summary:
On the evening of April 23, Beijing time, the first round of the 2019 Snooker World Championship entered the fourth day of the competition. In a focus battle that attracted attention, "Rockets" Ronnie O'Sullivan was shockingly unpopular, and eventually lost to amateur player James Cahill with an 8-10 score, saying goodbye to this year's World Championship stage in this round of games! Judging from the games in recent days, the famous veterans represented by "75 Three Masters " are exhausted, and this seems to be related to the recovery of the slimming of the table in this year's World Championships -
"Rockets" World Championships first round
World Championships five-winning champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was eliminated in the first round, and this result also stirred up the qualifying situation in the second half of this competition. Judging from the entire game between O'Sullivan and James Cahill, the Rockets played too casually, and the mistakes of the key ball, the speed of the shots too fast and the offense and defense choices are all very confusing. After finally chasing the big score from 5-8 to 8 to tie 8-8, O'Sullivan, who "destroyed his ambition" in the second stage, failed to clear the spot color balls under the good situation of the 17th game, especially the bottom angle of the last pink ball did not steal the thick corner of the bag. In the case of a slight mistake in calling the ball, he failed to use the usual way of plugging and forced the call to the last black ball, resulting in the final loss of the result of this game. Looking at the whole game, the two sides made too many mistakes. The two men played at least twice in each game. In the final statistics, the success rate of the batting was O'Sullivan 89% and Cahill 88% failed to exceed 90% of the standard line. According to my careful observation in recent days, the 2019 Snooker World Championships of this year seems to have returned to the traditional 85mm standard, which is very different from the large snooker table last year!
in the 17th game lost the key pink ball
Take the most critical pink ball error in this game as an example. Excluding other factors, from the perspective of pure technology, this is a forced adjustment after a high-stop rod steals thick angle. Unfortunately, the bag mouth of this year's World Championship seems to have certain restrictions on this style of play, and the goal standard has been improved due to the shrinking of the bag mouth. Judging from many games in recent days, the goal rate and call smoothness of the contestants have decreased significantly compared with last year, which is due to the decrease in the inclusion rate of the stick method under the premise of ensuring goals. Judging from the game scenes of veteran players such as "75 Three Masters", the number of situations that have been repeatedly competed has increased. Both John Higgins and Mark Williams and both failed to eliminate their opponents with a score of 10-7, and "Rockets" O'Sullivan even lost the game with a score of 8-10. Not only that, even the post-80s representative Mark Selby , who scored the first time in the Cruzburg main game, was behind with a big score of 1-5. The psychological fatigue can be clearly seen when resting between the games. After the baggage of the World Championships table returned to the previous 85mm standard, the players, especially the famous veterans, felt fluctuated on-the-spot game. The goals that were still scored last year are no longer scored, and fewer goals that were lucky enough to fall. Such changes are reflected in the fact that players need to focus more energy on target goals, and the tolerance of the stick method that can be assigned to the call position will become much more cautious!
defending champion Williams
At the 2018 Snooker World Championships last year, we have seen too many bag-shaped "sliding goals" scenes. The size of the bag and the high tolerance give players more space to adjust the next call range of the cue ball, and at the same time, it also improves the down ball rate of long tables and single ball accuracy. After such inadvertent adjustments and changes, the enlargement of the bag mouth and the alignment of the famous veterans are the biggest improvement! The author once mentioned it in previous articles, and this article discusses this topic in detail.Some people may say that everyone is the same big ball table, and everyone is the same small ball table, so where is the difference between caring for veterans and suppressing newcomers? It’s not that different players change to another table when they play one shot. When everyone plays on the same table, isn’t it fair competition at any time under the same conditions? In fact, this is not the case! There is a very clever tilt treatment hidden in it, which has subtle differences in the age and style of players.
