the hunger back) are still competing for titles is because they were always one step ahead of the pack, innovators who can move with the times. They have better safety games now because they need them where they didn't 10 years ago. But there is a huge amount of emphasis on safety today and the quality is bordering on ridiculous.

Of course, if you don't have the attention span to appreciate this then you'll be on the shot clock wagon - speed it up, ban safety because it's boring, we want one dimensional snooker! Shot clock turns snooker from sport to entertainment. It turns any goal of attaining professorship in snooker knowledge through a lifetime of studying null and void. I'm not against shot-clock events as money spinners but they should never be officially ranked. The day you see a shot clock at the Crucible is the day a tsunami wipes out Snooker Island!

Robbos safety play is very underrated and is as good as the other top players

GJ wrote:Robbos safety play is very underrated and is as good as the other top players

can't see that at all...

Higgins is fantastic... Selby, Dott & O'Sullivan all top safety players, Williams underrated.

Robbo is up there but his game is more around potting. He's had to get a safety game because he is one of those players you can't give a chance to, and when he faces top players he is forced into safety. I don't think he enjoys it as much as some of the others. It's obvious Ronnie doesn't enjoy it either, but he's so damn good himself he almost doesn't realise it.

For quite a few years Doherty was well up there too...

Yes Doherty and Ebdon naturally. But even then, when they were in their prime the golden age of potting shots to nothing and leaving the white short of the baulk line for a colour was taking off and they were being left more often than today. It's almost 8/10 top players knocking in a shot to nothing from pack of reds under baulk cushion these days.

I'm talking about the very top players here, the WC contenders and consistent ranking finalists. There aren't many players south of the top 8 who possess safety games that can compete with the best.

well to be honest for me it difficult to assess the safety of murphy and trump this week as i not seen them play

we all know the likes or ronnie williams higgins doherty formerly ding selby dott are really good awesome safety players also ebdon although he unorthodox in shot selection sometimes

robertson doesnt like playing safety first but hes learned to also sometimes i notice with him his game is based on safety due to his poor positional play compared to other top players when he run out of position sometimes he has to play safe then get bogged down in safety sometimes upsetting his rythm however no question he a better player than he was a few years ago

i still think davis would have killed a few of these players with his safety if he was around today but well never know the games evolved so much so really its epidemic

Davis didn't have the scoring power though did he? That's why Hendry took over.

Over the last ten years Ive probably had Doherty & Higgins as the two best safety players. O'Sullivans safety against Hendry in 2008 was breath taking.

Im no expert on safety as such, its a lot harder than putting balls. When I played a bit I could pot really well but couldn't lay a safety shot to save life. Couldn't play it out in mind, didn't have the vision. When you've tried and failed, you've got to appreciate those who can. Its an art, and a crucial aspect in what makes this such a wonderful game.

by the time hendry came onto the scene davis was in his thirties but i would agree yes davis never had the scoring power of hendry and the like however who knows if davis was twenty or thirty years younger and grew up in the eighties how he would have played the game so it still epidemic well never really know the way he learned was always safety first everyone did in his era

i think it a bit unfair to not include the likes of reardon and davis when talking about great safety they grew up in a different era and learnt the game in a different way

Of course they did. This isn't a dig at Reardon or Davis but they never had to play safety as good as today. It's the game progression, not personalities, they are of different generations. Hendry doesn't have a notable safety game and he never developed one which is why he's done nothing in terms of titles for the last 10 years. He didn't need it against Davis.

do you think there will come a time when the game cant develop anymore ? ie now generally speaking players are better potters and breakbuilders and safety players because of evolution natural progression call it what you like but when you think this will stall or will it keep rising ?

for example in a few years do you expect players to make century breaks everytime they come to the table with a pot on or would you expect more players making five centuries in a best on nine like ronnie did against carter ?

i think the new chinese players on the horizon in ten years time i wouldnt be surprised if the game is completely revolutionised and played in a completely different way by that i mean the chinese i think will develop different shots for example cliff thorburn started the dump shot and years later mark williams started the two cushion glancing off the reds escape i think these new chinese ones in the future will develop more clever shots

Jimmy White in the 80s was the best safety player ever.

40% of the time he would get the cue ball past the blue spot when trying to get the cue ball back to baulk.

Jimmy safety in the 80s.

for an all time great jimmy had the worst safety game he a player who relied purely on his potting and breakbuilding

Ding Junhui has a good safety game. Underrated.

jojo wrote:do you think there will come a time when the game cant develop anymore ? ie now generally speaking players are better potters and breakbuilders and safety players because of evolution natural progression call it what you like but when you think this will stall or will it keep rising ?

for example in a few years do you expect players to make century breaks everytime they come to the table with a pot on or would you expect more players making five centuries in a best on nine like ronnie did against carter ?

i think the new chinese players on the horizon in ten years time i wouldnt be surprised if the game is completely revolutionised and played in a completely different way by that i mean the chinese i think will develop different shots for example cliff thorburn started the dump shot and years later mark williams started the two cushion glancing off the reds escape i think these new chinese ones in the future will develop more clever shots

I do expect more cases of 5 centuries by one player in a best of 9 in 10 years time yes. I agree that Williams made the two cushion escape back to baulk his own too, and Ding has upped the ante in working out exactly how reds will split depending on where you hit the pack with the white. The game evolves and there will be no upper limit. If players break off and clear up like they do in pool, it'll be down to who can do it more often than the opponent but it will never come to that.

One other facet I've noticed being more important than ever these days is potting that extra red and colour, preferably two reds after frame ball to make damn sure the opponent isn't coming back to the table. With top level safety the player playing on for snookers can string a frame out an extra 20 minutes like Ding did against Selby today at 4-3 down.

I guess one "next level" thing which could happen is that given the counter attack is always a danger and that the last 70 points are easier than the first 70, the player on a break early on could cannon balls safe during the break in order to limit the chances of a counter and funnily enough that could lead to less century breaks.

The OP is fantastic. The standard of safety is rising incredibly. Some of the shots played between Selby & Trump are super.

i disagree

there are great safety players like theres always been and theres some poor shots being played by them like theres always been..

Williams is the most underrated safety player of them all. He is just behind Higgins and Davis imo. The table would look safe and Williams would find a shot to nothing that nobody else could manifest, if he could apply that cueball control to his breakbuilding he would be unplayable.