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Could you use this tactic to beat a better player?

Postby snooker_loopy » 16 Jan 2016 Read

Let's say you're a pro player and on your day as good as anyone but you're too inconsistent to win major events. Imagine you're playing a top player and he's on top form. He's clearing up each frame with one visit so you break off and he goes for a shot, misses, or he does a safety and you're put back in.

Okay... so you choose a red and you deliberately miss. Your intention is to push the red and others towards the cushions. If you can do this enough times without the opponent getting a clear easy shot on a red you should be able to make the frames a lot scrappier and you'll even up the odds of winning the frame.

Is this cheating? Well, not really. If you were subtle and you made the misses look natural and you pushed as many reds to the cushions, well, you could get away with it. I think it would be worth doing. :-D

Re: Could you use this tactic to beat a better player?

Postby Holden Chinaski » 16 Jan 2016 Read

Many players sometimes use the tactic of putting the balls in awkward positions to make the frames scrappy in order to break the flow of an opponent who's on fire. Not by deliberately missing balls, but by playing clever safety shots. Selby does this sometimes, Ebdon did it. Many players do it.

Re: Could you use this tactic to beat a better player?

Postby Andy Spark » 17 Jan 2016 Read

With the way the balls are going in down the cushion at this year's Masters I don't think you'd get very far just concentrating on putting the reds "safe". And these are tighter pockets than the club tables. More troublesome safeties need to be thought out.

Re: Could you use this tactic to beat a better player?

Postby vodkadiet » 17 Jan 2016 Read

Holden Chinaski wrote:Many players sometimes use the tactic of putting the balls in awkward positions to make the frames scrappy in order to break the flow of an opponent who's on fire. Not by deliberately missing balls, but by playing clever safety shots. Selby does this sometimes, Ebdon did it. Many players do it.


Steve Davis did this also. he would win so many frames where no breaks were made at all. Nigel Bond was another.

Re: Could you use this tactic to beat a better player?

Postby SnookerFan » 18 Jan 2016 Read

snooker_loopy wrote:Let's say you're a pro player and on your day as good as anyone but you're too inconsistent to win major events. Imagine you're playing a top player and he's on top form. He's clearing up each frame with one visit so you break off and he goes for a shot, misses, or he does a safety and you're put back in.

Okay... so you choose a red and you deliberately miss. Your intention is to push the red and others towards the cushions. If you can do this enough times without the opponent getting a clear easy shot on a red you should be able to make the frames a lot scrappier and you'll even up the odds of winning the frame.

Is this cheating? Well, not really. If you were subtle and you made the misses look natural and you pushed as many reds to the cushions, well, you could get away with it. I think it would be worth doing. :-D


You could make the frames a lot scrappier, but you'd also give your opponent several points in fouls if you repeatedly did it.

Not sure it'd be worth it.
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