Snooker Best Shots British Open 2023 Recreated

This year's British Open was held in Cheltenham, which means we're looking at all the best shots from inside the centre. Ah, stop it Robbie, will you? If he gets a kiss on this black and knocks the red out... Well, what a shot he's played there! Either way, the format hasn't changed and we're still looking to recreate all of these shots as accurately as possible, before playing them in the fewest possible attempts. But we're beginning with Kyron Wilson, who surprised a few people who couldn't see the point of him playing in a glove. Either way though, the glove seemed to be working as he got some excellent results and played this incredibly tough shot against Mark Allen. Part of the reason this is such a challenging pot is the sheer power you have to play it with. I was surprised after the first couple of attempts, not only was I getting nowhere near potting the ball, but I was also not really hitting it hard enough. After my third attempt, it was clear I needed to hit this one as hard as I possibly could to be able to get the cannon and finish on a red, because even these shots where I'm potting the ball don't guarantee me finishing in position on a red, and that is even if I was to make the cannon in the first place, which is a real challenge when you have to strike the ball with so much power. I thought this was going to be one of those shots where I just simply couldn't play it, until I finally got the cannon. By no means was this shot perfect, but I just about had an angle to pot a red. Ding Jun Wei's made a good start against Mark Williams and is going 2-0 up, but he's finished a little bit low on the black to get on the last red, so he needs to get the white round the table to make the century. With this shot, I'm using left-hand side and backspin to get the cue ball around the angles, and in theory, so long as I pot the black and get the white between the green and the brown, I should have no problem getting on the red. So this one is easier than it looks, but there were still some things that could have gone wrong, so I was still happy to get it on my first attempt. This is the cannon from Mark Williams in what turned out to be the deciding frame of the final. He needed snookers at this point, but it was this cannon that got him down to the last red, where he was able to lay a successful snooker that won in the match. The topspin is vital on this shot, because if the cue ball doesn't run through straight enough, then the sidespin isn't going to take enough of effect off the cushion. On my first couple of attempts, I got a cannon, but unfortunately I just didn't finish in position. So the previous shot was easier than I thought it was going to be, but this one was definitely a lot harder, and it shows how crucial it was in the end. I couldn't get the cannon properly, but I ended up on a red like this. How about this for an exhibition shot from Hossein Vafai? The frame may be over, but he manages not only to pot the really challenging pink, but spin the cue ball around two cushions and cannon the last red on. The reason this clip looks a bit dodgy is I had trouble finding video from this match, but the shot was just too good to leave out. At the same time however, I was surprised I actually got it first time, although I cannoned the red into a safe position, so I had to try again. As it turned out however, the red appeared to be in the perfect place, so if you just potted the pink with sidespin, which is by no means easy, the white would automatically go towards the red, and in general I was very happy here with how consistently I was able to pot the pink during these attempts. And finally I got a cannon that left me in good enough position to easily pot the red. Robbie Williams had a great win against John Higgins, which included several memorable shots, including this one on the brown when the match was already over, where he manages to not only pot it, but cannon the last red out away from the black. After playing a very similar shot on the previous pink with left hand side, I felt like I was going to be able to judge this one quite well, but unfortunately it didn't quite work out like that, and it took me a couple of attempts before I got anywhere near the pocket, but when I did, I made a bit of a mistake. This shot didn't in fact need any sidespin whatsoever, and if you just pot the brown plain bull from this position, the Cuba automatically comes down and makes the cannon on the red. This pot off the cushion from Jack Lazowski and the subsequent black that followed are said to be about as good as it gets when it comes to playing pressure shots, and they allowed him to clear up and win the match against Sean Murphy. Unquestionably, this is a great start to a frame winning break, especially when you look completely out of a match. I thought all I had to do was pot it, but my first attempt wasn't in fact hard enough to get in position on the black, so I had to have a few more goes at this one, and getting the speed right was actually a lot more challenging than I first thought. But I think I'm also doing really well here to make the pot on the red look easier than it actually is, and on my fourth attempt I just managed to get it to slow down enough. Next up is a frame winning double on the black from Ken Doherty that puts him one away from a victory over Matthew Stevens, although he ended up losing the match 4-3 to Matthew. I always think these shots are a little bit more challenging than they appear, and my first couple of attempts were close, I just didn't quite get the right angle. My third attempt I had a bit of a look at it and tried to play it better and got nowhere near the pocket, so I just hit it for my fourth attempt and it went in. But against that is a double from Robbie Williams, just another successful shot in his match against John Higgins. This one looks a little bit harder though, mostly because it was a lot further away than the Ken Doherty double, so I just hit about as much of the red as I could see, and it went towards the pocket luckily. But which was the cheekiest shot, this or the Ken Doherty one? Cue the music. It wasn't a great week for doubles, although these weren't bad. Robbie's may have been a fluke, so I'm only giving him two chillies, whereas Ken's getting three and he's this week's winner. Stuart Bingham looks a little bit in trouble in this match, but managed to play a great shot, freeing the red away from the cushion off the brown. In the end however, Stuart went on to lose the match, however I was still interested to see if I could get the same sort of action on the cue ball, and I could a bit, I just wasn't able to get anywhere near the arc Stuart was able to get on it, although I was pretty happy to get this one after just two attempts. Now for a power screw