Snooker Best Shots Shanghai Masters 2023 Recreated

After a long absence, snooker tournaments have finally returned to China. So this week we're looking at the best shots from the Shanghai Masters and as usual we're recreating all of them as accurately as possible and then playing them in the fewest possible attempts. And what better player to start with in this situation than Ding Zhengwei, who's splitting the pack of reds by playing the cue ball around three cushions off the blue. This one's going to require extreme accuracy and Ding gets a great split on the three reds here. This shot needs to be played with right hand side and backspin and I didn't notice until I set it up but the location of the blue means it's not exactly the easiest of pops and you have to be really accurate with the cannon and I thought I got it perfect on my second attempt but somehow I got stuck on the pink. My third attempt wasn't quite as good as my second but I flicked a red out and managed to leave it in a comfortably potable position. Ronnie O'Sullivan's just made it back level 5-all with John Higgins but he's not holding back, giving himself a chance of winning the frame and match at this visit. To start off with I was just trying to play the shot with backspin to screw it back onto the cushion and get back for the blue. I was really happy with this shot but as you can see I didn't really get anywhere near position on the blue so had to start playing it with quite a bit of left hand side and that made the pot a lot harder. I think this just shows how well Ronnie was playing in this tournament that he could comfortably knock this one in in a deciding frame and I was pretty happy to get it in the end even though I had to use quite a lot more sidespin than I wanted to get back on the blue. Judd Trump snookered himself trying to clear up but he pots the green anyway and makes the clearance. I know this looks like a bit of a fluke but he was trying to pop the green so I've got to give it a go. Fortunately the snooker isn't too difficult to escape from so if I keep striking the green on the right side to knock it back up the table then it's only going to be a matter of time before it drops into the pocket or at least that's the plan anyway. Well it worked and as it turned out quicker than expected and the white went in the right direction as well. World champion Luca Brossell pots a nice long opening red here whilst screwing back for position on the blue. I'm gonna have to cue this one really well to get it right. So as I was explaining earlier in the week I made sure the cue ball was really clean and ready to play this shot but I didn't expect to pot it the first time and the cue ball even went further than I needed it to. Now FansNG plays an in-off, a shot that proves particularly popular during this tournament but for now we've just got to deal with this one and annoyingly the referee gets right in the way of it but it's a great shot where he plays one red thin off the other and screws back for the pink and the black. He actually goes on then to win the frame and match off this chance. I kept getting really close with this one but it was awkward with the white being so close to the first red. Eventually I did manage to pot it and I nearly got in the right place. Ronnie O'Sullivan's finishing off a clearance with a pink around the angles which at least on the face of it doesn't look too challenging and that's because this is a fairly common shot that you play whenever you finish the wrong side of the pink. However what I wasn't considering was the position of the black on the top cushion and how that made the shot quite a bit harder as well as the fact that the white was close to the side cushion and that meant it was a little bit difficult to get a lot of side spin of the cue ball without going in off in the middle pocket. When I started to get enough side spin on the cue ball I was in fact getting too much side spin on the cue ball and this meant I was ending up on the wrong side of the black. To get where I was intending I had to get very close to the corner pocket as well as the middle pocket and that meant it kept going a little bit wrong but eventually I played the shot just well enough to find the line to get on the black just nicked it on the way through but ended up about perfect. It's not a surprise to see Mark Selby getting a double but this is a good one so let's give it a go because it was shots like this one that meant that Mark was absolutely dominant in his game against Judd but a big problem I'm going to have with this shot is avoiding the double kiss because Mark was playing the shot safe he used a lot of right hand side and he only just avoided the red on the way back. My second attempt got very close to this but unfortunately I just hit it a little bit too thick and these shots are always a bit awkward anyway because it's difficult to know exactly what the angle is and it's always a little bit of a guess so although I would like to have got it a lot quicker the shot's always a little bit of a lottery so I was pleased I got it more or less the same as Mark did in the end. Now that was good but this match saving Luca Brassell double on the black looks a lot more challenging especially at the pace he plays this shot at. To start off with I couldn't even see how Luca managed to play this shot because of how far over the back is against the cushion and I thought it would be impossible to avoid a double kiss. In fact for the first few shots I was just trying to get as close to the double kiss as possible to see if I could get anywhere near the pocket and eventually I saw I could get pretty close but wasn't convinced the shot was on. Length of the table doubles like this are usually tough but not this difficult and I wasn't even convinced it was possible until the black finally found its way into the pocket but which was the cheekiest double? Cue the music. The Mark Selby shot was good and earns him four chillies but I don't think you're ever going to find a more cheeky double than Luca Brassell so he's easily this week's winner. This is an excellent snooker escape from Judd Trump. Not only does he find his way around four cushions to hit the red perfectly he lands absolutely dead weight up to it. I'm pretty sure because the cushions on my table don't quite slide as much as