What is Snookers One-Year Ranking and Provisional Seedings List? (Part 1)

The first post on this website looked at how the snooker ranking system worked. Click here to read the original post. This will look more specifically at the One-Year ranking list and Provisional Seedings (Part 2) and how they are used for upcoming tournaments.

The One-Year list looks at the ranking position of each player based on their performance in the current season only. The official world rankings incorporate the accumulation of the previous 2 years’ worth of ranking points on a rolling basis whilst the One-Year list excludes these previous amounts. Again, this is on a ranking basis, so O’Sullivan’s £200,000 win at Shanghai will contribute nothing to this list. On the other hand, Yan Bingtao’s win at the Riga Masters has positioned himself nicely at No. 3 on the One-Year rankings.

Certain tournaments, namely the Coral Cup events have a structure where those who are qualified to enter are selected based on how much ranking prize money they have earned in the 2019/20 season. Given that each of these events are positioned in the latter half of the season provide enough time and opportunity for players to build up their ranking points to qualify for these events.

Considering most ranking and invitational events use the rolling system and provisional seeding method, the Coral Cup seems to be the only set of tournaments that strictly look at a single season’s performance, without taking into account past seasons. Another unique quality that makes it among my favourite events besides Triple Crown. It brings the season’s best performers together.

For example, let’s look at the One-Year list as it stands and take John Higgins who is positioned 16th (at the time) with £13500 thanks to his Last 16 venture in the International Championship. This is the only ranking event he has competed in until the China Championship. If Higgins were to make it to the semis of the tournament, it would pretty much guarantee a Top 5 position in the One-Year list with the additional £32000 added to his tally. If he made the finals, or even won; significantly better for his One-Year position. The only person really safe in these rankings at the moment is Trump with his International Championship win.

This was the simple part. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Short which will look at the explanation of Provisional Seedings and how they are used in the context of world rankings.

Helpful links:

One-Year Ranking List: http://www.worldsnooker.com/rankings/1-year-ranking-list/

SightRight - What is it?

It’s something that we’ve been hearing from commentators in recent years quite a fair amount, particularly from the perspective of players such as Williams, Bingham and Gould; but what exactly is ‘SightRight’ and how is it different to conventional methods of practice?

Inventor of SightRight, Stephen Feeney has coached players as early as Terry Griffiths and Stephen Hendry in the late 90s/early 00s but it seems that in the past few years he has been making more headway and gaining more recognition for the coaching techniques that he provides to his students. This was most noticeable during WSC 2018 where you could see World Champion Mark Williams close his eyes on some of his shots – and then pot them!

Feeney also coaches using his techniques in Darts and Golf, as well as Snooker. It mainly aims at using ‘sighting and alignment routines’ to significantly increase a player’s accuracy when it comes to competing in these particular sports.

Where players are likely to focus on their cue action as an area of improvement, SightRight looks at enhancing your perspective of potting angles as well as your sighting behind each shot. This, in turn will lead to improved potting accuracy as well as break building. That’s not to say that SightRight doesn’t look at aspects of your game such as cue action and stance. There’s just more of a focus on lining up the shot with your eyes as opposed to your body.

Snooker is a game which relies heavily on precision and accuracy which is where the methods of something like SightRight would prove to be useful in a players training. However, the methods of SightRight were not warmly received during its early years. Surprisingly enough, one of the players who thought there was no merit to these techniques was Williams!

However, after the success of players like Bingham and Williams, Feeney has been seeing an increase in his clientele. A lot of seasoned players who have the fundamentals locked in may look at SightRight and various other methods to see if it sparks a surge in their game or improve their consistency. These players may even look at it as a motivator to practice and revitalise their hunger for the game. And the testimonials on his website speak for themselves regarding his effectiveness.

What do you think about SightRight? Do you think it has its merits or something that doesn’t add much to a player’s game?

What are Snooker Balls made from?

Historically, snooker/billiards balls would be fashioned out of wood. Yes, wood. But this was in the games infancy. To be honest, snooker wasn’t officially invented yet. Understandably, wood carved billiards balls were not up to scratch and wouldn’t survive the frequent impact that occurs in a cue sport. So what followed?

