Snooker Best Shots Welsh Open 2023 Recreated

Is it even possible to play this Sean Murphy shot and the other top 15 shots from the Welsh Open? Well, as usual, I'm going to be finding out by attempting to recreate all of them as accurately as possible and in the fewest possible attempts. But we're going to begin with Ronnie O'Sullivan, who's found himself in a really awkward position where he can't pot the red that's over the pocket, but it's also very difficult to leave this completely safe. So he cannons into the red off the pack, splitting everything everywhere and ends up in position on a colour. On my first attempt, I just decided to power into the red as hard as I could off the pack and the side's just there to help me make the angle. Then I noticed this wouldn't come back and discovered on Ronnie's shot a red actually kicked the cue ball back up the table. I knew I couldn't rely on this happening, so I had no choice but to power the cue ball into the reds and hope for the best. And on my fourth attempt, I got lucky. I actually potted it with side off the top cushion first and it ended up putting me in perfect position. Next up, we have Sean Murphy in such good form, he's attempting a Judd Trump-like exhibition shot to get himself in position on the yellow. And he manages to play it really well, judging the side perfectly around the cushions, although this guy in the audience doesn't seem too impressed. Maybe because it's a standard exhibition shot that I've played several times before in previous videos, but that still doesn't make it easy. For example, on my first attempt, I didn't quite manage to hit it hard enough and didn't get past the blue spot, which meant I had to strike the cue ball a little bit harder. And because my bridge hand was so close to the cushion already, it meant the pot was a little bit more challenging. However, I finally managed to get it on my fifth attempt and get the cue ball around the table far enough. I was just a little bit too close to the blue, but good enough. From Sean Murphy playing a Judd Trump-like exhibition shot, we moved on to Judd himself, who's looking to get in position nicely on the red here, but he's doing it when the frame is still live. And this actually ended up going wrong for Judd, as he missed the very next black and ended up losing both the frame and the match. However, for myself, after playing the previous Sean Murphy shot, this actually seemed a lot easier, as I didn't have to play the cue ball so far. I actually slightly overhit this, but could still see the red. Mark Williams is trying to get from pink to black next, but things have gotten a bit awkward with the cue ball being so close to the side cushion and him being very close to the pink at the same time. I only just included this shot because it seemed pretty straightforward and I assumed I'd get it on my first attempt. However, because the cue ball was so close to the cushion, I ended up bouncing it into the pink on the first couple of shots, and it was actually quite hard to stun. Now, hopefully, for the shot you've all been waiting for, the right to Sean Murphy snooker escape off the jaws of the pocket. Let's see if this is even possible and how many attempts it's likely to take. I was wondering when I saw this shot what type of spin you need on the cue ball to make it jump to the right as far as possible off the bulk cushion, and I discovered it didn't really make too much difference as a spin was created off the jaws, so I just played it with a small amount of topspin. I was expecting this one to be really difficult, but ended up nearly getting it on my second attempt when I pushed the red into the jaw. But I was actually pretty happy it didn't go in because the cue ball didn't go as far to the left and then spin back as much as I would have liked it to. It went fairly straight, and I was trying to get the same sort of reaction as Sean, but it was after a few attempts that I started to notice the real difficulty of this shot was that it was easy to get the cue ball to run up the side cushion or spin away towards the blue. The direction it seemed to be hardest to make the cue ball travel after it struck the jaws was just to the right of the green spot, and obviously that's where I needed it to go. After about 10 or so shots, however, I started to understand where I needed to strike a little better and started to become a little bit more accurate, and I was pretty pleased to finally get this in the end, even though the cue ball didn't quite go in the right direction afterwards. Robert Milkins is next, skillfully knocking one ball in off another, and before anyone suggests it was a fluke, he did have a look at it for quite some time. This is one of those shots where it's a little bit more important to set the balls up in the right place than it is to play it accurately. That said, because I'm digging down quite a bit to screw the cue ball off the top cushion here, you do need a pretty good strike, and I was pretty pleased with how close I was able to get with each attempt, and slowly learnt the shot. I didn't quite screw it back enough in the end, but ended up in pretty good position on the pink. Joe Perry is next with one of the best snookers of the week. Mark King didn't look like he wanted to get out of his chair after this one. When you're playing a shot over this distance and have a very small area to land the cue ball in, one of the hardest things to get right is the speed of the shot, so even though my first attempt didn't quite go right in terms of direction, I was pretty encouraged by the fact that the pace of the shot was definitely there, and this made it a lot easier on my second attempt to find the right line and get nicely in behind the yellow. Just not quite as tight as Joe. Ding Chung Wee's playing a really complex shot next up. I'm not sure if this one was missable, but it was certainly a great spot. And I'm not sure I would