the ones on tv it was pretty difficult to get the angle right here. I tried to play it about the same as Judd but came back across the table a little bit too far and it meant I had to try and play with a lot of side spin which initially I miscued with to get the angle. This kind of worked and I just about found the angle and I was pretty happy with how I dropped on the red in the end. Another Ronnie O Sullivan shot's next as he pots an excellent red down the cushion at a crucial stage of the semi-final. I know it's an optical illusion but my shots seem to have a harder time going down this rail than the ones on tv. I thought I podded my first shot and I didn't understand how it stayed out of the pocket and the only conclusion I could come to was maybe I hit it a little bit too hard so I started to try to play all of these shots softer and sort of failed and after missing by a fair way on a number of shots I started to get a lot closer again but I still don't understand how some of these didn't drop. I mean look at that but eventually I did manage to hit one a bit slower and it actually dropped in the pocket. Robert Milkins with an excellent cannon using the rest to bring the red he needs away from the cushion. Since I changed my tip a few weeks ago I must not played a lot of side spin shots with the rest because I had a hard time lining this up and it was a few goes before I could see the shot well enough to be able to pot the ball. However when I finally got it I got the line right for the white as well and pulled the red away from the cushion to about the right place. Ali Carter's playing a similar looking cannon but this time off the brown. I don't think this one could have gone much better for him but whoever was managing the cameras with this one definitely could have done a better job as we ended up missing the entire shot. This one did actually look fairly comfortable to me and as soon as I played it I knew I got the cannon it was just a case if I dropped on a red which I did in the end. Next is Ronnie O'Sullivan's crucial pot out of the jaws of the pocket. John Higgins was actually in in this frame and looked on for a 1-4-7 and to take the match but he broke down and Ronnie pulled this pot out of nowhere to get back in the match and eventually win it. This was pretty difficult cueing from this position it meant I hit the first attempt very straight. My second attempt somehow went in this pretty much could have gone anywhere so I was pretty happy to get this one after just two attempts. Now to another one of these in-offs but I think this one from Mark Selby off the pink looks a lot better than the previous one. It looks an incredibly tough shot here I'm not quite sure why he's not just potting it in the middle pocket but it certainly went in clean. With this one it was incredibly difficult to set the balls up in exactly the right place and on my first attempt I just whacked the red at the pink and fortunately enough it went in. Neil Robertson's playing the black around the table and manages to land in great position on the red that's on the top cushion. The fact that the brown's out the way makes it a fairly straightforward shot to get around the table but you've still got to pot the black with quite a lot of right hand side and back spin and even though it felt to me like I had it in terms of getting the white around the table I was still pretty pleased to get the pace of the shot right. This is such a sweetly cued shot from Ronnie that manages to get him all the way up the table and in position behind the last red. I was pretty disappointed with this one because it's mostly just an accurate positional shot. Not only did I miss the first black but I was struggling to get into the cue ball the right amount. Again this was because I had a new tip fairly recently and what it meant was when I really got into the cue ball I wasn't able to hit it hard enough and when I hit it hard enough I just wasn't able to get into the cue ball enough to get the spin. This will work itself out fairly soon but it just meant with occasional shots like this one I'm struggling just a little bit and even when I did get the shot it wasn't that great. I was on the red but not quite in the same position as Ronnie but that's the best I can do right now. Coming up next we've somebody find him a snooker table for god's sake. Judd's really close to the red here and you can see in the background that Jack doesn't really expect him to play the red but it goes in so let's see how many attempts this is going to take me. I was hoping it would just be one but unfortunately I couldn't see the angle on my first attempt. I couldn't see on the second either but it still went in. It's in off time again and this one from Luca Brussel looks even more challenging than the previous two I had to play. He spent a good minute lining this one up and pointing his cue at the pink so I think we can be pretty confident he played it although the pink's a long way from the middle pocket which makes this one tough however the angle is about right so if you just hit all you can see of the pink it's going to go pretty close. So for the results I'm giving third place to Mark Selvey with this pot of the pink mostly just because it was really creative. I'm giving second place to this match saving shot from Ronnie O'Sullivan. It's crazy to think had he missed it he probably wouldn't got anywhere near winning the title but I'm giving first place to the Luca Brussel double. This was such a crazy shot I simply can't believe he actually attempted it let alone got it. So after all that what do we learn? Well Ronnie seems to be in the best form we've seen him in for some time and will be a formidable force for the rest of the season even though he did miss probably the easiest shot of the entire tournament which nearly let Luca back into the final with a double on the black. But Luca himself probably had the craziest moment of this tournament failing to escape from the snooker against Mark Williams and potting the blue. It was either that or Gary Wilson who thought he'd lost the match before realizing it was actually best of 11 rather than best of nine and if you haven't yet realized that I actually make loads of these videos on this channel then have a look at these two 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!