Like most sports, Snooker has undergone a huge transformation from the game that I used to closely follow as a kid. Watching the likes of Steve Davis, Alex Higgins, Terry Griffiths and Ray Reardon was what aroused my passion to start playing Snooker when I was a little boy. My father noticed my keen interest and surprised me one Christmas by buying me a “Snooker” table. It would have been close to the perfect gift except for one small defect……it was a Pool table.
Still, I made amends by purchasing a set of Snooker balls and before long, I had my very own Snooker table. Back in those days, you could basically bet your house on the big guns coming through the longer matches but that isn’t necessarily the case now.
The standard has risen so sharply that this led to many players who were in the top 16 in the early 1990’s no longer being good enough and it takes an exceptional player these days to get into the elite top 16 and to stay there. One of the biggest failings in my opinion of many punters is in how they continue to take short prices in matches by betting on favourites.
In this aspect it is similar to eighteen hole betting in golf. The overall standard is too marginalized. These margins are made even narrower in tournaments where the format in the early rounds is over the best of nine frames. This length of match does not leave a player much margin for error.
If they are feeling out of sorts on a given day then the entire match can be started and finished in several hours. A 5-0 or 5-1 result could be achieved in about two hours and it is perfectly possible for any player in the world to be off their game for that length of time.
At least when a match is over several sessions spaced out over two or three days then the superior player has the flexibility to have a bad session and still win the match. Also there will be situations when established players simply will not have had the time to put in long hours of practice. This can happen at the start of the season when some big named players could be coming into the new season “cold” so to speak.
If they happen to come up against a qualifier who has been in sparking form and also hardened from playing in numerous tough matches then the difference in terms of their probability of winning could be substantial to what prices are actually on offer. These situations are where the real value bets can be found these days in Snooker betting.
Anyone with a knowledgeable eye for the game can spot players who lack confidence. Often whenever a player is playing slower than their normal tempo then this can be an indication that their confidence levels are not what they should be. A run of defeats or a few key misses are all that it can take for a player to lose confidence.
Then their cueing may become less smooth and they may start taking on less shots than they normally would. It is also worth looking at how a player copes with the speed of the cloth as well during the early frames. Continually getting out of position could mean that this particular player is struggling with the pace of the cloth or the cushions or both.