Following the usage of wooden (and sometimes clay) billiard balls the successor material that would then be used for a significant period of time was ivory. Ivory is a tough substance that can be compared to tooth enamel. Contextually speaking, in the world of snooker ball manufacturing, elephant tusks were used for production.

Consequently, this soon became a problem in the 1800s because elephants were being used by the thousands to sustain ivory ball production thus, facing extinction. There were also additional problems faced with ivory balls including inconsistent weights and density which would cause kicks and unreliable play. There were also tendencies for balls for change shape during the course of play due to the material. Additionally, these materials made it harder to replicate the kind of cue ball control we see today.

American inventor John Wesley Hyatt came up with Celluloid which is a synthetic plastic which offered a more flexible, tough material. Celluloid is often used in the filming world. However, the problem with this was that Celluloid contained flammable and combustible elements which would occasionally lead to snooker/billiards balls exploding on impact. Yes, you read that correctly.

This led to the development of various types of plastic and it was in the 1950s where Phenolic Resin took the throne of snooker and billiard ball production. It’s effectively a synthetic compound which can be moulded and hardened to form the shape of a snooker ball. It’s also used to produce numerous home and electrical appliances. This type of resin is also scratch and chip resistant proving useful in a cue sport.

When it comes to actually manufacturing snooker balls, the heated resin is poured into a pre-coloured mould (sometimes injected in the mould to avoid bubbles). Once solidified and polished, balls which are similar in weight are grouped together then sent off to the final production stages. And that’s it!

---

Like this Short? Click here to read: How Snooker Tables Are Made

Have an idea for a Short post? Feel free to get in touch using the social media links below! Thanks for reading!

How do sponsorships work?

Snooker is a pretty classy sport which is displayed by the ‘uniform’ that players are required to wear during tournaments. On these uniforms it’s very easy to see a number of logos presented on their waistcoats. These relate to the sponsorship arrangements players have with these companies and are effectively like a business transaction. I mean, who can forget Judd Trump and Burger King. Name a more iconic duo; I’ll wait.

Effectively, players are approached by these companies – in the context of snooker, these are most likely betting companies – and they offer players benefits such as paying for travel, tournament fees, and sometimes providing free products or equipment. In exchange, players must proudly display the company’s logos on their clothes for all to see. Since a lot of events are televised, this is a huge advertising stint which these companies are backing on to boost their commercial growth.

For those in the upper echelon, it’s quite easy to get approached for sponsorships deals. Generally, the players that are frequently in televised (major) events or constantly in the snooker headlines will have a larger selection of opportunities to choose from. Having sponsorship/brand deals can help relieve some of the financial pressures associated with the sport. Click here to read more about the costs of being a snooker player. However, not all are fortunate or in the position to have sponsorship deals come to them.

A lot of young players/those starting out tend to look for sponsorship opportunities and they are the ones approaching various companies as opposed to the other way round. Although, like stated earlier, it is very much like a business transaction in how these deals are completed.

No business is just going to offer sponsorship and money without getting something in return. The player requesting sponsorship will need to be able to add some kind of value to the business which will improve their position commercially. For example, if the player has a large social media following or has a steadily increasing TV presence, it would be useful for the business to stick their logo on this player.

It’s not just the players that can benefit from sponsorships. Most events in World Snooker also do business with various companies to sponsor tournaments. A significant number of tournaments will have a sponsoring tournament pre-fixed to the name of the event. Examples include the Dafabet Masters, Betway UK Championship, Kaspersky Riga Masters, Coral Cup series and who could forget the legendary, former ‘Embassy World Championship’ where a commentator would be struck down by Thor himself if he did not mention the word Embassy when saying the World Championship.

It’s pretty much a win-win for those involved in a brand deal as players are aided in the financial costs of snooker while World Snooker are able to put the money they get from these deals into allocating a higher prize fund for that selected tournament. Then of course, there’s the advertising for the businesses involved. But what I think is done well with snooker is that these ‘plugs’ are not obnoxious in the way social media brand deals are done where they are ‘in your face’. I mean, how much Fit Tea can one person possibly want?