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Today I read about Snooker as the “most difficult” billiard discipline in the highly esteemed Berlin Tagesspiegel for the 20th time. I can’t hear it anymore!
Disclaimer: I have respect for all snooker players and I really appreciate the game. I just refuse to listen to this tale of the most difficult billiards game every time. I refuse to accept condescending looks or comments (“Oh… just pool?”) from snooker players who have only known for half a year how to hold a cue. Or even better, from Snooker-binging couch potatoes who never had a cue in their hand before but know exactly that everything is very easy in pool.
So, now that I let off some steam we can start to compare the two varieties. Where does the assessment that snooker is the most difficult billiard discipline come from? Clearly this is because it is more difficult to sink a ball than in any other billiard game (pyramid players may grumble). The pockets are smaller, the table is bigger, the corners of the pockets are rounded, Rolf Kalb has repeated that many times. And for the layman, sinking balls is everything, i. e. snooker = the most difficult discipline. This is similar to comparing the rapid fire pistol with skeet shooting, because in one discipline the target may be smaller, but it moves in the other, but the weapon also scatters… (I don’t know anything about shooting.)
Supporters of this way of thinking make the mistake of believing that there is an absolutely measurable optimum in one sport, a clearly definable maximum performance that is easier to achieve in one variant than in the other. Far from it! A game is always as difficult as I master it or not. There is no optimum, one can always do it better. The level of difficulty always depends on my skill and that of my opponent.
Some parts of snooker are much easier to execute, for example safeties, because balls are so difficult to sink. Every missed shot is a safety immediately! Shot-to-nothing, we don’t know anything like that in pool. Or the duration of an inning: In snooker, the pros have to shoot a maximum of 36 balls at a time, in pool there are sometimes up to 150 balls, that is one hour of play at a time without losing concentration.
I don’t want to argue that pool billiards is the more difficult game. They cannot be compared because they are different games. Both games are billiards, but they differ technically and tactically. It is not without reason that good snooker or pool players can keep up well with each other in the other discipline (and not without reason they can’t achieve the big successes in the foreign discipline).
Snooker is a great game, pool (and of course also carom, bowling, pyramid and all other disciplines I don’t know). Each discipline is difficult and demanding in its own way. So please, dear Tagesspiegel, please, please, dear Rolf Kalb, please don’t always tell me that Snooker is the most demanding billiard game! I am available for any journalist at the Tagesspiegel for technical discussions.
