Post a reply

Did it touch the black?

Poll ended at 05 May 2017

Yes
5
29%
No
12
71%
 
Total votes : 17

That black...

Postby SnookerFan

We all know which one I mean. What are your thoughts?

Jan thought it didn't touch. Did you?

Re: That black...

Postby SnookerFan

Dan-cat wrote:No it didn't touch. It was a good call.


That's what I thought at the time, but then I was half asleep. <ok>

Re: That black...

Postby kolompar

Think it didn't but not sure. At least they had a look at the replay and then made a decision. Unlike in Brecel's case where it wasn't a push shot.

Re: That black...

Postby Alex0paul

Didn't touch

Re: That black...

Postby SnookerEd25

My feeling is, at the pace it was played at, if it had touched it would have been a touching ball. It was too slow to move the black significantly so, good call Jan.

Re: That black...

Postby Iranu

I don't think it touched. You often see balls rocking back slightly.

As Snookered25 says, normally at that pace the two balls rock back into each other and end up touching.

Re: That black...

Postby pasunegirafe

Gif of the black ball

The black seems to wobble ever so slightly, but it's so hard to tell with the naked eye that I think Jan made the right call. If he didn't see it touch the black, then it didn't. Ref has the final call. Selby should've hit it harder and not make the same mistake like he did with the green. Luckily, the black ball controversy didn't affect him in the end.

Re: That black...

Postby OoNebsoO

Clearly touched, I do not blame Jan at all, but you can't say he made the right call when we see he didn't.

Re: That black...

Postby pasunegirafe

OoNebsoO wrote:Clearly touched, I do not blame Jan at all, but you can't say he made the right call when we see he didn't.

Yeah, I should have been more clear and said that it was understandable that that was the right call for him because that's how he saw it, and therefore the call at that time was the right one.
Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure after watching that gif multiple times. The gif is only a few frames, but it doesn't look like the image is entirely stable because the reds seem to slightly move. So that makes it a bit more difficult to tell if the black moved. And I'm wondering how it did not leave a touching ball at that pace. I just don't know :dizzy:

I actually thought Selby hit the green in that previous situation with the missed snooker, because that wobble looked more obvious to me, but apparently not.

Anyway, I'm okay with the call even if it's wrong, because Selby won :-D

Re: That black...

Postby acesinc

OoNebsoO wrote:Clearly touched, I do not blame Jan at all, but you can't say he made the right call when we see he didn't.


I cannot help but find it a tad bit comical that, viewing through the wobbly telephoto lens of a television broadcast camera showing several views (none of which by the way having had benefit of the actual angle of the presumable contact point between the White and the Black) on a finely pixelated screen across the room from the comfort of your armchair, you have a better perspective on what occurred than a professional referee of nearly thirty years proven experience who also happened to be standing viewing at an angle looking directly at the closing gap between the balls from a distance that could literally be measured without even using the full length of a yardstick.

Astonishing.

Re: That black...

Postby Dan-cat

acesinc wrote:
OoNebsoO wrote:Clearly touched, I do not blame Jan at all, but you can't say he made the right call when we see he didn't.


I cannot help but find it a tad bit comical that, viewing through the wobbly telephoto lens of a television broadcast camera showing several views (none of which by the way having had benefit of the actual angle of the presumable contact point between the White and the Black) on a finely pixelated screen across the room from the comfort of your armchair, you have a better perspective on what occurred than a professional referee of nearly thirty years proven experience who also happened to be standing viewing at an angle looking directly at the closing gap between the balls from a distance that could literally be measured without even using the full length of a yardstick.

Astonishing.


Acesinc :hatoff:

Re: That black...

Postby OoNebsoO

acesinc wrote:...

Astonishing.


That gif posted above certainly helped. Slower speed one.

Also, Mark Selby, professional player for 19 years appears quite confident that it did hit it.

Re: That black...

Postby pasunegirafe

OoNebsoO wrote:
acesinc wrote:...

Astonishing.


That gif posted above certainly helped. Slower speed one.

Also, Mark Selby, professional player for 19 years appears quite confident that it did hit it.

Yeah, it does look like it got a tiny bump from the cue ball :|
Case closed?

