Snooker Best Shots Welsh Open 2025 Recreated

This week in the best shots from the Welsh Open, we learn just how difficult it is to play shots like this, and find out if John Higgins is somehow able to get in position on the pink here from a very unhelpful angle. But mostly we're going to be looking for the best shot, and as usual we're working that out by recreating all of them as accurately as possible, and then attempting to play them in the fewest possible attempts. We're beginning with Stephen Maguire, and you can see how with cueing like this he was able to make it past Mark Williams, Ali Carter and here Jack Lazowski to make it all the way through to the final where he ended up losing out to Mark Selby. I'm finding this one awkward to cue because it's a little bit too close to the cushion for comfort. That's a pretty decent pot but I've barely made it past the bulk line and I know I can do a lot better than that. Although I don't think I can do any better than this, that's about as well as I can cue it and it's not too far away from where Stephen got it. Well if that wasn't difficult enough for you, then how about this long red from Ali Carter? Not only does he pot it down the cushion, but he also screws the cue ball back into position on a bulk colour. Ali would end up losing this frame, but winning the match by 5 frames to 3. Hopefully in the next few shots I'll be able to get close enough to show you just how accurate you need to be with this type of shot because there is very little if any margin for error. As you can see with that, but I sort of understand the shot now so let's see if I can get that close again. I've done really well with this one as I've found the correct angle incredibly quickly and actually got it to drop. Also in the quarter finals is this excellent pot and positional shot from John Higgins as he plays the cue ball off the top cushion, side cushion and bulk cushion to get back in perfect position for the pink on the top cushion. From here he'd take that and the black to force a re-spot that was closely fought but John would eventually lose to Mark Selby. The pot itself is a little bit harder than I was expecting and I'm mostly focusing on the cue ball because I've got to get incredibly close to the corner pocket to make the angle without hitting the jaws. I think I've got it right there if I've got the speed. It's gone a little bit too straight but there's still an angle to get back on the black that's okay. We've got a powerful opening red from Jack Lazowski now that he uses to quickly take a three frame to two lead against Matthew Selt and then he'd eventually win the match with 131 break. I find shots like this really difficult when you've got to power them in with side spin so as you can see I'm really shocked to have got it straight away. It's Stephen Maguire again and this time he's looking to complete a clearance to take the lead against Mark Williams. He's out of position on the yellow but manages to control the cue ball with side spin round the angles to give himself a shot at the green. From here he'd make a 50 clearance taking the frame. He'd take the last as well to win the match by four frames to two. I thought I'd got it perfect on my first attempt but I didn't realise I had to stun the cue ball as well as playing it with a lot of left hand side and because of this it's taken me a few goes to work out the angle again when I'm playing it as a stun shot but I think that's more or less gone perfectly. Jackson Page is the next player to be powering in a long red. I've been trying to cut out the number of these types of shots in these videos and it looks like for the Welsh Open I've done a very poor job of it. Either way this is a great pot and he manages to get the cue ball back safe at the same time. On the upside all the practice from playing a screw back to bolt shot seems to be paying off. An impressive positional shot from Ali Carter now as he manages to screw in this long blue at the perfect angle to not just remove the reds from the cushion but plant one of them over the pocket. I'm initially going to try this with a regular cue ball because I think if I actually pot the blue and play it about as well as I can I might be able to get the red over the pocket. However that hasn't quite worked out and that was about as well as I could cue it and it wasn't good enough to push the red into a potable position so I've gone with a magic cue ball here and hopefully if I can get the right cannon again it should just be enough to push the red towards the corner pocket. It turns out that's about as good as I can do. It was a lot harder than I was expecting but I could just about pot the red in the end. Yuan Sijun is potting this ridiculous red down the cushion now. I know a lot of players wouldn't have even attempted this but it gets him in a position to take the deciding frame against Mark Allen. The advantage of my table is if I'd just been able to roll it I'd probably got it first time. Having to stun it with a bit of side made it more challenging and it just about rattled and went in. This is possibly Stephen Maguire's best pot of the week as he powers the red in down the cushion and it's a crucial shot as well because it allows him to get in a position to win this frame despite a huge deficit to Sanderson Lamb. Eventually Stephen would take the match by four frames to two. Again this is particularly challenging because I have to cue it really well in order to get the white anywhere near the bulk cushion and it's close to the side cushion itself so it's going to need a really accurate pot at this speed. Even though I've got quite a few of these already first time today because of all that I wasn't expecting this to be one of them. I'm trying to stay focused and believe I'm going to get the shot because if I think I'm going to miss it one way or the other I'm likely to hit it in the opposite direction which is what keeps going wrong occasionally. I've got it there though and the white is pretty good about as well as I could possibly play it I think. I know he's got a 3-1 lead but watch the cue ball here as Ali Carter plays a crooked out double to take the match on the black. It goes up the table. This could possibly be one of the cheekiest doubles of the year because it looks like he full-blooded went for it or possibly it was just a complete fluke. I'm not 100% sure but it looks like it's going to be quite a tough shot to get as well. I find this type of shot difficult enough anyway but it feels really weird playing it with a white going up the table. I'm glad I got it so soon because I could have been there a while. And up against that we got exactly the same type of double from John Higgins. Again it's not 100% whether