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Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Cloud Strife

TheRocket wrote:This hit and hope thing gets more attention than it deserves. He did it only 3 or 4 times and the only time he actually got away with it was the last one in the decider.

When you watch Selbys salty interview you'd think he did it throughout the whole match.

It was the agressive style of play in general which was the key to win this match. And thats a very legit strategy. Going for a few risky pots and shots changed the rhytm of the match and put Selby out of his comfort zone.

He overpowered and outscored Selby in the final session.


+1

Great post. Too much has been made of, at most, a handful of hit and hope shots and this so-called kamikaze snooker Ronnie’s supposed to have played in those last three frames.

It wasn't kamikaze at all, it was normal snooker. It just happened to be normal snooker played to a very high level.

People are letting Selby’s whining afterwards cloud their judgement as to what actually happened.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Pink Ball

He played hit-and-hope snooker for about three frames at most, and the last three frames were not among them. Okay, he might have got in with very aggressive shots, but they happened to be beautifully played. Virtually every shot after that was pretty bog-standard potting-wise because his positioning was superb.

It was largely controlled aggression. Sensational snooker.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Wildey

Cloud Strife wrote:
TheRocket wrote:This hit and hope thing gets more attention than it deserves. He did it only 3 or 4 times and the only time he actually got away with it was the last one in the decider.

When you watch Selbys salty interview you'd think he did it throughout the whole match.

It was the agressive style of play in general which was the key to win this match. And thats a very legit strategy. Going for a few risky pots and shots changed the rhytm of the match and put Selby out of his comfort zone.

He overpowered and outscored Selby in the final session.


+1

Great post. Too much has been made of, at most, a handful of hit and hope shots and this so-called kamikaze snooker Ronnie’s supposed to have played in those last three frames.

It wasn't kamikaze at all, it was normal snooker. It just happened to be normal snooker played to a very high level.

People are letting Selby’s whining afterwards cloud their judgement as to what actually happened.

Too Much or not fact is he did play hit and hope im sure you would love if we all had a memory loss and forget a % of the match fact is it happened.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

If a player like Ronnie plays a hit and hope shot, it's not the same as if an amateur plays a hit and hope shot. There's more to it with Ronnie. He makes it seem like he doesn't care, but I think he knows what he's doing a lot more than he makes it seem. I was watching some old Alex Higgins matches on youtube, and when Alex was snookered he sometimes used to play aggressive escapes very similar to those Ronnie played and he often got very similar results as well.

In the end, it worked against Selby because Selby wants to slow the game down. He wants Ronnie to slow down and think and play careful shots... We all see Selby walking around the table and thinking when we all know he already knows what he's going to do. He wants Ronnie to lose his rhythm. He wants to annoy him and he often does. Ronnie wants the opposite, and he found a way to force the opposite. And he found a way to annoy Selby, just like Selby found ways to annoy Ronnie by slowing everything down and making frames scrappy...

In the end, if Ronnie played a lot of hit and hope shots and still won the match, it means he was the better player by a mile when he was playing seriously.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Wildey

Hit and Hope is Hit and hope god the amount of times Judd been accused of hitting balls hard to fluke them on here and now all of a sudden they are controlled flukes if they come off.


Yea right <doh>

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Wildey

Look mate nothing at all wrong with Ronnies tactics it worked, and he won nothing else is important but lets not dress it up as something its not just call spade a spade.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby mick745

Selby let O'Sullivan off the hook in the third session, at 13-9 he had a chance to push on but O'Sullivan found a way back into the match. However, Selby seemed to be suggesting that it was an incident in that 23rd frame that O'Sullivan had been guilty of gamesmanship. Obviously we dont know if it was deliberate or not but if O'Sullivan was trying to unsettle Selby then the tactic worked. Selby obviously let himself get unsettled though.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

I think Ronnie has learned a lot about psychology from Steve Peters. One minute he's banging his fist on the table and looks like he's fed up, the next he's looking cool as a cucumber knocking in incredible pressure shots and clearing up. You want to make the frame slow and scrappy by putting him in tough safeties? He doesn't care, doesn't waste time, just has a bit of fun with it. You leave him something? He pots it. What he's actually doing is not letting things get to him, not thinking negative things.. He's dominating the game. He's not playing his opponents game. Selby could not deal with it.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

I think Ronnie would rather gift Selby a scrappy frame so he doesn't lose his rhythm and can knock in big breaks in the other frames so he gets stronger instead of weaker. If he gets lucky and the hit and hope works, great. If he's not lucky, also great, on with the next. How faster the tempo of the match is, how better Ronnie gets and the more uncomfortable Selby gets. In the last 3 frames, Ronnie had become too strong, he was in the zone. Selby was shell shocked.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

TheRocket wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKux4Lce9FA&t=28m10s

Stephen Hendry and ROS chitchat during the lockdown. They talk about the 2014 World final and what ROS would have done different if he had the opportunity to play that match again. In this years semifinal he did exactly what he said he would do.

