Snooker Surprising Shots That Become Increasingly Unplayable

Sometimes a shot will take you by surprise. Especially exhibition shots like these. The difference here is the longer this video goes on, the more these surprise exhibition shots are going to become increasingly unplayable. But as usual, we're still going to work out just how tough these shots are to play by attempting to recreate all of them as accurately as possible and then play them in the fewest possible attempts. But first I'd like to mark the sad passing of John Virgo and we're going to do so by recreating one of his famous trick shots, a leap to freedom. I can't really remember a time he wasn't commentating on the snooker and it's just going to be strange not hearing his voice anymore. You wouldn't think our first shot from Ding on the final black could be that surprising, but he decides to play it into the green pocket and gets it for 129 break, which at least Kyron found amusing. Getting this shot though is going to be a lot tougher than it looks and on my first attempt I've hit it way too thick. With these you've got to hit it a lot thinner than it looks. I've done that, I wasn't 100% sure where it would go, but it's gone in the pocket and I'm happy with the start. Well that went better than expected, but as I'm sure you've already worked out, it's only going to get tougher from here, starting with his Zhaogadong shot. Where nobody would have been surprised to see him play an exhibition shot, the surprise came with the fact that he played it with right hand side, where instead of the cue ball just going back across to his side of the table, it checks up, goes back against the same cushion again and heads up towards the blue. This looks tough to get right, so let's see what I can do with it. As it turns out, it's a little bit easier than I thought it would be to get the line right. It's just hitting it hard enough that's the tough bit. I haven't quite gone far enough to be topside of the blue there, so I'm going to try again. This looks better, I've got it back off the side cushion, could do with being a little bit further out, but I'm definitely in position on the blue. It may be early on in the video, but we've already reached this week's danger shot. Where Mark Selby's run out of position on the brown here, so he just pots it off two cushions. You may think this is a bit of a fluke, but not only does he get the brown, he also manages to get down on the blue, and it's actually surprising how often he gets a shot like this right. However, I think it's going to take me a little bit longer than Mark to line this shot up accurately, and that's why it's this week's danger shot. I don't think this one would be too difficult to judge if it was just a plain ball shot around two cushions, but the fact that it needs left hand side is making it tricky to line up consistently. You don't know how much left hand side you put on it one shot to the next, so I'm just glad it's finally gone in, and I've gone down the table nicely for the blue as well. On this next shot, it's unclear if Judd can even see the yellow, so of course he manages to double it into the middle pocket. I think the reason he's playing this shot so hard, is because when you power the object ball into the cushion, it actually squares up, so he might not have been able to see enough of the yellow to play a double at a normal speed, but if he plays it harder, he can square it up more from further down the cushion, and he effectively gets the yellow. However, as I'm discovering here, that's a lot easier to say than it is to actually get right in practice, and it keeps going wrong for me. Genuinely, I think I've been a bit unlucky here. I've rattled it in the duels a few times, and as I've already explained, speed can affect this shot so much. Just a little bit too slow or too fast, and it won't work. However, it's gone in, and I'm pretty happy with the result. On this next shot, Wu Yize powers the brown in so hard, it actually almost jumps out the pocket, but it allows him to play the cue ball around four cushions, narrowly missing the pink, and dropping in perfect position on the blue. This is one of those where we're starting to get to that point where I'm not sure it's even going to be possible to play on my table, but I'm going to give it a good go. The angle might not be there, and it might not even be possible for me to hit it hard enough if I do manage to somehow get the angle right, but let's see what happens. At least here, I've got the white going where I want it to. However, it's a little bit too narrow. I need to get further along the side cushion. This is a tiny bit better. Actually, no, it's a little bit worse. I've ended up the wrong side of the blue, so I need to swing the cue ball a lot wider and get further up the side cushion. That's too much now, and nowhere near enough pace. The power is going to be the difficult thing, even if I get the line right, although this looks good for line. Ah, the pink's just in the way. I think I had enough speed. Maybe this is a bit better. I'm a bit wider here. I've got by the pink. Is it fast enough? Not quite, but I'm very nearly dead straight on the blue, and I'm going to take that because I'm simply not going to be able to do any better. Mark Selby's run out of position on the pink in this next shot, but not only does he manage to pot the pink and get in position on the black, he plays the cue ball around six cushions to do so. This one's going to be really tough to avoid all the in-offs and play the shot with enough side spin to get back for the black, and I think I can do it, but I'm not 100% sure. And that's not exactly a good start. However, I've got it on my second attempt, and I've got the cue ball around the angles nicely, maybe a bit close to the corner pocket. I'm just hit it ever so slightly too slow. I want the cue ball just to bounce off the cushion, so I'm going to try again and see if I can just get a little