Five Players You May Not Know Won The Masters

As the Masters progresses this year, I thought I would look back at some of the former winners of this prestigious event; some that may have been forgotten in time and once held this great Triple Crown. This can quite easily happen since this tournament has more multiple time winners than any other event.

Alan McManus (1994)

After turning professional in 1990, McManus’ most notable success came at the Masters in 1994 where he couldn’t have faced tougher opposition. Hendry had won the previous 5 Masters prior to their contest and had already built a 7-5 lead. McManus didn’t stumble though as the 23 y/o fought to a decider before winning his first and only Triple Crown title...so far.

Dennis Taylor (1987)

Following his memorable, late night win at the World Championship in 1985, Taylor decided that he would want to win his one and only Masters trophy in a similar fashion. Taylor battled Alex Higgins from 8-5 down to clinch four frames in a row to win in yet another deciding frame. Who would have thought that it would take over 30 years before a player from Northern Ireland would win another Triple Crown title?

Perrie Mans (1979)

South African Pot Black winner in 1977, Perrie Mans defeated Cliff Thorburn, Ray Reardon as well as Alex Higgins to win the Masters in 1979. What an impressive list of players to beat to achieve his most noteworthy victory. He also made the WSC final in 1978 where he lost out to Reardon 25-18.

Terry Griffiths (1980)

World Champion in 1979, Griffiths did well to follow up this win to claim his second Triple Crown. He beat Alex Higgins (that’s happened a few times) as well as John Spencer and Cliff Thorburn. Griffiths made the Masters final a further three times following his success in 1980 but wasn’t able to add to his collection.

Matthew Stevens (2000)

Requiring the World Championship to complete the Triple Crown, 2003 UK Championship winner ran through a distinguished list of competitors to succeed at the Masters in 2000 where he won his first Triple Crown. He defeated the defending champion, Higgins (John, not Alex - phew) as well as 1997 WSC winner Ken Doherty in the final. This was also the match where Doherty attempted that maximum break…you know which one.

Who has been your favourite Masters winner since the tournament commenced in 1975? Who do you think will succeed this week? Let me know what you think!

Masters 2016 - Throwback

One of my personal favourite tournaments, filled with classic matches, moments and a sheer dominant performance by the eventual winner; the 2016 Masters showcased an event to remember.

The 42nd Masters involved Shaun Murphy as defending champion losing out in the first round to Mark Allen. One of Murphy’s lost frames was via a forfeit where he failed to hit reds for 3 shots in a row.

The quarter-finals saw 2 heavyweight contests. Firstly, Trump and Robertson clashed in an epic which consisted of 6 century breaks between the players in a best-of-11 matchup. Trump did come out on top with a century in the final frame decider although he did lose in the semis against a formidable Barry Hawkins.

The second QF showdown involved O’Sullivan and Selby. Although O’Sullivan scraped by Williams in the first round, every match following that was just dominance. This was displayed in his match against Selby and the winning frame was one of the best frames of snooker you could ever see.

When someone mentions a frame of snooker being ‘one of the best’, it generally involves a hefty amount of safety play leading to an eventual resolution. This frame wasn’t exactly that formula but it was, in my opinion, the best counter clearance you could ever hope to see. In short, Selby made a comfortable 70 break but then failed to develop any more reds. After a few rounds of safety play, this led to O’Sullivan clearing the rest of the table with 73 (from a fairly unfavourable position) to take the match and progress to the semi-finals. Honestly, who wins a frame when they are 70 points down?

(There will probably be a future Instant Classic Short looking at this frame alone because it was just that good)

O’Sullivan’s semi-final match against Bingham was another top notch contest which displayed some of the best single shots of the whole tournament. In order to try and keep this short, I’d suggest watching Tequila’s ‘Absolute Essence of Ronnie O’Sullivan – Masters 2016’ video on YouTube.

That leads us to the finals. Hawkins vs O’Sullivan. Unfortunately for Hawkins, he wasn’t able to reproduce the form he brought out against Trump – but in all honesty, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference that day. After losing the first frame, O’Sullivan had ascended to a state beyond the realm of human, where he was simply untouchable. Not much else to say besides: he won 10 in a row.

The Masters 2016 remains as a personal favourite of mine. It had top-tier matches, countless memorable moments, a couple of my favourite frames of all time and a performance from a champion that can be compared to Tiger’s 2000 US Open win. That is the only golfing reference I know; don’t ruin me. The entire tournament was an Instant Classic for me.

Fun fact: Ronnie O’Sullivan took 8 months off playing Snooker before coming back to compete in the Masters that year! It was his first televised event that season! His performance won him £200,000 as well as equalling Hendry’s 6 Masters titles!

Types of Snooker Events (Ranking, Non-Ranking, Variant etc.)

This post mainly serves to outline the different types of events that are played throughout the typical snooker season. Surprisingly, there are more categories than just ‘Ranking’ and ‘Non-Ranking’ tournaments; so let’s dive into it and get the commonly known events out of the way.

Ranking events are your standard tournaments in which participation contributes to a players overall world ranking, depending on how well they perform. Tournaments include your Triple Crowns (except Masters), Home Nations and Coral Cup events. These tournaments which contribute to a players ranking can often determine whether they qualify for certain non-ranking events.

Non-ranking events do not contribute to a players world ranking position but they often involve tournaments which offer a high pay-out for the victor. Sometimes known as ‘invitational’ events because only certain players can participate based on either their rankings or performance in the previous iterations. Events include The Masters (including Shanghai), Champion of Champions and the Champions League. There are significantly fewer non-ranking tournaments than there are ranking.

