Snooker Best Shots International Championship 2023 Recreated

This week we're looking for the best shots from the International Championships in China, which include some of the most difficult shots I've ever had to play, as well as some of the most unusual. But I'm still trying to recreate all of these shots as accurately as possible, before playing them in the fewest possible attempts. And we start with Stephen Maguire, who had a good tournament, only narrowly missing out on a semi-final spot when he lost 6-5 to Jordan Brown, and with shots like this one, it's easy to see why. I'm going to have to get a lot of backspin and left-hand side on the cue ball, if I want the white to end up anywhere near the right place. And as you can see from my first attempt, it also requires a really accurate pot. So I was surprised it went in on my second attempt, but unfortunately I just didn't quite cue it well enough, as I just wasn't able to get enough spin on the cue ball at this distance, so I had to try again. And considering how difficult the pot was, it was unsurprising this took quite a while before I got near the pocket again. And when I did, I still didn't screw it back enough, but unfortunately this is as good as I could do from this position. Ding now with a really clever shot using the rest, where he manages to play the red off the black to get it to go into the pocket. There's no real pressure on this one because the frame's already over, I just thought it looked quite good. How well I'm able to play this shot is going to be mostly decided by the accuracy I set the balls up with. And on my first attempt I got really close, and I just think I hit the red a little bit thick. I corrected this on my second attempt, I more or less played the shot perfectly. Judd's getting on the last red off the pink now, with an exhibition shot that doesn't look too difficult. It's just going to be a case of whether or not I can hit this shot hard enough on my table. To make the angle avoiding the pockets and the green, I'm just going to need to slightly stun this shot with a small amount of right hand side. Unfortunately however, on my first attempt I put too much right hand side on it. This in fact wasn't too far away from the shot, I just ended up a long way from the red. So I decided to have a go again, which did require hitting it harder. So that made things go a bit wrong. My third attempt was probably further away than my first one was, just because I hit it a bit short, but unfortunately this is about as hard as I can hit it. Just because Ronnie's got the red over the pocket here, doesn't mean position on the colour is going to be straightforward. He manages to screw this in with a lot of right hand side, canning the red away from the black and getting in position. The fact that you have to use this much side spin, and effectively drag from this distance, makes the path of the cue ball very difficult to predict and control. And that's why I was struggling to pop the ball on most of these attempts. But I was also struggling to get enough backspin and sidespin to get the cue ball to come far enough across the table. This one needs to be stunned under the black at quite a wide angle, and it really isn't that easy to do. It took me a lot more attempts than I was expecting this one, but that was just because of the sheer difficulty of the shot. And I did manage to get it in the end. Jordan Brown was able to defeat John Higgins and make it all the way through to the semi-final with shots like this one. He tried to keep as much pace off this as possible, but it's still difficult to pop these shots accurately when they're going at this speed. And I don't know why, but this seems to be the tightest pocket on my table when potting from this angle. Especially when the shots are going at speed, it seems to refuse almost everything. And I think I got pretty unlucky with this one, because for most of these shots, I kept getting closer and closer to the pocket, and you would have thought that at least one of these would go in. But for some reason, they kept just rattling and staying out. Especially with these last two that didn't go in, I simply didn't know what I'd done wrong. So when I eventually did pot a ball, I wasn't too concerned that the white ended up in the wrong position. Our first double of the week comes from John Higgins. Now to be fair, this doesn't look like the type of shot he'd ever miss. So let's see if I can get it first time as well. And to get the cue ball back topside for the blue, I'm playing this one with stun and left-hand side. As I said, I expected to get that first time, but doubles are never 100%, so that was pretty good. This one's a fluke from Zanganda really, but he was trying to pot it somewhere, and technically it is a double. Now obviously I don't have a lot of control over where the red goes here, so I'm just trying to hit it in the rough direction of the side cushion, fairly straight across the table. And I got a little bit lucky with it. So which of these was the cheekiest double? Cue the music. John Higgins' shot was pretty basic, so it gets two chillies, whereas Zanganda's had a lot more to it, so it gets four chillies, and it's this week's winner. Stephen Maguire's next with a long pot that he plays as a computer game like Screwback. I'm gonna have to make sure the cue ball's nice and clean and shiny before even having a go at this one. You see, the cloth of my table isn't quite as reactive as what you see on TV, but there's something you can do to the cue ball that keeps it spinning for longer. So on a shot like this one, I can actually screw back almost far enough, although as it turns out, still not as far as Stephen managed. Barry Hawkins plays this positional shot really well