Is Robbo's Sheffield analysis spot on?

jed - couldn't agree more with your views on A.Carter. He is a far bigger threat in the bottom half than his odds suggest. A few of Robbo's recent comments have surprised me, and I'm not 100% sure he feels totally comfortable with his game despite his vast number of century breaks this season. In fact there are big question marks about most, if not all, of the seeds in the bottom half, and no doubt we'll discuss these in more detail once the qualifiers are completed and the full 1st round draw known.
Fu is potentially dangerous for ROS in his quarter. He remains frustratingly inconsistent but he has produced some top-drawer performances, in individual games, at the Crucible including his win over Ronnie in 2003 (OK that was a long time ago but he does have a really good record against him). That said, Fu will have to play well to beat an in-form S.Murphy should they clash in round 2.

I think Robbo has become caught up chasing the 'hundred centuries in a season' possibly stung and driven on, by S.Hendry's comments regarding his "amateurish" break buliding on the BBC a couple of seasons ago. If his tactical game suffers at Sheffield as a result, then he could be vulnerable early on, just as he was last year when he lost the majority of the tactical exchanges to R.Milkins.

But 9/1 bar Ronnie, on here, shows how far any of the opposition need to improve to beat him.

If Ronnie brings his A game he wins it.

meh PTC finals, doubt he cared too much

the only chance Ronnie gets beat is if he runs into a grinder like Selby who sthe ebdon go slow bore tactics that drive Ronnie mad

pandora1963 07 Apr 14 13:45 
the only chance Ronnie gets beat is if he runs into a grinder like Selby who sthe ebdon go slow bore tactics that drive Ronnie mad


Lots of folk said that before the masters final too but made not a jot of difference then

Yeah Jed, fair enough, has bags more ability than Selby and achieved more too so i think i was unfair on that point. Not sure what it is about Robertson to be honest, just have a mental block about him and dont like to get involved punting cos the day i oppose him is sure to be the day he lights the hall up

Did mean to say,

Selby has done wonders with a game that has had to overcome involuntary movements and for me he is up there with John Higgins for tactical nous.
Ronnie for me has always been the king in that respect but poor quality commentary has rarely picked up on that.
Ronnie has a snooker brain that was as fast as Alex Higgins was and because each shot was taken with such speed they wrongly thought little of it.
Ronnie is a better safety player than anyone ever has been.

cricketnut2 - 5/1 Ding seems exceptionally tight. Whilst it's true he lives in Sheffield, he has done for many years and it hasn't proved to be any advantage to him while competing at The Crucible. As you say he is in great form, but Ronnie did not compete at the venues in 4 of his 5 ranking event wins this season, and hammered him 9-3 in the Welsh Open final.
Ding's record at The Crucible is also exceptionally poor. As I've stated elsewhere he has only reached the one table set up once in 7 previous attempts - winning 8 and losing 7 of his 15 matches played there.
I'm not saying he can't win it this year, but he is one of the top players that is currently under Ronnie's spell, and deep down I don't think he believes he could beat Ronnie at the Crucible over 4 sessions. If Ronnie was to go out early then Ding would be the major beneficiary, and would almost certainly become tournament favourite.

Agree you on one thing Moon,Ronnie is not a great pressure player,never has been. But he makes up for it with pure genius breakbuilding,safety from the gods and huge charisma. Boy,snooker will miss him when he's gone.

Moondan you keep going on about the conditions making the player, and I think you're right, but wrong about the effects.

I understand that you find it hard to hear the modern players overpraised and the stars of yesteryear forgotten, but you may as well lament the passing of the muddy pitch and laced-up ball. The relative test of one's game is incomparable, the touch and finesse required to keep control of the white much greater than the old days when you needed a bazooka to fire the white in and out of baulk. I would state with certainty that there would be several of the older players who just would not be able to adapt their game to the same standard on these cloths. I know myself that half an hour on the match table sharpens up your game for a money game on a club table, and half an hour on a club table will ruin two weeks practise on the match table.

