Snooker Best Shots 2022 Northern Ireland Open Recreated

The Northern Ireland Open produced some stunning exhibition shots, great snooker escapes and crucial frame winning pots. But which of these was the best shot of the entire tournament? To find out I'm going to attempt to recreate the top 20 shots as accurately as possible and in the fewest possible attempts. So who better to start with than tournament winner Mark Allen escaping from a snooker in a game against Neil Robertson. Neil was fortunate to leave Mark in this position after missing a pot and it took Mark quite a long time to work out what to do. The shot itself wasn't that difficult, it was more just seeing it in the first place. Jimmy White really struggled in this match against Luca Brussel but he still managed to knock in this excellent long red. Even though this didn't go anywhere because Jimmy ended up arguing with the referee and then missing the brown, it was still a really nice pot and I was happy to get this one after just one attempt as well. Mark Allen again with this difficult long red. Not only does he manage to pot it but he also manages to screw the cue ball back for the blue. This needed backspin and left-hand side to get topside of the blue. However I didn't get three in a row and missed by quite a long way so I was really surprised when the next shot went perfectly. I ended up in exactly the same place on the blue as well. That was a relatively straightforward snooker. However the one Zhou Yulong's attempting isn't anywhere near as simple. It is playing the cue ball around the angles to get tight in behind the blue here. Zhou was really impressive in this tournament, only losing out in the final to Mark Allen and shots like these showed why. This was really difficult to hit thin enough. My first two attempts were way too thick as it was difficult to find exactly the right contact on the red using right-hand side and the extensions like this. I started to get close but you needed to be incredibly accurate to get the cue ball tight in behind the blue. I always find these shots a little bit difficult to judge because you have to be incredibly accurate to get them right but at the same time there's not a huge amount of risk if it goes wrong. Other than the time I went in off most of these would have been a pretty good safety shot. It's just getting the snooker that's a challenge so I was pretty pleased to get it on my eighth attempt because this was a really tough one to get right. Mark Selby swerving out of a snooker here in a way that leaves his opponent Neil Robertson in a snooker. Because my table doesn't have the super fine match cloths you see on TV this shot's actually a little bit easier for me to play because I can swerve round the brown with a lot less sidespin. However, I kept overdoing it because I could swerve so much and even though I got the snooker on my second attempt it wasn't good enough because Mark ended up getting a snooker off Neil here so I had to back off the sidespin on my third attempt to get this right. Luca Brussell looks in an excellent long red and manages to screw the cue ball back into bulk at the same time. Spinning the cue ball back seven or eight feet from six foot away really isn't an easy thing to do. It needs a lot of backspin and good cueing and this makes it very difficult to even pot the ball or get close to it. It took me a good few attempts before I got close and then I realised I'd made a mistake after I got the pot. I couldn't screw back anywhere near as far but I hadn't put a redden in the middle of the table so I tried it again and was happy to pot it again straight away but unfortunately that's the limit of my cue power. Judd Trump now with a really impressive green that's not anywhere near as easy a pot as it looks. Not only does he manage to pot it but he also gets the cue ball twice across the table and into position on the brown. The right hand side I needed to get in position on the brown makes the pot incredibly difficult because it straightens it up into the cushion. I was incredibly happy to get it on my second attempt because I could have been here for a long long time and I nearly played the shot absolutely perfectly. Once again Mark Selby's escaping out of a snooker only to leave his opponent in a snooker and this one's a lot more impressive I believe. In a close first round match where Mark looked in a lot of trouble after snookering himself this shot made all the difference. I'm not sure if I'm a little bit shorter than Mark but I found it incredibly difficult to reach this. I was really having to stretch about as much as I could and even though I could just about get to it it hurt a little bit and I really didn't want to play this shot any more times than I needed to. So when I finally got it on my third attempt I was really happy because if I was there any longer I think I would have just collapsed on the table. I really didn't understand why Neil Robertson was attempting this cut on the black This put him a long way ahead in the frame and meant that an opponent Mark Selby wouldn't be coming back to the table. It's a difficult thin cut along the cushion so I was really happy to get it on my first attempt even if the cue ball was a bit out. Because I'm right-handed I couldn't reach this shot so I started off playing with a rest but quickly realised this wasn't going to be good enough if I wanted to get the cue ball back down the table. So I flipped it by playing the shot like this and mirroring the image so it looks like I'm left-handed. This meant I could screw back far enough down the table but I don't really like doing this because the room looks a bit weird when it's inside out or back to front or whatever it is. Either way I just had to get the double and six attempts was pretty good on this particularly as I got the cue ball on the green just not the right side of the blue or pink. Robert Milkins now has a chance on a re-spotted black to go 3-1 up against John Higgins. Sure this was a lot more straightforward than Judd Trump's double but it actually had an effect on the result of the game so I have to ask the question which was the cheekiest? This shot or Judd Trump's? Cue the music. Judd's shot was clearly a lot more difficult for which he