"75 Three Heroes" 2 met last year in the finals
Taiwan United's biggest beneficiary of expanding the baggage of the World Championships last year was Mark Williams, one of the "75 Three Heroes". Judging from the results, Williams' style of playing perfectly confirms the pros and cons of the big baggage table on the players. After the World Championships went deep into the long game system, the first thing that faced the frontal conversations between the top 16 players was the success rate of taking the long stage. From the key games of the World Championships semi-finals and finals in the past years, we can see that without making a move to the long stage, you cannot take the initiative in a single game. In a tense situation, the opponent always gets tens of points first and is always in a passive pursuit. When the goal rate and safety ball data are basically the same, the leader of the long-term team is often the last winner of the game. Taking the game between an offensive player and a defensive player as an example, the long-stage goal rate of an offensive player can reach about 65%, while the long-stage goal rate of a defensive player can only reach about 50%. Moreover, due to the different degree of expertise in Pinchangtai, the specific model data of the offense and defense two are not a simple gap like 13/20 vs. 10/20, but a larger number of gaps (similar to the feeling of 20/30 vs. 10/20). Under the probability distribution that if you don’t try to score a long-range game, offensive players will obviously benefit more from the odds of scoring from the long-range game due to the expansion of the bag. Don’t underestimate such nuances. In the stage where the World Championships go deep into 25 games and even 13 wins or even 33 games and 17 wins, this subtle probability tilt can accumulate about 2 to 3 games for players who are good at attacking, which is a very big number!
World Championship poster has caused controversy
But it should be noted that the expansion of the baggage of the ball table at last year's World Championships does not mean that players who can compete in the long stage can win the game. The reason why "golden left hand" Mark Williams can win Jimmy Robertson, Milkins , Ali Carter, Barry Hawkins and John Higgins to win the final championship is still inseparable from the ball-ball skills and comprehensive strength he has accumulated over the years. This is also the key to why a group of young players failed to go far and win the cup even under the favorable conditions of expanding the baggage. Check out the distribution of the top four players in the 2018 World Championships. Except for the representative player born in the 1990s, Karen Wilson, who was born in 1991, the other three are players born in the 1970s (Ma Wei in 1975, Higgins in 1975, Hawkins in 1979). Including the first round of Joe Perry's upset defeat of the defending champion Selby , the games in last year's World Championships almost all have been the elderly side defeating the younger side since the quarterfinals. Mark Williams, who has been in modest form in recent years, has reached the top again in the World Championships after 15 years. Judging from the results, it is still somewhat surprising. Perhaps it was because of the fact that the tilt strategy of taking care of the veteran was a bit too much. The International Taiwan Federation's publicity attitude at this year's World Championships was full of imagination. The image of "Golden Left Hand" Williams was placed so sideways on the poster (above), and the attitude towards the defending champions had never had before.
Hendley's small baggage era
Maybe some people will say that after the Taiwan Union expanded the table baggage twice in 2002 and 2008, why did the "Billiard Emperor" Stephen Hendry's long-table offensive style fail to make a profit? The author believes that there are two reasons: First, the two expanded ball bags are both expanded in proportion to "balls" and "bags" (4.875cm+78mm; 5.125cm+82mm; 5.25cm+85mm), which is essentially different from the change in directly increasing the bag mouth (5.25cm+87mm) when the diameter of the balls remains unchanged; the second is the fundamental reason, that is, after the peak of his career, Hendry's personal absolute strength declined, and the expansion of the ball bag bags is not enough to make up for the decline in his overall level. In other words, only active snooker players who have been playing for one year to this year can participate in the discussion on the size of the table pockets in the past two years. The player opportunity comes after
85?
Back to this year's Snooker World Championships, after 4 match days of players' appearances and in-depth competitions, it can be seen that the post-70s veterans have struggled after returning to normal on the table. In addition to the result of the two of the "Three Masters of 75" who struggled to defeat their qualifying opponents with a score of 10-7 and the Rockets" O'Sullivan simply eliminated, the nearly 36-year-old representative player Mark Selby has also shown signs of fatigue. The gray hair and expression of the previous generation of snooker kings when they were resting between the games is a little sad. From this perspective, the favorites to win this event will be tilted towards the younger generation of players. The former representatives of 85 have , Neil Robertson, and , Sean Murphy, and . The latter representatives of 85 are the two old rivals who are expected to have direct conversations in the second round of the World Championships. Due to the unexpected exit of "Rockets" O'Sullivan, there is only one seed player in the district, Stephen Maguire, . The winner of the two Tingts directly reached the semi-finals of this World Championships. The hope of gaining a lot of attention. Whether you can seize such an opportunity depends on your performance!
(text/Yu Wuxin)
