Virtual Snooker

[dr_st]

#11835

On account of the World Snooker Championship that just finished, I’ve decided to play a bit of Virtual Snooker in the past few days.

I played it off and on over the years. It is naturally much more complicated than pool, and my positional play is not good, so I find it hard to make meaningful breaks.

However, on the computer with zoom, precise mouse control and perfect cueing, it is much easier to pot far balls than in real-life snooker. So for mediocre players like myself, it is easier to beat the AI by playing pool-style – break hard to scatter the balls (very different from how a real professional snooker game will go). The AI seems to benefit less than you from a messy table.

Anyhow, I’ve played against ‘Able Shooter’ (AI player ranked 4th from the top), and was almost surprised that I’ve been able to trade blows with it and keep parity, for a while. Eventually I lost 12-18, but I feel I can improve.

It also felt the AI, even on the same level, plays better when the PC/emulator is faster. This may be just my subjective feeling. It is possible I was just playing worse towards the end, because I was tired.

I’ll see if by the end of this month I can actually beat this “Able Shooter”. 😆

[butterburp]

#11838

I didn’t read the descriptions in the other thread first, so I was stunned to see the same interface as Virtual Pool! As with VP, I had to skip the videos, also hit the vertical axis bug once so did the save/restart thing.

I’ve never actually played snooker before, had to read up on it on Wikipedia first. It’s pretty fun! I’m not used to the table being so big, and of course it’s effectively even bigger because the balls are smaller. The alternation between red and non-red is interesting. The “colours” (I’m always tempted to rhyme that with “velours,” because we spell it “colors” in the US) and the increasing point values remind me of the belt progression in karate or judo.

It’ll be a while before I’m ready to challenge the AI, but this is a superb intro to snooker. Thanx for posting!

[dr_st]

#11878

I did it!

Despite losing a few more matches, first 12-18, then 14-18, and finally 17-18 (squandering a 14-10 lead) 🤦‍♂️, I felt that I was improving with each game, and I was finally able to find my “groove”, improve precision and even find some positional play at times (although to be honest, nothing to write home about).

In addition to that, I got lucky a few times, and somehow all the little things that were against me in the previous matches, went my way, and I was able to “crush” Able Shooter 18 frames to 9, in a match where I never trailed. Proof is attached. 😎

The game does not keep frame scores, so here they are. Individual frame scores are followed by running match score in parentheses.

51-43 (1-0), 61-23 (2-0), 13-59 (2-1), 24-81 (2-2), 49-13 (3-2), 41-31 (4-2), 29-74 (4-3), 55-10 (5-3), 57-3 (6-3), 61-54 (7-3, won on respotted black), 58-1 (8-3), 46-33 (9-3), 43-34 (10-3), 56-31 (11-3), 46-48 (11-4), 31-69 (11-5), 62-25 (12-5), 54-45 (13-5), 33-63 (13-6), 35-54 (13-7), 41-67 (13-8), 55-45 (14-8), 32-84 (14-9), 57-18 (15-9), 63-46 (16-9), 58-25 (17-9), 56-32 (18-9, victory!)

You can observe a few things. First – that the frame scores are rather low. Neither me, nor ‘Able Shooter’ can actually string meaningful breaks. I think I never had a break over 40, and the CPU opponent may have had 1-2 of these, but rarely.

At this level, the CPU’s positional play is much better than mine, and it can from time to time string series of 4-5 reds with black/pink, but eventually misses or runs out of position. On the other hand, I am better than it in sinking long pots, which, as I said, is much easier on the PC than at a real table. In fact, real-life snooker players would not even attempt these shots 95% of the time, because they are easy to miss, and professionals are much better with setting themselves up with easier shots to begin with.

Together all this means, that many frames end up being decided on the colors, often as late as the pink or the black, with scores that are pretty close. Overall – at my current level of play, ‘Able Shooter’ AI level is a near-perfect match to my skill, which leads to close games, and dramatic finishes.

Things I’ve done better this time around, which ultimately helped me win:

– Not give up even if the opponent runs off at the start of the frame and goes up by 20-30 points. Once I got better and stringing pots, I was often able to claw at the advantage and give myself a winning chance towards the end.
– Careful play when down to the colors. With just a few balls at the table, the AI’s potting seems to improve, and if I am sloppy and don’t leave one or two ‘safe’, he could frequently sink 3-4 in a row to win the frame.

Last question (that no one asked) – why playing such long matches, and not the default (3 frames to win)? Well, because “best of 35” is the current format of the World Championship final 😁 and because I wanted to be sure that I can win consistently, and not just due to luck. It’s hard to maintain concentration for so long, so I was breaking the matches into sessions, much like is done at real tournaments.

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