now, and it allows him to get on the pink and steal the first frame against Tom Ford. This came at the end of a really good clearance as well. So there were a lot of awkward balls on cushions at the beginning of this break, but Barry managed to take them all out to make the clearance and win the frame. I was a little bit frustrated with this one because it seemed fairly straightforward. It's just it needed a small amount of left-hand side on my table to make the angle, and it took me a couple of shots to get this right. I'm not sure it would have done on a professional table where it slides slightly more, but I had to adjust for this. So I got the cue ball more or less in the right place on my third attempt. I was a little bit close to the cushion, but I was still pretty happy with this in the end. Not only does Jordan Brown escape from the snooker, he also pops the red, which really isn't bad when you consider just how far the red is away from the pocket. This one's pretty similar to the John Higgins shot I played in the previous video, but even considering that, I wasn't expecting to hit it and pot it first time. This was more luck than anything else, but I was still happy to see it go in. Tom Ford manages to play a really awkward in-off now as he continues his run to the final. This one's really got to be played accurately, otherwise I'm not going to be able to get anywhere near the pocket. This was a really irritating shot to have to play, because every time it went wrong, he also scattered the reds everywhere, and it was really tough to line up accurately. I was just glad it finally went in, even though I miscued it slightly when I actually potted the red. Either way, I'm taking it though. When it comes to playing difficult shots down the cushion, or even just playing difficult shots, Gon Shenzi has probably played the most difficult shot I've ever had to try and attempt here. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be able to play this, because you have to pot the ball and screw back out of the jaws of the pocket. This one's going to be really difficult. To start off with, I couldn't even hit the ball in the right direction. Because of my awkward hand position, I kept hitting the red in towards the pink. So I ended up having to try to hit the red half ball on the left-hand side, which would push it right in towards the cushion if I actually hit it there, in order to find the right line and get near the pocket. And as you can probably see, even this wasn't going so well. I had very few shots that went close to the pocket. I did get the hang of it after about 10 or so shots, but it was still not good. The red being very close to the cushion gave me very little margin for error when it came to potting it, but I couldn't even get within the foot of the pocket. And every time I got it seriously wrong, I'd scatter the reds everywhere and it'd take me quite a while to put them back. This one felt like it took even longer than it did, but it still took a long time. And at this stage, I thought I was going to have to give up on the shot because I was never going to pot it. So the fact that the first one that went near the pocket went in was pretty lucky when you remember back to the Jordan Brown shot from earlier. We've got a crucial Tom Ford shot coming up next, right after we find Dan, who's in Valencia in Spain, which is there. Thankfully, this one's a little bit more straightforward, but it's a shot that won Tom Ford a crucial game in his semi-final match against Jordan Brown. And as you can see from my first attempt at the shot, this one definitely isn't easy. I was pretty happy though to correct it on my second attempt. And from here, Tom was able to make the clearance, race ahead and eventually win the match. Michael White's playing the most powerful shot down the cushion we've seen so far, and that might mean it's even more difficult than anything else I've had to play already. Getting this one back to bulk requires right-hand side in the aid of the cushion, so it's just using a regular cue ball, but it still needs a really good pop because of the pace of this shot. Now, since I've had my cue repaired, I found these shots a little bit harder to judge, and I'm not 100% sure on why this is, but I'll have some shots where I put a lot more side spin on the cue ball, and it causes it to deflect a lot further, and I end up missing the shot by quite a long way. I've got a lot better at this, but it's still a bit of a problem. I guess I'm just not fully used to the cue yet, and it means I'm not as consistent with this type of shot as I'd normally expect to be. Either way, this is a really tough pot at this speed, so the fact that I got it this quickly is still pretty good, even though I didn't manage to get the cue ball back quite far enough. So, to the results. Third place goes to Michael White. He may have just been trying to dig himself out of trouble with a shot to nothing, but it's probably the sweetest shot he'll hit all season. Second place goes to Stephen Maguire with this shot. I felt the position of the frame and match made this one even better. But first place obviously goes to Gon Shenzhi. This was the hardest shot I've ever had to play that wasn't a complete fluke. So Zhang Ander wins his first ever professional title, although this was a few weeks ago now, and we're a little bit late getting to it, because we were too busy looking at the champion of champions at the time, and I was too busy recovering from yet another rare illness. Either way, I'm all good now, and if you want to see the recreation shots from the champion of champions, you can have a look at this video, or this other video from the world championships. 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.