Snooker Best Shots European Masters 2023 Recreated

And we're back with the first real tournament of the season, the European Masters. It's been a long summer but once again we're looking for the shot of the tournament and as usual we're going to find it by recreating the best shots as accurately as possible before playing them in the fewest possible attempts. But we're beginning with Judd Trump who was getting his game back together and managed to make it all the way through to the final where he played this ridiculous shot. The frame was very much still in the balance at this stage so if he missed this shot there was a good chance he would have lost the entire frame. But he played it so accurately and never touched the sides. I was close on my first attempt but just clipped the middle jaw on the way down. My second attempt was a little bit better and it's a little bit easier for me on my table because the pockets are a little bit more generous like this. Kebcharanu's doing something weird with the extended spider now. I've never seen anyone use it in this way before so I wanted to give it a go even though I don't think the shot itself is going to be that difficult. It was interesting to hear the commentator say this shouldn't be allowed because I don't think this is any different to sticking the rest on top of the spider and just playing a shot like that. But as I thought this was pretty simple and it was just a straight forward pop really although it was a bit awkward because I'm right handed. On the face of it this shot from Elliot Selesa doesn't look too difficult. Just your regular shot to nothing safety where you dig down off the cushion to screw the cue ball back safe. But as it turned out this shot was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It turned out this was just a really awkward angle and the fact that I had to screw the cue ball back to the top cushion made it very difficult to play the shot accurately. Despite the fact that I got very close to this on a number of occasions I just couldn't quite make the red drop. It's not unusual for me to find the positional element on some of these shots a little bit difficult to get right but I don't think I've had a shot like this in some time where I just simply couldn't pot the ball. I nearly didn't include this shot in the video because I didn't think it was good enough but needless to say it took a lot more attempts to get right than I was expecting. When I finally got it the white wasn't in the right place but I didn't care by that stage. Next the swerve from Barry Hawkins that allows him to pot a long red. With all the successful shots that Barry has in this video it's hardly surprising he actually went on to win the tournament. It's not that difficult to swerve around the brown and hit the red the difficulty is having the accuracy to pot it so I was pretty pleased it went in first time. This is both a very well spotted and a very well played plant from John Higgins now as he returns to form and makes it through to the semi-final against Judd Trump. The plant isn't anywhere near in line with the pocket so this one's going to be really tough although the shot was spoiled a little bit by the fact that John missed the next black. It was so tough to get the angles right it took me a few shots before I was getting anywhere near the pocket then I realised if I just spent a bit more time lining everything up perfectly I'd be able to pot it. Judd Trump has already won the frame but his pot on the green is a lot better it needs really good cueing off the cushion here. But the good news is it doesn't really need much explaining because as long as I pod the green the natural angle should take the cue ball around the table and back for the red. However on my first attempt I completely got the angle wrong because I thought this shot was a lot thinner than it was however two attempts is still pretty good with this one even though the white didn't run on as far as I would have liked it to. Kyron Wilson fools everybody now and plays a double on the blue successfully winning the frame against Sijai Wei. To start off with I wasn't 100% sure why Kyron didn't simply take the pot on but then I realised it was a little bit missable and the double was quite a good shot to nothing and after a few attempts I realised it went pretty safe if you didn't get it. The shot itself is missable because it's difficult to get the angle lined up perfectly on any shot like this but at the same time I was a little bit disappointed I didn't get this one a little bit quicker because it's not too challenging. It's another one I probably should have got a bit quicker but that said four attempts isn't too bad for something like this. Barry Hawkins definitely didn't play the double on the pink here you can even see him apologising but I couldn't find any other doubles so we're going with this one. I'm pretty sure this shot's very similar to one I recreated from the World Championships last year I just can't remember who played it but the important thing now is getting the angle right on this shot because it's very difficult with a double like this to see exactly where it needs to go and it took me a few shots before I was getting anywhere near the pocket. Because of that I was expecting this to take longer but which was the cheekiest double? This or the Kyron Wilson one? Cue the music. Barry Hawkins gets three chillies because the shot didn't help him out that much whereas Kyron Wilson shot one in the frame so he gets four chillies and he's this week's winner. Sean Murphy finds a nice long red now from an angle that looks tough and challenging so let's have a go and see how difficult it really is. You just need to play this as a stun shot to hold for the blue and I