For such a skilful sport, it’s amazing how often luck plays a part in snooker.
You have to feel sorry for Marco Fu after John Higgins fluked the black to beat him 6-4 in the Wembley Masters yesterday.
But Marco is level-headed enough to accept that the luck can go for you and against you. It’s often said that it ‘evens itself out in the end’ but this is by no means always the case.
Yet it is a part of the game, just like the weather is part of Test cricket: you feel that it shouldn’t play a part but it does and always will.
Some believe flukes should be outlawed. This is nonsensical. Players would have to start nominating pockets and the game would lose an important element.
It’s not just flukes. In most frames there are little rubs and nudges that can make a difference between snookering a player or not. A player can either go in-off or leave their opponent a tricky shot from the jaws of a pocket. A kick at a vital time can prevent a player from winning.
Frustrating, yes, but a constant factor in snooker.
In short: it’s part and parcel of the sport. The luck will go for Marco at some point in the future.
But yesterday it was against him at the cruellest possible time.
5 comments:
About evening itself ...
Yes Higgins was lucky and everyone is commenting on it because it was the black closing the deciding frame. However having watched the match, I think the run of the balls had gone favorably for Marco Fu especially before the MSI. To the point I have rarely seen Higgins so frustrated. True he lacked patience in frame four ... but he had gone in-off three times before MSI and Fu had got away with a few mistakes leaving nothing on...
Marco Fu had plenty of luck as well last night.
He won 2 frames because of 2 fluked reds at the beginning of the break, and he won the 4th frame because of Higgins bad luck on the brown.
I for one would like something to be done about flukes.
Even players who have benefited from them have shown expressions of embarrassment and disgust a few times. I bet they don't like to see their merits dismissed because of that.
Mig
I know what you are saying Dave, but the fact is that the fluke played no part in the other 5 frames John Higgins won, it would have been worse had the score been 5 - 5 and Higgins flukes the last ball to win, but as it stood it was 5- 4.
Baby Jenx
... and flukes and kicks are part of what makes Snooker so interesting. They give the sport an unpredictable component and so more tension,
He was blessed, that's all.
Joking aside, I think in the vast majority of cases, players aren't really that bothered or embarrassed if they fluke a ball. Obviously they may acknowledge the fact that they have fluked (that's just for show, or to be polite), but they are so competitive that they'll take any luck that comes their way. At other times luck may go against them, so why make a big deal? When I play my sister, I don't feel sorry for her at all when I fluke.
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