I also know that you rate Ronnie highly as a player despite your constant sniping at him for not doing justice to his talent, but you forget or gloss over the change in his mentality in the last few seasons. Like you I hate to hear people question Hendry's right to be acclaimed as the greatest ever, but I don't believe you are prepared to countenance the possibility that Ronnie may yet come to deserve that title. I think he may, and most importantly I think he is of a mind to prove it. You keep questioning his mentality, and by and large I don't think that caveat applies any more.

And I can't let your comment about Robertson and Selby pass. Just look at their stats: Selby has been a pro much longer, and Robertson's achievements in ranking events dwarf his - even if you give Selby the first four years of his pro career as a learning curve. Robertson has won the World Championship, Selby has consistently underperformed at the Crucible. Robertson has reached many more finals, and his win-loss ratio in those finals is grades above Selby's. And more importantly than any of those stats, I can actually watch Neil Robertson cue without feeling seasick.

Selby really doesn't have great ability does he. Look at his cue action,its awful. He got where he is through pure iron will  and huge bottle,and of course hours and hours of practice. Very similar to Ebdon.

he is extremely clever and knows the game inside out for sure,he would have fitted in nicely back in the 80's and 70's,he reminds me of  Reardon  a little

lets say Ronnie played back in the 80's,against the likes of Meo,knowles etc. He would have blown them away. Take a look on youtube of the standard back then. Safety was good yes,but breakbuilding was nowhere near what it is today..Davis was a great player and there were a couple of others but Ronnie would have cleaned up.

Jed,
I respect your comment.

I do think improvement in the game has been conditions led and the fact that players have chosen to stay with the fast cloth and risk the kick says so much.

In the early days you had to extract a ball from the pack and to run around off 3 or 4 cushions could only happen in your dreams and of course other problems existed such as dampness and pile drift also had to be allowed for.
The 80s, the 90s and the 2000s all started with completely different playing conditions to how they ended and even as we speak money is being spent on further improvements.

You know as well as I do that touch counts for so much and always has, the slow conditions had its own problems as do the fast and its always been my point that its quite wrong to compare performances in different decades.

You could well be right about Ronnie but the hard fact is, its all been said before and while he does not have the obvious to contend with, he has been leaving chances that his opponent should have made more use of.

As for Robbo, I am less convinced about him than I was a few seasons ago and am disappointed with how little he has achieved.

I just think that a guy with his obvious talent should have achieved more since his world title.
I think the tables are ridiculously fast now and perhaps the type of player they are producing have more style than substance.

As for me appreciating Ronnie, my dream match would always be Ronnie V Stephen.
Its the very very best of both worlds.

I would say it's hard to argue with how much he has won, especially when he's not been around for a huge length of time. I said already that I agree he's not been at his best the last few months - I wonder if he has been wearing himself out with extra trips to Australia?

I'm also interested moondan in how you see the rankings developing over the next couple of seasons, given that they are going to become a more accurate reflection of form than they have ever been? Do you see anyone challenging Ding, Ronnie and Robertson? Can Trump keep learning? Trump would be my tip to surpass them all if I felt he could acquire the mental skills.

It's funny that we rarely completley agree on any snooker subject, but your love for and knowledge of the game still warms my heart.

I still love it - nothing gives me the peace that playing a couple of hours snooker does. And I like watching them all play, the battle that each man has with himself intrigues me the most about the game because it's the same battle I have with myself.

Some rubbish on this thread,o'sullivan will never be seen as good as Hendry even if he won the next 20 world titles,hendry was completely different class indisputable and even o'sullivan himself would tell you that!!And as for mark Selby not being talented mark Selby is one of the most talented cueists in the game,it just happens that over the last 6/7 seasons he's not even played at 80% of the standard he was previously.Anyone who thinks that pool is mickey mouse game is wrong,i've played pro snooker players and pro pool players, at the top level they are fantastic cueists and make the game look ridiculously easy,selbys got every shot in the book it's just ashame somethings happened to his confidence over the years snooker wise.I remember he was involved in a lot of battles over a period of seasons,playing immaculate stuff he looks a shell of the player he once was yet still gets results,again showing what a poor bunch current players are matchplay wise..

I'm still at the snooker flat out, although I have had a little break for the last month or so. Cricket will take over next week, probably start again in September. I might try and play a few pro-ams next season if I can be arsed to get off the sofa.