was actually cueing quite nicely here however I think I got a little bit unlucky. I got close to the pot on a number of different occasions but it just wouldn't quite go in. But, saying that, I was probably hitting it a little bit too hard to start off with because Sean didn't screw back topside of the blue he only stunned it in so I took a little bit of the speed off before successfully playing the shot. Sijoe with a nice cannon off the green next which I think virtually wins in the frame. I can't really tell because they weren't updating the scores. I did however find another feed that was showing the frame scores so I can confirm this shot did win in the frame. And with this shot you just need to get the right amount of sidespin on the cue ball and my first attempt went pretty well but I just landed right on top of the red. My second attempt went a little bit better I thought I pushed this red too far to leave it on but it just about went in half a pocket. Barry Hawkins now with a phenomenal snooker on the green. He didn't end up winning the frame but the fact that he got the green in behind the brown here and the white in tight behind the pink made this a brilliant shot. Obviously because I'm right handed I can't play this shot so to make things as simple as possible I've just mirror flipped the screen. Not that this shot is anything like simple. I was making the mistake to start off with of not playing this shot with any sidespin and that meant I wasn't getting close enough to the pink. So I started playing it with top left. This got me closer to the pink but I still had to judge the angle right to double the green in behind the brown and the green went tight in behind the brown so I'd have to get the way absolutely perfect and this was probably what I was having the most difficulty with. This was one of the hardest shots to recreate but it turned out to be completely meaningless as James Cahill hit the resulting snooker. Eventually I did manage to get the green in behind the brown but didn't quite get the white tight enough to the pink but had to give up with it because it could have taken me another 50 attempts. Knop on Sankam with a really nice long yellow that gets him positioned on the green to cannon the blue out. He actually ends up clearing the table from this great shot. The speed of the shot is crucial and you have to use topspin to make the angle and get positioned on the green. My first attempt wasn't that good but my second one was a lot better and I actually left the perfect angle to cannon the green out. Judd Trump gets the white through a really narrow gap now allowing him to pot the red. It's difficult to recreate these shots perfectly because you don't know the exact position of the balls so expect this one to go in fairly quickly. I did the best I could with this one and tried to get the balls really close together so I could only just see the red past the pink but it was still fairly simple to pot it from here. I don't know if it was actually a little bit tighter than this but I managed to get it easily enough. This in-off from Barry Hawkins was almost certainly unintentional and confirms things were really going his way this week but I wanted to see how easy it would be for me to get it anyway. For this to work you have to hit a very precise part of the second red cushion first and I really couldn't believe it when it came off first time. We've got a Matthew Stephens shot coming up next after we find Kevin in Cape Coral, Florida which is there. It's actually a little bit unusual for this shot to be played and it looks fairly simple but I saw it in several different people's compilations so I thought I'd give it a go. Hopefully it should be unmissable because essentially it's just a one-cushion escape from a snooker so I wasn't surprised I managed to get it first try but I was pretty happy to have done so. Now for the standard Judd Trump exhibition shot but he's playing this one right in the middle of a live frame and using right-hand side and backspin to spin the cueball back for the only loose red. The main difficulty with this shot is you have to arc the cueball around the pack because you can't see the bolt cushion. I had a little bit of difficulty with this on my first attempt and hit it too slowly. My second attempt I hit it a bit harder and probably luckily I finished on the red. I just about went far enough and I was pretty happy to get this one so quickly. So for the results, third place goes to Barry Hawkins with this excellent snooker. If he'd won the frame he would probably have come first but he didn't. Second place goes to Elliot Selesa. I even underestimated just how good this shot was. But first place goes to this plant from John Higgins. Not only did you have to play a really accurate shot but you had to spot it in the first place. So the first big tournament of the season is over and what have we learned from all of this? Well, John Higgins is back to his 2019 form where he also wasn't quite good enough to beat Judd Trump over a long match. And Judd Trump himself has also gained confidence over the summer to the point where he's nearly good enough to beat Barry Hawkins again. The fluke of the tournament probably went to Kyron Wilson. This made a huge difference in his match against Sijai Wei as Kyron took a 3-0 lead. But most importantly, Barry Hawkins proved he's no pushover by defeating some of the best players on tour en route to this title and then nearly got physically pushed over by Mark Selby. If you want to see more of me recreating shots from previous seasons, then have a look at these two videos of the World Championships and the Masters. And remember, don't just watch, play. And make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later.