Snookered

pyry · March 26, 2008

Here's a few shots from the billiards club I play at. The original idea came from an assignment of Nikolai's, "One."

And us sunday players hit a lot of ones too.

If you're wondering what all the bouncing is about, it was caused by a 'kick'. It's a bad contact between the balls. Kicks are bad mmkay.

Shooting a break:

Thanks to Panu for shooting a good bunch of reds for this set.

Comments and critiques most welcome! :thumb

black mamba · March 26, 2008

Boy, this brings back memories. I helped put myself through college and graduate school by shooting snooker for a " friendly " wager or two. I particularly like the third shot for it's perspective.

DonRicklin · March 26, 2008

That first shot is a real win. Done on a burst?
Gotta love it

!

Don

pyry · March 26, 2008

black mamba wrote:

Boy, this brings back memories. I helped put myself through college and graduate school by shooting snooker for a " friendly " wager or two. I particularly like the third shot for it's perspective.

Thanks! I was only a few inches above the cushion there.

pyry · March 26, 2008

LRmvcDonR wrote:

That first shot is a real win. Done on a burst?
Gotta love it !

Don

Nope, just 30-40 attempts at it

I was using studio strobes that don't allow continous drive.

Thanks!

BPerron · March 26, 2008

I like the 1st one alot...

I like to play pool, but I am confused on the wierd color balls with no stripes and no numbers and that pool table in the last photo seems huge...what am I missing?

black mamba · March 26, 2008

BPerron wrote:

I like the 1st one alot...

I like to play pool, but I am confused on the wierd color balls with no stripes and no numbers and that pool table in the last photo seems huge...what am I missing?

Snooker is a different kind of pool game. The table itself is larger than a standard pool table. And, as you have seen, the balls are different as well....though the colored balls ( but not the red ones ) do have numbers. The pockets are much smaller than regulation pool. It takes a lot of skill to play snooker well. There is not much room for " slop " shots in this game.

BPerron · March 26, 2008

black mamba wrote:

Snooker is a different kind of pool game. The table itself is larger than a standard pool table. And, as you have seen, the balls are different as well....though the colored balls do have numbers. The pockets are much smaller than regulation pool. It takes a lot of skill to play snooker well. There is not much room for " slop " shots in this game.

Cool...thanks for the info...I have never heard of it before...the title to the post makes way more sense now too

,

mercphoto · March 26, 2008

BPerron wrote:

I like to play pool, but I am confused on the wierd color balls with no stripes and no numbers and that pool table in the last photo seems huge...what am I missing?

Snooker rocks. I need to get out my McDermott.... I also love straight pool. Been way too long since I've played.

As per the shots, I think the lighting needs to be evened out more. Or do something in post to get more constrast and pop.

pyry · March 26, 2008

black mamba wrote:

Snooker is a different kind of pool game. The table itself is larger than a standard pool table. And, as you have seen, the balls are different as well....though the colored balls ( but not the red ones ) do have numbers. The pockets are much smaller than regulation pool. It takes a lot of skill to play snooker well. There is not much room for " slop " shots in this game.

Actually, there are no numbers on any of the balls. The colours are worth different amounts of points, but they're not marked beyond the color itself.

Snooker has several differences to pool, all of which make it more challenging. The table is bigger (12x6 feet, pool tables are 9x4.5 or smaller), the balls are smaller, the pockets are smaller and cut round which makes them eject the ball very easily.

So, basically, you have hit a ball which carries no markings to aim with, a long way away, dead on into a small pocket which is bent on ejecting your shot.

Challenging.

And world record fastest maximum break (made up of 15 reds, 15 blacks and then the six colours in order, 36 balls total, 147 points) stands at 5 minutes 20 seconds. I've taken that long to make 25 points...

