Snooker Match - Frame 6

Yeah, he called his own "foul". Pretty much every player does that, a good coup for the sportsmanship of the sport. That's why the referee asked if he touched the black (if he touched a red it would have been 4, not 7 to his opponent), and the game continued. But generally, a player calls his own fouls if the referee doesn't notice. That's why they applauded - not because he fouled, but because he pointed it out sportingly.

I dig sports where players do that--golf comes to mind--rather than trying to bluff their way out of it.

I know what you mean... or when they throw baseball manager like tantrums about it.

They do this in ultimate frisby as well

Drives me crazy playing pickup basketball or something not refereed with guys who don't do this. Dude, you stepped out of bounds/double dribbled/tipped the ball etc...--suck it up.

On the same token, you get guys who call everything... You have to understand, I am a terrible basketball player, but one time I played some short dude, with a decent set of hands. He decided he was gonna drive right into the lane and lay one up...of course i decided to stand in that land...didn't move an inch and he tried to bowl me over...and call a foul...I chastised the guy for trying to call it...guys like that in pickup are a joke...honestly who cares...but take your lumps like a man...

That drives me crazy, too--guys who call your foul all the time. They tend to be the same guys who never call their own. Interesting, that. For pickup, I generally like the 'no blood, no foul' rule, but as I cited before, you've got to man up and call yourself for stepping out of bounds, or tipping a ball out or the like.

Generally, if you call a legit one on yourself, once a game, you get enough respect to play the rest of the game with little flack, that's my general feeling, but you get guys who go both ways...

Its difficult because pickup games feature 2 or 3 types of players...a player who just wants to play, a showoff who calls crap or doesn't give up an inch, even if he's dead wrong and the one or two guys who play, who are just plain nasty and fit into a team and play to their skill level...

I played with a guy once, probably 6-6, 260, and very talented...would dunk when needed but mostly distrubted and fed shots around...one of my buddies, generally a good outside shooter, went ice cold, and he just kept feeding and feeding...we eventually won...but, whenver I see that guy on the court, I always give him props, way better than any of us, but just wanted to play and have fun...

A lot of British sports have this trait ("soccer" excepting). Players give themselves out in cricket, you've seen it in snooker, players accept the decision in rugby (rather than argue about it). Football is the sad exception to the rule.

and what i meant in Ultimate is this: The players, even in the club leagues, don't have "referees" per se. They call the game themselves and in a higher level match have people referred to as "Observers" These observers have no power to ref the game, but do supply and opinion and are differed to on calls when the teams either don't know or disagree...it really is a decent system

I had a friend like that, JuT, who used to play football with us. He was far and away the best athlete--fastest, strongest, everything. He never scored a TD, though--he would lateral to someone else every time. Very cool dude.

It's good to have games where the referees are peripheral, you'll tend to find the sport is much less hated. People can hate football because of diving for instance. People can hate cycling/baseball for drug cheats. That has never been much of a problem for cricket (until Ian Chappell came along) and snooker. It gives people less reason to hate it.

I can tell you, yes! It was the only full match I cound find on YouTube! Well, I could find one from the 2006 Northern Ireland Trophy Final, but that pales into insignificance compared to a World Championship Final, so I picked this one. After it's all done I'll explain what happened after this, and where the two players are now. It's quite a well known match in the snooker circles though, and oft quoted on the second day of World Finals, for reasons that will become apparent when we get there.

YouTube availability is an excellent reason.

Didn't look at details, but I did look up Hendry on Wikipedia--gone from a 23 year old with feathered blond hair to a 38 year old with a dark buzzcut.

What was Hendry's history coming into this Championship? I get the impression that he is the young phenom, but is having some trouble handling the pressure. Whereas White appears to be the perhaps less talented but savvy vet.

Er... That would be a good summary. Hendry had just assured his position as World Number 1 for the third time in three years. He was the World Champion in 1990, before succumbing to The Crucible Curse in 1991. Jimmy White had already lost in three finals, and was famous for being excellent or failing to nerves. But he was the favourite with the fans having lost in those three finals.

That's table tennis, Jamel.