if you wanted to calculate the trajectory of a cue ball coming off an object ball and then a cushion using Newtonian physics, you’d need an accurate measurement of every variable, some pretty complex differential equations, and a lot of calculating time.
Snooker declines to lend itself so readily to the amusement of dilettantes.
The mercurial temperament, the absurd talent, the lurching highs and lows: it all just goes together.
Professional players are visually indistinguishable from ordinary people, except that almost all of them are men.
Snooker dramatizes obsession in a very pure form, hyperfixation made visible.
In other sports, the sphere of play is coterminous with the sphere of competition—players are not obliged to do anything in excess of trying to win matches. But snooker is different.
What field of study could articulate the answer—physics, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy of mind?
Why can computers beat human beings at chess, but not (yet) at snooker?
How is it possible for a snooker player to predict the outcomes of complex interactions in physics, with millimeter-level precision—without appearing to perform any calculations at all?
£10,000 isn’t nothing. And throwing it away—for no reason, just out of mischief, just because you’re the only person in the world who can—that isn’t nothing either.
https://nybooks.com/articles/2025/03/27/angles-of-approach-unbreakable-ronnie-osullivan/