Quiz questions are only easy if you know the answer For instance...if the answer to the Question is C. ock Robin what's the actual question....
Like Bossman I got it instantly because like Bossman I already knew the answer. It's a quiz question I've heard more than once before. Is this question loaded against the contestant? I'd argue not. It's been asked often enough that it is now part of the canon of General Knowledge. That's how Bossman and I knew it. But if you don't know it, it's still possible to work it out. Admittedly, that's a tough ask in 15 seconds, in a TV studio, when a correct answer is worth almost hundred grand. But it's certainly not impossible. If the question was 'what is the capital of the democratic republic of congo' and you don't know the answer, you cannot work it out. You either know it or you don't. That wasn't the case with this. For those that already know it, it's easy, for those that don't they've still got a chance to work it out.
Isn't that just an indicator as to how younger brains work vs older brains? My friend's son is one of the top junior players in St Petersburg. He has never beaten me in a classical game, but I'm already struggling once we get to rapid, even if I often lose on time with a better or equal position. Online blitz, and I'm lucky to beat him once in ten games. As for bullet, it's immensely fun but extremely bad for your chess, as you can get away with all sorts of dubious ideas which would easily be refuted in any sort of normal time format. Two move tactical combinations are king. Once I go back to playing regular chess after a bullet session, I find myself playing like some sort of very drunk Mikhail Tal, making all kinds of awful sacrifices and anti-positional moves which are easily dealt with by any half decent player. Most chess coaches in St Petersburg will go absolutely spare if they see that their young students have been playing bullet online, especially in the week before a tournament. It's on the same level of sin as a young footballer getting hammered on booze and other substances before a big match!
I was a very reasonable pool player in my 20's especially when I lived with a mate who was a really excellent player and we went to the club in Nottingham a couple of times a week. Assumed I'd also be ok at snooker. How very, very wrong I was. Absolutely ridiculously difficult game. Although I've been assured that golf is even harder for beginners.
I'm an o.k snooker player. Nothing sparkling. Odd 32 break in the balls and 27 clearance of the colours. One thing I can't do is play snooker after playing pool though. It's the feel being all wrong. If you can hold a cue you can play pool.
IIRC the shows don't actually make the payout. I read that its a specialist insurance policy so the show pays the insurance based on the average number of prizes awarded and the insurance pays out to the winners.
Me too, I use to play in a pool team and was quite decent at it, snooker was a totally different, I once got a fluky 45 break, it’s such a difficult game.
I think that a monkey with a typewriter would produce Shakespeare quicker than I'd manage a 45 break in snooker.
My main problem was I started playing positionally on every shot possible. I stopped trying to plain ball pot. That's when I started missing easy balls and leaving my mate an easy starter. He was way better than me so it made for some right tonkings. In the end I stopped playing altogether.
You're right about bullet chess, of course. You have to play by instinct. My son prefers blitz to bullet for that reason. Even the blitz chess which he plays online is far too quick for me. He usually plays 3 minute blitz games. He's beaten a couple of grandmasters and a number of IMs in that format. He's not a young boy, by the way, but a 34 year old. I suppose the standard in St. Petersburg is pretty high.
Ah right! I assumed he was much younger. That's very impressive in that case. I'm ten years older than him, but I'm the opposite - I've taken out quite a few CM's and FM's in daily chess and I've drawn with a GM (when I blundered in a winning position by being overly cautious) but my encounters with titled players in blitz have all ended very badly! As for St Petersburg - yes, the standard is insane, and was even more so during the USSR. My friend's father is a retired physics lecturer at the university, and when we got chatting a couple of years ago, he told me that he used to be "quite good" at chess back in his youth in Leningrad. When I started digging for a few more details, he told me about a blitz match he'd played with Mikhail Tal! Eight games, the final result being that he lost 6-1-1. Me - "But you beat Tal!" Him - "Ah, it was nothing. Just a blitz game! But I'll tell you what I am proud of. When I checkmated Korchnoi in classical!"
I'm fairly decent at both and used to be very decent. Regular 30/40 breaks and a fair amount of 50s over the years, once got into the 70s and should have had a 100 but my nerves got the better of me. The thing with pool is everyone can pot a few balls but if you are playing someone who knows what they are doing you'll still lose most of the time. I've played many a person over the years and while they are potting a couple of balls I've known I will beat them because they aren't playing the big picture of how the balls lay. Playing positional shots at snooker does usually leave some margin for error especially on the reds as numerous reds can be on. Oddly enough what can make it harder for us mere mortals is when you play someone who is poor and makes a mess of the table. It becomes a slog then as you can't make any kind of meaningful score. Though it is funny when you see people on a snooker table for the first time, the TV just no justice to how big the table is.
A good Snooker player usually can be a good Pool player but like you and others say not always other way round. Comes down to technique, if your technique is not good you can play Pool but not Snooker.
