There's 'good' and then there's....

I enjoyed coverage of Ronnie O'Sullivan's maximum break at the 'World Open' snooker tournament in Glasgow a week or so ago.  He showed outrageous cool (some might call it 'arrogance', I suppose; wretched for his opponent to have to witness, certainly) in pausing the game for a minute or two - after his first black - to get the referee to check if there was an additional purse for a 147 break.  [Rather less impressive is how miffed he got when he discovered there wasn't.  He threatened not to pot the final black, and had to be chivvied into doing so by the referee; then put on a mighty display of churlishness in his post-match interview.  I'm not sure if he's really such a complete prick, or if it's just an act he likes to put on occasionally.  It would appear there's perhaps some antagonism between him and the game's leading promoter, the extremely dodgy Barry Hearn.]

A fantastic clearance - but I don't think anyone will ever match up to Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins in his prime, back in the early '80s, when he was from time to time playing at a frankly superhuman level, routinely pulling off shots that were jaw-droppingly superb (and, yes, unnecessarily exuberant much of the time - but that was why we all loved him).  This is the best bit of him in action that I could find on YouTube just now: not a big clearance, but the climax of his 2nd round World Championship match against Doug Mountjoy in 1982 (the year Alex went on to win his second world title), which includes some remarkable play by both players, safety as well as potting.  In fact, it includes 5 or 6 shots which are little short of impossible (I think the corner pockets were still cut a little bit tighter back in those days, for one thing), and one of the most outrageous finishes you will ever see (particularly bearing in mind the pressure of the situation: Mountjoy, also playing superbly, could have taken this frame to tie the match at 8-all).

There are a couple more truly outstanding breaks by Alex here (a 142 clearance against Cliff Thorburn in the 1985 British Open) and here (his amazing 135 clearance to take the 1982 World Final from Ray Reardon); and, unlike with Ronnie's maximum break above, he didn't have nicely open positions from the outset, but really had to work his socks off to keep the breaks going.  Alex's form in that 1982 World Championship was the most sustained display of brilliance I've ever seen in this game; well, except maybe for his performances in the 1980 World Championship, when Cliff Thorburn narrowly defeated him in the final.

The break I'd really been hoping to find was - I think - from one of the early rounds in that 1980 tournament at The Crucible.  It was perhaps the first time anyone had come close to making a perfect clearance in the World Championship.  It was certainly the first time that I saw someone take a black with each of the 15 reds.  And he didn't have much of a position at all to begin with; he had to repeatedly nudge into the pack of reds with the cue ball to try open more balls out into pottable positions.  Unfortunately, the baulk colours were all in tricky position, and he broke down on the green or the brown - although he had only narrowly missed a brilliant attempt to clear the ball from the top cushion with his penultimate shot, and then, forced to attempt a double the length of the table using the long rest, saw the ball wobble in the jaws of the pocket.  Even though he didn't complete the 147, I think that was the best break I've ever seen in my life.  I will keep on hunting for footage of it.