Betting.Betfair

An old colleague of mine used to wonder at snooker's propensity for propagating the long-time survival of the disturbed, [b]erratic genius[/b]. I reasoned that its non-combative nature was perhaps the genetic source. After all, it's hardly in the spirit of this noble art to throw a punch, smash a ball past a rival, tackle them headlong, or even ride them off the road. Instead, when your opponent is attacking you (or "break-building", as I believe is the popular term) you just have to sit back in your seat and take it quietly. And in the absence of any cathartic way to fight back or rage, many exponents of the game - above all, the supremely talented ones - can be left with some unresolved issues. The progenitor of the species was [b]Alex Higgins[/b], snooker's original bad boy. His...