have seen it. However, what made it even better is he ended up cutting the brown in and clearing up to win the frame. With this one, I just had to strike the red in the right place and hope I set everything up okay, which I did, and I even very nearly got in between the green and brown. On to Yancy Jun next, attempting a really brave double when the frame was still live. It may well have been he couldn't see another shot, but it certainly worked out for him as he ended up clearing up and winning the match. This wasn't even his first double of the break, as he doubled the red to get on the black in the first place and just run a little bit out of position, but this really was a confident shot. I slightly overhit this one, but got it on my first attempt. Ronnie O'Sullivan is next, playing a very difficult type of double, powering the cue ball in to make the right angle and finish in position on the black. What makes this shot difficult is how straight it is and the amount of power you need to get around the back of the black. And on my first attempt, I struggled to play it straight enough, although somehow managed to end up with a miraculous looking fluke. It took me a few goes to get the angle right at this speed, but once I had, I finished perfectly on the black. So who had the cheekiest double? Cue the music. Ronnie played a great shot to power the red in and finish nicely on the black, but it'll be marked down because he missed it and lost the frame, so he only receives three chillies. Whereas Yuan played one of the cheekiest doubles I've seen all year, considering the situation of the match. So he receives five chillies and he's this week's winner. Sean Murphy's next, finishing off the frame with a difficult long black. This is such an awkward shot up the cushion that I feel most players would have turned it down and played the really straightforward safety shot. And this just demonstrates how confident Sean appears to be in his cueing right now, because as you can see on my first few attempts, I wobbled it in the pocket, even though I got really close and would have ended up leaving it on for my opponent. I think I was a little bit unlucky with this one. I got very, very close to it on a few occasions. It just didn't quite wobble in, and five attempts seemed a little bit too many for this shot. We've got another Robert Milken shot coming up next, after we find Alistair from Colburn, Scotland, which is there. I've included this next shot because it was pretty much the tournament winner for Robert Milken's, as it got him on a break that got him over the line in the deciding frame. And rolling the ball in across the table off the cushion like this is really difficult to do under pressure, so I was pretty happy to get this after just one attempt. Next up, an important pot in the middle pocket for Dominic Dale, as it helped him secure an impressive win over Neil Robertson. Even though Neil didn't play well in this match, Dominic still needed to make big pots like this one to get himself over the line. Once again, this one just needed a relatively good pot, and as long as you played it at the right speed, you're going to finish on the black. So that said, I was pretty happy to get it once again on my first attempt. Another Sean Murphy long pot now, but this one seems even harder, as he manages to screw the cue ball back quite a long way. Unlike the previous two, this wasn't an awkward shot played under a huge amount of pressure. It takes a huge amount of ability to pot the red and screw the cue ball all the way back for the blue. And I wasn't sure I even had the cue power to get this one right and finish topside of the blue, so it was reassuring, even though I missed the first few shots, that the cue ball was still coming back. And on my sixth attempt, I somehow managed to pot it and almost overscrew it. I wish I knew how I hit it that well. This black from Robert Milkins would be an impressive shot regardless, but it's also a match winner against Mark Allen. Once again, a very important shot in the context of a match, but for me personally, I find this one a lot more challenging, as it's very difficult to find the right angle when you're stunning the cue ball onto the top cushion like this. And on my first couple of shots, I was a little way off, and that misjudgment prevented me from getting it quicker, but I think three attempts is about right for this one. And here he is potting a great long red, and getting nicely in position on the blue. What I think's good about this one is he plays it with real confidence in a way that he doesn't expect to miss it. Even though it's very difficult to make the cue ball screw back at all from this type of distance, what was worrying me was that I was going to strike it perfectly, pot the red and screw it off into the middle pocket. So I was really having to make sure I didn't put too much spin on the cue ball, which is why I kept underdoing it on a few of these shots. But unlike Tian, I really didn't fancy this one, and I found the angle really difficult to get right, so seven attempts is probably pretty good. So for the results, third place goes to Sean Murphy with what was probably the best cued shot of the week. I was really pleased just to pot this one. Second place goes to Ronnie O'Sullivan with his cannon to knock the red in. He got a little bit fortunate that he got kicked up the table, but it was a really brave shot to take on in the first place. But first place goes to Sean Murphy and his snooker escape off the jaws, even though this shot made no difference whatsoever, and it was a little bit easier to play than I thought it would be. But I was pretty relieved to actually get it, because when I first saw it, I didn't know if it was even going to be possible. And if you want to see more of me recreating shots from previous tournaments, have a look at these two videos. 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