Tango · March 26, 2008

these are great, though i want to duck or jump in front of the lens to save it from pending harm:D

black mamba · March 26, 2008

It was 40 years ago when I was a avid snooker player. I seem to remember that the colored balls had small numbers but I certainly could be wrong. I believe the black was 7, the pink 6, the blue 5 and so forth. I walked away from the game in 1966 after getting out of graduate school and have not been in a pool hall since.

pyry · March 26, 2008

AaronNelson wrote:

these are great, though i want to duck or jump in front of the lens to save it from pending harm

Thanks! This camera and lens have been through a lot with me, I wouldn't think of ruining it quite that easily!

black mamba wrote:

It was 40 years ago when I was a avid snooker player. I seem to remember that the colored balls had small numbers but I certainly could be wrong. I believe the black was 7, the pink 6, the blue 5 and so forth. I walked away from the game in 1966 after getting out of graduate school and have not been in a pool hall since.

Things may have changed in 40 years!

You're still right on the colours though, yellow's 2, green's 3, brown 4, blue 5...

IPClark · March 26, 2008

Really nice shots.. Love the perspective of Shot 3.

With regards to Snooker. I see from the replies here that it's most definitely played very much less over in the US?

Not to go off topic.

The most basic rules of snooker:

Break.
Pot a red, Pot a colour, Pot a red, pot a colour and so on. The colours (not reds) are put back onto their respective spots until all of the reds have been potted.
From then on, you put the remaining colours in the following order:
Yellow, Green, Brown, Blue, Pink and then Black.

Most snooker players will attempt to pot a red, then the black, then a red, then the black and so on as the black is worth the most points in the game.

So, aside from that, I'm very much encouraged to take my camera down to my local pool hall (where we play on American size tables) and get some similar shots.

Thank you for posting those

black mamba · March 26, 2008

Pyry.....

This thing with the colored balls having numbers or not ( at the time I played ) bugged me so bad I called an old friend that I played a lot with back then. He said that the only numbers that were on those balls were ones I had in my head. CRAP. I've been depressed ever since that call....just something else I can't remember. My wife tried to make me feel better by saying that, at least, I remembered the colors and their values. Didn't make me feel a whole lot better.

pyry · March 27, 2008

IPClark wrote:

Really nice shots.. Love the perspective of Shot 3.

With regards to Snooker. I see from the replies here that it's most definitely played very much less over in the US?

Very much less I believe, it's still a mostly British thing. And the Chinese have picked it up in a big way. This season two of the ranking tournaments are the Shanghai Open and the China Open.

IPClark wrote:

So, aside from that, I'm very much encouraged to take my camera down to my local pool hall (where we play on American size tables) and get some similar shots.

Thank you for posting those

Thank you and go for it! I'd love to see your take.

black mamba wrote:

just something else I can't remember.

Come on, it's a detail from 40 years ago. You can't expect to remember everything anyway, that's what the rulebook is for.

Skippy · March 27, 2008

pyry wrote:

Here's a few shots from the billiards club I play at. The original idea came from an assignment of Nikolai's, "One."

And us sunday players hit a lot of ones too.

If you're wondering what all the bouncing is about, it was caused by a 'kick'. It's a bad contact between the balls. Kicks are bad mmkay.

Shooting a break:

Thanks to Panu for shooting a good bunch of reds for this set.

Comments and critiques most welcome!

Hi there Pyry, I love the sound of the break, my uncle was an awesome player here in Australia, played at the BlackTown Workers Club in NSW.
..... he has long since retired.

I like to have a go, even though I suck at it

Thanks for sharing

.... Skippy

.

pyry · March 27, 2008

Skippy wrote:

Hi there Pyry, I love the sound of the break, my uncle was an awesome player here in Australia, played at the BlackTown Workers Club in NSW.
..... he has long since retired.

I like to have a go, even though I suck at it
Thanks for sharing .... Skippy
.

These piccies seem to get a lot of old memories going, I like that.

And about sucking at the game - lots of one point breaks then - like me