tiny bit more pace into the cue ball because I think it's definitely possible to do that. But now I'm just struggling to pot the pink, although I've got it and gotten it off in the middle pocket. Maybe I should have just played it safe and stuck with my second attempt, and I won't do any better than that. This, however, does look better. I've got the cue ball around the angles nicely, but this time I've gone too far. Who knew I could actually play this shot and hit it too hard? So obviously I'm going to try again, and this might look better. Nope, just caught the jaws. The trouble with this one is just such a difficult pot. No, I thought I had it then. Jumped it that time. Now I've got it. This looks good this time. I've got it around the angles. Might be a little bit fast again, but if it can just stop... Yep, that's going to give me a shot of the black. If I can get the pot on the black, it's definitely good enough. There we go. Made it a bit harder than it was, possibly. Next up, Ryan Day's finished straight on the blue, so there is absolutely no way he can get in position on the pink that's on the black spot unless he runs it through off the jaw. He gets this more or less perfect and ends up in good enough position to finish off the clearance. I think this is going to be difficult to get the exact same bounce off the angle that Ryan got, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. I'm also going to keep a counter going on the side of the screen for every time I make myself look a bit of a fool and go in off, but the reality is going in off isn't actually too far away from getting the shot right because you have to be incredibly accurate to hit the jaw, and even hitting the jaw isn't good enough. You need to hit the right point of the jaw to send it down towards the pink in the same way Ryan did. That was good, but it wasn't exactly the same, and that wasn't too far off. I just got a little bit too close to the pocket. I'm struggling to be accurate enough here, and I think by now I'm just going to have to accept a shot that goes somewhere near the pink because I'm just not getting close enough, and unfortunately this is about as good as I can do unless I stay here for another hour. Next Neil Robertson is taking it up a level with his positional shot from black to yellow. He pots the black, arcs the cue ball around the pink onto the side cushion with right hand side to spin the cue ball back across the table in between the brown and green and finish in position on the yellow. Doing it like this allows him to avoid the blue and allow him to avoid the blue blocking the yellow and guarantees he's in position. However you need a lot of cue power to be able to get this right and I'm not sure I've got quite enough to get it there on my table. By giving it everything I'm managing to just about get around the yellow and cannon into the blue which might be what Neil was attempting here because that line would be correct if he was trying to make sure he was going to get in position on the yellow. I just can't play it in the same way he did and actually get in between the green and the brown although that's about as close as I think I'm going to get. I just can't fully play it. We've got another Judd Trump shot coming up right after we find Ollie who's from Rob and Yummy Finland which is there. We've already got to the point now where things are starting to get a little bit too much and this next Judd Trump shot's even harder as he's screwing the cue ball into the bolt cushion off the blue with a ton of right hand side to spin the cue ball around the next five cushions and back in position on the pink. I'm not sure my table's even fast enough to allow me to play it but even if it is I'm not sure I can get enough right hand side on the cue ball to make the angle around the cushion to get around all five cushions after the bolt cushion and get back on the pink but I'm just gonna have to try it aren't I? I finally hit it as hard as I can and got the line as good as I can get it. Unfortunately the angle just isn't there on my table and this is as good as I could do. I did try it a few more times after this but I simply couldn't do any better. On to Sean Murphy now who's actually playing a very similar shot to what we saw from Neil Robertson earlier where he's powering the black in with a lot of spin and making it spin around the angles but this time it's not for a bolt colour it's actually for a red that's down on the top cushion so I'm gonna have to strike this really well to even get the right spin on the cue ball that'll allow me to hit the right place on the bolt cushion but once I've done that I'm not sure it's even going to be possible to hit it hard enough. In fact for Sean he only just got it far enough to allow him to have a shot at the red so I'm not sure this one's going to be even close to possible but let's just see how close I can get. As you can see I've got the back spin right and got the cue ball into the correct position on the bolt cushion and I've done it again there however once I've done that it simply doesn't have enough pace to get back down the table the side spin just isn't enough to create enough of a reaction off the cushion and I simply can't hit it any harder than this. This is about as fast as my table can react and this is unfortunately as good as I can do here but I'm still about five foot short of where I need to be to get on the red maybe only four. Last week from the best shot of the masters video you voted for shot E from Neil Robertson to be the winning shot as he swerves around the green here not just hitting the red but also managing to pot it. It took me forever to get right so congratulations to Neil and you can vote for the winning shot from this week's video for free using the link in the description but if you can't wait for that long you can see these two shot recreation videos that I've made previously 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