Another variation of snooker events include, well, Variant Events. The best way to describe these are that they typically stray away from the conventional rulings of a typical snooker game. The most known (and only) variant tournaments are the 6-Red events – where games are played with only 6 reds on the table as opposed to the usual 15. Most would argue that the Shootout is a variant event as well because I think we can all agree, it’s no ranking event. Much like non-ranking and the rest of these types of events, they do not contribute to a players ranking.

The Seniors Events are another category of tournaments which has become increasingly involved in the snooker calendar. Last season there were only 3 events for retired and current players over 40 to compete in, but this has doubled for the 2019/20 campaign. Tournaments include senior equivalents of World and UK Championships, as well as Masters (including Irish) and the British Open.

The most common Team Event that takes place in snooker is the World Cup, normally played by countries that are represented by two of their best players (with the exception of China). This was most recently won by Scotland, who were represented by Higgins and Maguire. There have been other events which follow a similar format, like the Macau Masters last year, or the CVB challenge the year before. Team events aren’t a priority in the snooker calendar but normally, at least one event a year takes place.

Revived recently but worth knowing about, the Challenge Tour events are a series of tournaments which are played throughout the season by those outside the main tour. It serves as an environment for those lower ranked to compete where the top two finalists are given a two year Main Tour card. Previous Challenge Tour alumni include Bingham, Hawkins, Murphy and Gilbert.

Lastly, you have Pro-Am events. Most will know what these are but they allow professionals and amateur players to compete with each other. They are normally held towards the beginning of a season and some events, like the Pink Ribbon often raise proceeds for charity. Previous pro-ams include the Vienna and Belgium Open.

Considering how many tournaments are held in a typical season nowadays, it’s no surprise that there are so many different types of events. Are there any kinds of tournaments you want to see going forward? Should there be more variant events? Or perhaps you think some of these events aren’t necessary?

Fun fact: there used to be ‘minor-ranking’ tournaments up until 2016 which worked the same as ranking tournaments but just contributed less ranking points to a player’s tally.

How Snooker Tables Are Made

Previously, I explored the methods and materials which were involved with producing snooker balls (click here to read that). Now, we’re going to look at the table the game is played on. As you can imagine, a 12ft 6in table consists of a lot of raw materials and man-power to piece together, which can often be overlooked.

The two prominent raw materials required for a snooker table are the wood (for the frame and legs) and the slate (for the surface bed). Firstly, slate are the large flat pieces that make the surface of a snooker table; normally what resides beneath the cloth. Slate is a kind of clay-like, rock material which can be compressed and formed into the very thick, heavy slabs required for a table. Slate is also used for roofing and other areas of construction, but in much thinner sizes.

As opposed to one large piece of slate, the piece is divided into multiple slices to make transportation and assembly manageable, as well as minimise any chance of warping (often associated with wooden bed tables). Depending on how the slate has been divided, each piece can weigh up to 200kg and due to the nature of assembly, requires a few table-fitters to install. The substantial weight of the slate is necessary to provide a stable playing surface. Once the pieces are placed to form one large slate, the gaps between pieces are filled and filed to ensure a level playing surface.

Meanwhile, the wood required is cut down and shaped to size to form the legs and support beams for the table. The type of wood used varies among manufacturers but will typically use some kind of hardwood which is long lasting and holds screws/fittings well. Moisture is reduced in these wooden pieces to reduce chances of warping and buckling.

Once these primary materials come together along with the other necessary elements such as the cloths and pockets, the professional fitters begin assembly. All of the pieces they have will have already been sanded, filed and shaped to spec so that it can all be put together much like a puzzle.

Normally, the outer beams are placed atop the legs of the table, then supporting beams are inserted both ways from end-to-end to provide support. Due to the heavy materials involved, further support is built by adding metal support brackets wherever there are gaps in the framework so the slate has a strong base to lay on. The slate pieces are then rested on the top of the frame and slid next to each other precisely to ensure a smooth surface. Throughout this entire process, fitters are checking periodically to make sure of an even balance along the table. Levelling equipment is used with such accuracy that a piece of paper placed underneath will be recognised as throwing off an even balance on the surface.

For professional main-stage tournaments, before the slate is put on the under-table heaters are installed. Years before, this involved piping and tubing being placed inside the framework which resulted in inconsistent heating temperatures across the table but nowadays is just a thin layer of heated padding which can provide a consistent and regulated temperature.

One of the more difficult stages of assembly is applying the cloth tightly and securely to the slate and surrounding framework. The pockets are used as leverage points to be able to stretch the cloth as much as required to result in the fine running cloth that we’re used to seeing in-game. The cloth is secured using a significant number of staples or tacks so there’s no chance of the cloth coming apart.

The cushions/rails are then bolted to the edges of the slate. Pocket templates are used at this point to conform to sizing regulations set by the WPBSA. These are templates that haven’t changed for decades which can sometimes seem dubious considering how generous pockets can occasionally be. Lastly, the cloth is marked with the baulk cushion line, the break-off ‘D’ and the colour spots. Fitters only really have one shot at doing this so there is a lot of pressure on accuracy, even at this final stage.

Making a snooker table is a very labour intensive process and it’s easy for it to go unnoticed, unless it gets a TV spot in a Triple Crown tournament. It’s a procedure that requires a lot of concentration in key areas as even the smallest of hiccups will result in a noticeably uneven playing surface. Watching a team of fitters assemble a table is where you can truly appreciate the work involved in bringing the game of snooker to life.