:hatoff:

This proves exactly what I'm saying. Ronnie has thought about this and he has found a way to play his own game against Selby. He knows Selby got to him in 2014 and he knows he would have won had he not lost his rhythm.

"I would rather lose a couple of frames, but keep my rhythm", he says in that vid. That's exactly what I was saying. What he did in this semi was brilliant.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Pink Ball

I think what he did in the last five or six frames was a roll of the dice, no doubt. But in the frames it worked, it was spell-binding. And in those last three frames he hardly played a single hit-and-hope shot, to be fair. There were a few, but not many.

It was a bit like the famous Alex Higgins clearance spread across three frames in terms of the magic of it.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby eraserhead

You don't rack up 250+ unanswered points without playing great snooker. Hopefully now we can call a spade a spade, no one will ever get mad when Selby gets called a slow, boring grinder. :chuckle:

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

It was nice to see Ronnie getting the upper hand in the psychological mind games department, and winning a match against Selby playing exactly the way he wants to play. Ronnie's 44 years old and he's still finding new ways to beat his biggest opponents and he can still win the World Championship playing all-out attacking snooker. That's just brilliant.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

The way he played in this semifinal reminded me of his match against Higgins in the CoC quarters. Higgins got sucked into O'Sullivans power scoring game.

It is a risk but it can be a worthy risk. If you always play the right shot, which means going for pots which are straightforward or playing it in a 'shot to nothing' way you wont be able to push Higgins or Selby out of their comfort zone.

And Robertson on the other hand has pretty much shown how you shouldnt do it. He tried to play their game and failed miserably.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

TheRocket wrote:The way he played in this semifinal reminded me of his match against Higgins in the CoC quarters. Higgins got sucked into O'Sullivans power scoring game.

It is a risk but it can be a worthy risk. If you always play the right shot, which means going for for pots which are straightforward or playing it in a 'shot to nothing' way you wont be able to push Higgins or Selby out of their comfort zone.

And Robertson on the other hand has pretty much shown how you shouldnt do it.

Indeed. Robertson did exactly what he shouldn't do.

I love listening to Hendry's commentary during the Ronnie v Selby semi. You could tell he was loving it when Ronnie came out guns blazing in the last frames. He was really praising Ronnie's attacking long pots and brilliant break building.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

TheRocket wrote:The way he played in this semifinal reminded me of his match against Higgins in the CoC quarters. Higgins got sucked into O'Sullivans power scoring game.

To be fair it wasn’t anywhere near as batshit as that match. That was one of the craziest matches I’ve seen. It wasn’t just the power scoring, Higgins got sucked into playing at Ronnie’s pace, too. He was so flustered he was practically running around the table; you’d think a taxi driver was behind him!

Ronnie was also far more aggressive in the CoC match. Higgins actually had a far better case for saying Ronnie disrespecting him than Selby did, if he had wanted to.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Pink Ball

Iranu wrote:
TheRocket wrote:The way he played in this semifinal reminded me of his match against Higgins in the CoC quarters. Higgins got sucked into O'Sullivans power scoring game.

To be fair it wasn’t anywhere near as batshit as that match. That was one of the craziest matches I’ve seen. It wasn’t just the power scoring, Higgins got sucked into playing at Ronnie’s pace, too. He was so flustered he was practically running around the table; you’d think a taxi driver was behind him!

Ronnie was also far more aggressive in the CoC match. Higgins actually had a far better case for saying Ronnie disrespecting him than Selby did, if he had wanted to.

But Higgins wouldn’t do that because he knows when he’s been licked and can accept it.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Holden Chinaski

Acé wrote:only Eraserhead knew what Ronnie was doing in the SF, he was bloody spot on with EVERYTHING when you go back and read the live reactions

Hat off to him :hatoff: . To be fair, me and Dan always said Ronnie would win, but we didn't post much cause the negativity was too much.
Last edited by Holden Chinaski on 28 Aug 2020, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Acé

Pink Ball wrote:
Acé wrote:only Eraserhead knew what Ronnie was doing in the SF, he was bloody spot on with EVERYTHING when you go back and read the live reactions

True. I was fit to shoot O’Sullivan over frame 30.


best part was you coming back with "huh?"

lmao stunned

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby Iranu

Pink Ball wrote:But Higgins wouldn’t do that because he knows when he’s been licked and can accept it.

Yep. Although it was also a far less emotional loss than Selby’s. I doubt Selby would have said anything after a CoC quarter final either. But you’d have to say Higgins probably wouldn’t have said anything after a world semi loss either.

Re: Ronnie O’Sullivan: 'I’m only 70% of the player I was'

Postby TheRocket

I might start to believe in the Snookergods. If Selby had won this he would be sitting on 4 world titles, same as John Higgins, one behind ROS. And just imagine if Selby really ends up having more world titles than O'Sullivan and Higgins.

That would be so wrong.