shot from Mark Selby. His form was definitely a bit hit and miss during this tournament, but he definitely played some good shots along the way, which is hardly surprising because it's not exactly like he's going to get to the final playing badly, and I decided to play this shot with a really clean cue ball, and I managed to get the white back a bit further than I expected on this one. It went a little bit too far for the pink, but I was still pretty good on the colour. Mark Williams next, playing a really thin close range shot, but he manages to play it unbelievably accurately. This made a big difference in the opening frame of the semi-final, but what made a big difference in my recreation of this shot was being able to see an overhead image and exactly where the balls needed to go. This made it easier for me to get it straight away, however I did it again because I stood up and got in the way of the shot, so on my next attempt I managed to stay down. Judd Trump is playing the sort of exhibition shot on the pink next that's going to be really tough to recreate on my table, mostly because of how hard you have to hit this one, and how far around the angles it needs to go. The sheer power and amount of side spin make this shot really awkward, so expect to see the pink jumping out the pocket quite a bit when I'm attempting this. I'd like to not be throwing my body at this one, but with the amount of power it requires I don't really have much of a choice, and even then I've got to get the path right for the cue ball, the scary thing with this attempt where I hit the wrong side of the jaw is the white still didn't go far enough to get to the top cushion and round for the black, and that means I'm going to have to hit it even harder, and I'm not sure that's even possible. Surprisingly it's not often I get a shot where I can't play the shot hard enough to get it into the position I need to get it, but this I think definitely counts as one of them. Honestly this is the best I can do. There is just no way I can hit that top cushion. This black from Hamid Maher isn't too difficult, but it's the shot he needed for a win over Judd Trump, and he never looked like missing it to be fair. I can tell you now if I had a pressure shot like this to play, I definitely wouldn't be stunning it, so I was more than a little surprised it went in straight away. This is a really nice swerve from Mark Williams now, that not only helps him escape from a snooker, he also, with a little bit of help from the jaw, leaves his opponent in one. I didn't think this was going to be too difficult to hit the red in the first place, but unfortunately I kept hitting the white a little bit too soft or too hard, and I couldn't really control the pace of the shot for some reason, so I was way out on my first few attempts of hitting the red and getting the snooker back. And I think I was a little bit fortunate with this one, when I finally hit the red right, the white ended up in the right place in behind the black, and I even caught the jaw. Yet another Robbie Williams shot, this time on the yellow, where he has to play this exhibition shot round the table, to allow him to make the clearance that he needs to win a crucial frame. Before I set this shot up, I wasn't really aware of just how thin this shot was, so it made it even more impressive that he managed to get it right. My first attempt didn't have the right amount of sidespin on the cue ball, so I had to have another go, which I got a lot better. This was a good shot to get in two attempts, so I was happy with this. Ding manages to pop the last red off the pink, to win his match against world champion Luca Brassell. The commentators were talking about this like it was fairly straightforward, and you couldn't miss the pink, but trust me you can. I usually find when this type of shot comes up in a game, I'm very good at finding the exact space between the ball and the pocket, or I get so far away by hitting the side cushion it doesn't go in. So I think it was a really clever strategy from Ding to play this one cushion first, however I was just struggling to talk myself into playing it straight enough to miss the pop by that far. Eventually when I did get it, I realised I didn't hit it anywhere near hard enough, so I had to set everything up again at the end and try it one more time, but luckily it went in straight away. We've got a Barry Hawkins shot coming up next, right after we find Holly and Brighton. Barry really cues this one well at the start of the match, getting the white all the way back for a choice of black or blue. Again I was using a super clean cue ball to make sure I had a chance of getting the white back possibly as far as the blue spot, however on my first couple of attempts the red didn't quite go in the pocket, even though I was managing to generate probably the right amount of backspin. It took me quite a few attempts to get this one lined up and it's one of those I wish I could have got a bit quicker, but there was a few that just rattled in the pocket that could easily have gone in. When I finally got it, it was a bit short but it was okay. Now for a really nice opening red from Dave Gilbert, that saw him run Mark Selby really close in this match. A shot like this is always tough because you have to dig down and use quite a bit of sidespin and you really have to get a feel for the table before you're able to play a shot like this, which having played all the previous shots I should have had possibly a little bit better, but again it was one of those where I had a few shots where it could have dropped in a little bit quicker, and eventually I did manage to get it and finish pretty near where Dave Gilbert ended up. So to the results, third place I'm giving to Mark Williams because this was such a significant shot, even though it didn't look like it at the time with him needing snookers. Second place goes to Kyron Wilson just because of how unbelievably tough this shot was, but he seemed to play it comfortably. But I'm giving first place to Robbie Williams because this shot was just played perfectly after a great win against John Higgins. So after all that what do we learn? Well Mark Williams has become the second oldest winner of a ranking tournament, only behind Ray Reardon. Kyron Wilson's playing in a glove now and that seems to be working for him, at least a lot better than Ding's trousers anyway. Cheltenham seems to be a bit unusual, Liam Graham definitely knows his way around the angles, and most importantly of all we've finally reached 300,000 subscribers, so thank you for making this channel bigger than the population of Swansea. So if you want to see more of our quality content, have a look at these two videos where I'm recreating shots from previous tournaments, 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.