receives four cheeky chillies but as Robert Milkins' shot was for the game he also receives four cheeky chillies and he's this week's winner. Jackson Page is also playing John Higgins and in the deciding frame he finds a way of getting onto the pink. By screwing the cue ball back into the pack of reds he ripped the pink out over the middle pocket. As it turned out getting on the pink wasn't that difficult here if you got enough backspin on the cue ball you would finish in position. The challenging part was getting the pot when you have to play the shot in this way and you're stretching a little bit. I found it a little bit difficult to get the right angle on this shot and it took me a fair few tries. I would have liked to have got this a lot quicker but in the end I was happy with the result. I've seen thin shots before but this one from Sam Craigie is really thin. He can't avoid the reds and black if he plays the pot into the opposite corner so he attempts it thin into the left hand side. It was really difficult to judge this shot. I actually kept over cutting it trying to hit it incredibly thin and we have to question if he played this shot because he contacted the blue on the way back down and it's unlikely he would have risked doing that. So it's just possible then that this was a complete fluke but we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt. After missing it all together I eventually managed to find the right angle and got the pot although I did hit the blue a little bit thick. We've seen a lot of good snooker escapes already and this one from Neil Robertson isn't bad either. Not only does he hit the yellow here he pushes it safe to the side cushion which is crucial because the game is still live. To do this I'm playing it with a little bit of right hand side to make the angle around two cushions. Even though I hit it on my first attempt and got the snooker I was looking to hit it in the same way as Neil did and this was a little bit tricky because it didn't feel like you wanted to hit it any higher than I was doing. Eventually on my fourth attempt I got it pretty good even if the cue ball didn't go as far as I wanted it to. Other than the Luca Brassell shot from earlier where I couldn't screw the cue ball back far enough this was probably the shot I struggled with the most. In theory it shouldn't have been that difficult but I really found it difficult to find the correct angle and kept over cutting it. What made it worse is I tended to scatter the reds around every time I missed the shot so it seemed to take longer than it actually did. I was surprised to find out this only took me six attempts. I would have liked a better cue ball but it didn't feel like I was ever going to pot this one again. Now to Sean Murphy with an awkward looking shot that he manages to turn into a match winner. Just potting a red down the cushion isn't easy in itself but Sean also manages to develop the green at the same time by screwing the cue ball back meaning he could go on to make the straightforward clearance and end up winning the match 4-0. It was a little bit tricky to get the pot on this one but once I did I managed to get on the green pretty easily. This one's a really nice exhibition shot from Anthony McGill but because the reds are so close together it's not really that hard of a shot or at least so I thought. In theory you've just got to hit the reds and they'll go down the cushion but my first attempt I was a little bit too far out and ended up rattling the red in the pocket which I had to correct for my second try but it's still a good looking shot this one. We've got another Mark Allen shot coming up after we find Otis who's from Stralsund in Germany which is there and his comment only makes sense if you watch the video. Once again we got a shot from Mark Allen and this one was pretty much the killer blow in his match against Mark Williams as he managed to find a safe place for the cue ball in case he missed but as he was successful in getting the shot and the red went in it also meant he was in position on the black. I've managed to play a lot of shots already on this list in fewer attempts than I was expecting however this really wasn't one of them. I was expecting to get this one a lot quicker because all you really had to do was find the right angle but unfortunately I kept missing it over and over again. As with another Mark Allen shot from earlier the tricky part here was finding the shot in the first place. Once you got it it shouldn't have been this hard but it took me five attempts. This next one's a shot that I don't think Lee Hang had to play but he spent a long time lining it up so he was definitely intending to pop the red off the brown however I'm not really sure why he didn't just play the red into the middle pocket. Even though it might not have been straightforward to pot it in the middle and play it as a shot to nothing I'm sure he could have found a way of doing it maybe he just didn't fancy the shot. Either way on his very next shot he ended up missing the black so it didn't really make too much of a difference anyway. I was pretty happy to get it in three though. Another snooker escape now but because it's Mark Williams I have to play it one-handed. I'm really not too sure why he plays shots like this because you might be able to see the angle better but I definitely can't hit it right every time like this. Either way he still managed to get the snooker back behind the brown, blue and pink and I was trying to do the same thing but I was struggling to hit it perfectly every time just playing it one-handed. On my third attempt however I was pretty lucky I was just trying to get it behind the brown, blue and pink and the yellow ended up there on my third attempt just about so I'm calling this as a good shot. So many good shots this week that nothing really stood out so I'm letting you vote on this week's winner and the link for that is down in the description. I'm going to be really interested in what you come up with here because for me it just seems like there's too many to choose from. Either way if you want to see more videos like this where I recreate other shots have a look at these two videos 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.