or not he played this but it definitely set him up to win the deciding frame against Mark Selby as he's able to get a snooker from here. I thought I was over hitting this but then I remember the cue ball had to roll through to the middle of the bolt cushion and that's about what it's doing. So hopefully if I can just get the shot right it should be roughly in the right place. Gone a bit too far but which of these was the cheekiest double? The John Higgins shot is difficult but mostly a safety shot so it only gets three. Whereas not only is the Ali Carter shot difficult it's also a really risky shot and a match winner. So it gets five and is this week's winner. It looked like Mark Selby was in a lot of trouble from that John Higgins snooker but not only does he manage to get out of it first time he leaves the balls completely safe as he ends up nearly touching the red. From here Mark's able to take the match in this deciding frame. I seem to have got the swerve right on my first attempt I just haven't quite hit it hard enough so let's see if I can do anything about that. This looks a bit better for pace but I've gone way too wide and nearly hit the other red I'm actually not that far away from the red I'm trying to hit in the end. This looks a bit better if it actually makes contact I've got the angle right and it's dropped on it couldn't have gone any better really. In the first round Hayden Pinney's trying to take the lead against Mark Selby with this long distance plant. Unfortunately for him he doesn't end up in position and Mark ends up taking the final two frames to take the match by four frames to two. I've set the balls up as well as I possibly can but it's almost impossible with a plant to get everything perfect even though that's close the whites ended up on the other side of the table and that's probably because the reds weren't quite in the right place. I've got them a little bit better this time the whites gone a bit wider but it's more or less the same line so I don't think I can do much better than that. A well-cued powerful shot now from Robert Milkins as he punches this long red in getting the cue ball off the side cushion in position on the black. This is pretty impressive as he's doing this from 3-0 down however it didn't end up helping him out too much as the break broke down on about 30 and he ended up losing 4-0 to John Higgins. Bardy also did a lot better with this shot than I am because I don't really like the power it needs and I'm also playing it way too hard I need to back off the power a bit which I've done there but I've actually played it a bit too slow and haven't got down the table for the black. That's better I finally got the angle right and I'm more or less in the perfect position. Ishpreet Singh Chowdhury needs two snookers on the pink against Jackson Page but he's not giving up as this is how he gets the first of them. Thin off the pink playing off the side cushion and top cushion to get the cue ball tight Jackson would miss this and he'd be in another snooker again which this time he would hit and eventually take the match but it was a good effort. After a couple of attempts I'm starting to learn the angle here. I think it needs a small trace of left hand side just to get it back across the table far enough but that makes it a bit harder because you've got to hit the pink thin enough to get it to miss the jaw and you should be roughly in the right position for the black but unfortunately I keep hitting it a little bit too thick and coming down this side of the table where I'm never going to get anywhere near the black. I've got a little bit closer there just need to be a bit wider and then we have the problem of the pace. This looks absolutely spot on finally but I've just gone about one roll of the cue ball too far so hopefully this time I can learn from that and get everything spot on. It's pretty close a fraction wide but I've definitely got the snooker comfortably. This is the shot that allows Stephen Maguire to take a 5-3 lead against Ali Carter because he's able to play such a tough safety shot from this that he's able to force another chance which he uses to take the frame. He'd eventually win the semi-final by six frames to four. This is going to be another one I'm going to find tough because it requires a lot of backspin to get the cue ball all the way back to the bolt cushion. That's not bad but I'm not anywhere near where the white should be as I've got to strike it a bit better than this. I've managed to get another foot out of it on my next attempt but that simply isn't enough as I'm going to need to cue this as well as I can to get the cue ball on the bolt cushion and I can just tell I'm holding back a little bit. I'm actually a little bit worried about miscuing for some reason as it just feels like I'm pushing a bit too hard here and I'm going to have to give this everything I can in order to get the white back to the bolt cushion. I'm just not confident enough to do it yet. I'm slowly getting back to potting this. I've seemed to have lost the potting angle a little bit but hopefully if I can get it I can finally push through the cue ball enough to get to the cushion. I've got the pot and that's about as much as I can screw back. Not bad, only about a foot short of the cushion. We've got a Joe O'Connor shot coming up next right after we find Olaf who lobes the channel from Regensburg, Germany, which is there. Apart from a few exceptions, a lot of the shots we've shown so far have looked pretty good but turned out to be completely meaningless and this Joe O'Connor shot is just another one of those as it's a really impressive pot but the frame ends up getting re-racked. However, Joe does actually manage to win the re-rack frame with a 113 break and then eventually take the match with an 82 in the next. I've managed to hit it perfectly after three attempts but unfortunately that's as far as I can screw back. On to Matthew Stevens now with what is definitely a complete fluke but I just wanted to see how unlikely it is to be able to pot this yellow off the side cushion. Surely it won't take me that long. In theory it shouldn't be too bad but as you can tell by the fact that I've speeded it up, it's not going to be as easy and straightforward as I first thought, even though with a lot of these shots I'm getting quite close. Slowing down again though probably means I'm going to get it, that actually took quite a long time. That's a Welsh Open nearly done, except for deciding on the winning shot and that's up to you. You can vote for free using the link in the description. And if you want to see more videos of me playing the best shots from other tournaments 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.