There are obviously many places to play snooker, but I thought it would be interesting to do a Google map of where readers of this blog actually play. I've added my own regular spot to get things going with a brief rundown of what the club is like inside. Click here to have a look and add your own and maybe a description of its delights (especially if it's somewhere fabulously exotic).

Snooker music is obviously in the air. Following my post last week about snooker-based music, Dave Hendon at the must-read snooker blog Snooker Scene has also posted some interesting selections. So I think we should all get together and come up with a general must-listen playlist.

Some of you may know about spotify, an online streaming music site which features a huge amount of music of all types (more details here). I'm becoming a bit hooked on it and one of its greatest features is that you can come up with collaborative playlists, a little like a mixtape which everybody can add to. I've started one off on a snooker theme which you can view by clicking here (though you need to be a member to join and at the moment it is at the invitation only beta stage). And not only can you view it, you can add to it. So please, start adding.

Don't worry. Spotify does not include snooker loopy... (look, isn't that Tony Meo?)

The canon of snooker-themed music is not a large one (nor, dare I say it, a hugely celebrated one), but over the next few weeks I'll be posting a few examples of the genre. Here, via blip.fm (which is well worth exploring if you haven't come across it yet) is Pot Black vs Eminem by Bobby Martini


Hmmm... it doesn't want to embed properly - I'll fiddle with it but in the meantime, scroll all the way down the little box and press play.

In my youth I played a lot of chess (to a far better standard than I now play snooker) and even now, 25 years later, I can still remember certain spectacularly clever moves (if you'll forgive the nauseating lack of modesty). The same is true, in general, for all sport: you might remember that a certain Test Match or FA Cup final was a good one, but the chances are that this is only a vague feeling and, especially with the passing of time, what you actually remember are amazing shots or saves.

Memories of last night's three frames are already starting to fade but a shot I played in the second will be with me for a very, very long time. I was snookered. The final red was close to the left corner pocket, the white was close to the right corner pocket and the only way to reach it was by going up to the top cushion with a huge amount of right side to come back down the entire length of the table dead straight. I made a great contact and not only did I hit the red, I also potted it. It'll take something special to beat that this year. It's almost as good as this one from young Maguire at the 2008 Masters.

This is the first in a series of video blogs I'll be posting to the site. Please do have a go at replying via seesmic - all you need is a webcam and once you've signed up you can reply to this video (or indeed start your own conversation).

Another sad loss for snooker this week with the news of the death of David Vine. Everybody says what a fine chap he was. Here he is talking to a young Steve Davis and Alex Higgins after an incredible final.

The answer, of course, is yes. They don't (usually) make the news as much as cricket umpires or football referees, but without them professional snooker would be impossible. The subject has been on my mind this week since the sad news that one of its the most famous white-glove wearers, John Street, has died. Street and Len Ganley are probably the sport's most famous referees ever thanks to television (indeed, the band Half Man Half Biscuit even wrote a song, The Len Ganley Stance, in their inimitable style which you can listen to at the BBC site here where there is also an interview with Ganley).

In fact, I can't think of a sport that welcomes such a wide range of referees. There are well known names such as Jan Verhaas (who has been brave enough to actually eject bothersome audience members from the arena), Eirian Williams (who has a great web site - take a look at his Zapper) and Paul Collier. But there's also Michaela Tabb (also a well known pool referee) and 12-year-old Anthony Nardone who last month qualified to referee at major events.

My personal favourite has always been John Williams, here in firm but fair action.

1. I am not going to convince myself that I am warming up in the first frame rather than admit I am simply playing badly

2. I am not going to regard snookers as frankly not gentlemanly and attempt them whenever the opportunity genuinely arises

3. I am not going to eat crisps immediately before a shot and then wonder why I am cueing badly

4. I am not going to waste money on the electronic jukebox in my snooker club to break up the rap, etc, 'music' put on by the pool players downstairs

5. I am going to make a break of 50 this year. Maybe two or three.

6. I am going to play safe when there is a chance to do so rather than thinking 'Hey, I can pot that' when it's obvious I can't

7. I am going to drink a little less during frames

8. I am going to use the rest EVERY TIME I NEED TO

9. I will not play silly trick shots (unless absolutely necessary, but I stress the 'absolutely')

10. I will encourage people not to buy me snooker-themed novelty gifts for Christmas and birthday

I played my first game of tennis on the Wii a couple of weeks ago and was delighted to discover that my virtual backhand is considerably stronger than my actual backhand: in real life I can only manage a dubious cross court slice. Similarly, I am able to score quite freely playing football on my Playstation with either foot whereas in real life my last goal in competitive games (not counting own goals) was at the age of 11.

However, when it comes to snooker I've found that art really does imitate life. World Snooker 2007 is not a bad game and certainly realistic insofar as the computer whips me every time I make  a bad mistake. But it goes deeper than that. It would be fair, if a little bigheaded, to say that in real life I am pretty tasty when it comes to potting into the centre pockets. Somehow I can sense the angles. I feel confident every time I line up the shot and every session I pot a very high number of blues. It is my bread and butter shot. Where I fall down is that I am extremely variable when it comes to blacks into the corners. For some reason I frequently develop a wobble and whack it into the jaws.