Re: That black...

Postby The Herminator

Well it looked like it moved on the video but pictures can be deceiving. Maybe we need hotspot like in cricket!

Re: That black...

Postby acesinc

pasunegirafe wrote:
OoNebsoO wrote:
acesinc wrote:...

Astonishing.


That gif posted above certainly helped. Slower speed one.

Also, Mark Selby, professional player for 19 years appears quite confident that it did hit it.

Yeah, it does look like it got a tiny bump from the cue ball :|
Case closed?


There may have been movement. Then again, it may have been an optical illusion. As for my opinion, I tend to agree with you....the Black very probably did move, wobble at least. However, to assume that any possible wobble of the Black that may be observed is automatically a result of contact with White is erroneous, to say the least. Balls on billiard tables can be seen to move slightly seemingly on their own quite regularly. Surely, you have seen it yourself. There have been times that balls have fallen into pockets of their own accord. Quite commonly, when balls are touching and the striker plays the White away, the "leaning" object ball will wobble slightly when White is struck. It doesn't mean a foul has occurred. Simply placing one's hand on or off the cloth is enough to transmit motion through the medium of the cloth fiber and can cause noticeable movement of surrounding balls (the same type of wobble we are suggesting here) and this can occur over quite a surprising distance. It does not necessarily indicate contact between balls.

One of the lesser touted possible causes of kicks is static electricity. We usually think of static as a "cling" effect, such as a sock sticking to a pair of blue jeans in the laundry. But the opposite is also potentially true....in some circumstances, static electricity can be a repulsive force so perhaps both White and Black had similar charges and repelled each other without touching. Don't believe that is possible? Look at this...

https://youtu.be/ce8wjs7K0aI?t=60

Of course, cloth is fabricated from interweaving threads causing high spots and low spots in the surface. So there are many possible explanations for what occurred. I am not arguing your point that the Black may in fact have moved. However, to dismiss the opinion of a recognized professional Referee as being wrong based on your own shady observation of an incident that has many possible explanations, some of which we may not even be aware, is rather bold of you to say the least.

I should add Selby was very probably quite confident that the Black moved. And he was probably quite correct...he had a similar vantage point as the camera and unless he has Superman's x-ray eyes, he also had no view of the required contact point. The Referee was literally the only one in the room properly positioned to make the call. Jan Verhaas asked the Marker his opinion on the matter (which is allowed by the Rules by the way) and he was going to change his ruling based on the Marker's opinion that it appeared to touch. But then the Marker retracted....he really had no way of knowing if there had been contact, even if in video replay he could see that there had been movement.

Re: That black...

Postby acesinc

Badsnookerplayer wrote:Hi Acesinc.

Reasoned and rational. Great video - never saw that before.


Hi Bad. I really do think that a repulsive static charge was responsible for that White/Green being unable to be put back into a touching ball circumstance. They were originally touching, stroke was played, White picked up some static charge in the process, and as a result, it simply refused to "stick" to the Green anymore. Strange to think that the balls are rolling around the table in a constant state of electrical flux, sometimes acting like a magnet, sometimes acting like tiny little force field "shields" from Star Trek.

I work with plastics in my line of work and static electricity is a contentious little bugger that must be dealt with as necessary. I am sure the table heaters don't help either. Notice how the sock crackles and pops when you peel it off the blue jeans hot out of the dryer? When it is cooled down, the attraction has weakened.

As of late, I am giving more credibility to the static theory for kicks. Amazing after all these years that we still don't have the definitive answer to that but I don't want to get off track of this thread.
Last edited by acesinc on 03 May 2017, edited 1 time in total.

Re: That black...

Postby Wildey

SnookerEd25 wrote:My feeling is, at the pace it was played at, if it had touched it would have been a touching ball. It was too slow to move the black significantly so, good call Jan.

not necessary the black could have rocked back

Re: That black...

Postby Scooper

So it seems that Jan made the right decision doesn't it? I mean regardless of whether there was contact, the fact that nobody can agree in 2 days of viral videos etc. shows that it didn't hit hard enough for the contact to be clear. And I think it's right for the ref to say it didn't hit unless you hit it hard enough for it to clearly be a hit.