What's interesting is that I find exactly the same thing happens when I'm playing on the computer. With my virtual cue I'm almost unbeatable around the middle of the table, but once I start to flirt with the black, my mouse starts to choke. It's amazing how far a psychological sporting problem can stalk you.

Ding Junhui has just racked up (another) 147 at the championships in Telford (you can watch again at the BBC site here). It sounds immodest, but the truth is that there's no shot that a professional can do that I can't match. I can even play with my other hand if necessary. What marks me off from them is the consistency. Yes, I can pot red, black, red, maybe black, maybe at a real push red, but that's the nearest I'm realistically going to get to a maximum. I've hit some reasonably high breaks, but they've all involved getting out of position, taking yellows and browns, and basically clinging on for dear life while the cliff crumbles beneath my cue. And it's not just the talent, it's also the concentration that's required: I just don't think I can keep my game mentally together for that long, especially without a drink (Ding managed it with just a sip of water before the final two colours).

As anybody who has played chess against their children knows very well, it's hard to deliberately lose and not arouse suspicion. Simply throwing away your queen or making a series of incomprehensibly rubbish moves really does give the game away: you have to put as much effort into playing badly as playing well.

There's been some rather impressive snooker at this week's Maplin UK Championship. There has also, as reported on the always excellent snookerscene.blogspot.com, been some rather suspicious betting on the outcome of the Stephen Maguire/Jamie Burnett match (though both players have strongly denied being involved in anything untoward). As I post, we are still waiting to see what action the WPBSA plans to take but an investigation is pretty likely.

While I have taken it easy in the middle game with the nippers several times, I've never thrown a frame of snooker. I've lost plenty, but never on purpose. I would not expect any of my friends to do so either. That's the beauty of being an amateur. I can miss a straight yellow into the top left and nobody will think twice about it. The worst that will happen is that the people on the next table might laugh. To be honest, I'd be more suspicious if one of us started playing particularly well. The problem for professionals, especially in snooker, is that to miss one pot is a misfortune and to miss two looks like carelessness, but to whack the black miles wide of the jaws just smells a bit dodgy, however honest a mistake it may be.

I don't think so, but it would be fun to try.
Via Trendhunter

Well apparently not at Astley Bridge Conservative Club. According to This is Lancashire, Paula Rawsthorn was just heading towards the baize for a couple of frames when staff told her that women were banned from the snooker table (though they don't seem to mind taking their money at the bar). Apparently they can get away with this kind of nonsense (for the time being) because they are a private members club, although they seem to have lost Ms Rawsthorn's vote at the next election. Indeed, Conservative Clubs seem to have form in this area, as members at the Great Moor club in Stockport last year voted against letting women play, although they very kindly allowed them to watch. A club insider told the Manchester Evening News that there was a fear of women playing in short skirts which would be undignified...

The truth is that I've never played snooker against a woman in my life. Pool, yes, but snooker never. And I've never seen a woman playing snooker at my club either. Why?

Of course you need the talent to be a champion in sport, but folk like Jonny Wilkinson and Geoff Boycott didn’t become world class by dint of their natural abilities alone. All the time I’ve spent watching old Woody Allen films, lying on sofas listening to John Dunstable and browsing the internet for interesting sheds, they’ve been out there in all weathers, dispatching balls to the edges of a large field. And yet it could have all been so different…

I was the first of my schoolfriends to start playing snooker and had my first half-sized table, complete with natty waistcoat accessory, when I was 11. Since then I’ve played on and off for the last 28 years and pretty regularly for the last three. It’s hard to estimate how many hours I’ve put in but it’s certainly not the 10,000 which Malcolm Gladwell in his latest book Outliers suggests is the minimum to become an elite performer. I’d guess it’s about a tenth of that, which suggests he’s on the right lines since Ronnie O’Sullivan is probably ten times better than me, more if he’s cueing with his right arm.

Every so often I have dreamy ideas of turning pro following a particularly good frame or, to be honest, even a couple of decent blues into the middle. There are various reasons why I don’t, but the saddest one is that I’m arguably too old to make up those missing 9,000 hours. While 19-year-old Judd Trump is beating Ronnie and 10-year-old Shane Castle is already making century breaks, I’m left two years older than Alan McManus, recently described worryingly accurately at the Pro Snooker Blog as a ‘veteran’. The 11-year-old me could have been a contender. Has the 39-year-old version already lost too much vision?

If I start playing six hours every day – which is 40 hours more a week than I manage at the moment - it’s going to take me about five years to hit Gladwell’s figure. That’s a little formidable but not entirely impossible. My friend Justin Irwin  gave up the day job to try and become a professional darts player (granted, it didn’t quite work out as planned but he did write an excellent book about it, Murder on the Darts Board). All it needs is a little grit and determination and I could be taking on Shane at the Crucible in 2013. And once Annie Hall finishes I shall make a start. Or perhaps tomorrow would be better.

In preparation for Superstars in 1976, footballer Stan Bowles did not hone his squat thrust technique or work on his sprint starts. Instead he spent the night before his appearance downing lager, wine and brandy. The next day he sunk his canoe, fired his gun into a table in the shooting and scored the lowest total points in the history of the series. His example is not unique. However diligently you look on Google, there appears to be no research suggesting a couple of Summer Lightnings will improve your athletic prowess.

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