Just because this is a bit of an annoyance for me . Many "pros" on this site have never hit a decent break. Without naming anyone there is a player who has made virtuoso in a game type without ever hitting a century. I dont want to take anything away from a great achievement of reaching that rank, but i dont think it justifies that title. From watching quite a bit of snooker on TV i havn't seen many professionals who are incapable of making a century break...

This is why I think a system where your title is based on your achievements would be much better, for example:

Virtuoso: arc/reg/orig (max), carom (20), power (200), killer (total 120%)
Professional: arc/reg/orig (cent), carom (10+), power (150+), killer (total 100%)
Adept: arc/reg/orig (half), carom (5+), power (100+), killer (total 80%)
Intermediate: anything else.

The way I would have it work is that your title becomes active as soon as you make one of the achievements in that game type. If you then better it, your title matches your best achievement.
And to stop people sitting on their title, I would have it expire 2 weeks after you make it and it degrades to the next one (eg virt -> pro). Should you hit the achievement again in that time, your 2 weeks starts again.

This would give a better reflection on people's abilities and also encourage more people to try for cents/maxes.

Any thoughts?

Not keen on the idea in all honesty and besides, your argument that breaks reflect ranks in real life is flawed because ranking is gained by winning frames and not by the number of high breaks that are made. Although higher ranked players tend to make higher breaks the correlation is largely incidental. I remember one of the well known professionals once saying (can't remember offhand exactly who) "If I made a 40 break every time, I would be World Champion".
There is a lot more to snooker than just high breaks even though consistent high scoring is a major part of it.

i never at any point made an assertion, claim or assumption that breaks in real life reflect ranks. i stated that any self respecting professional in real life can make a century break. I am not saying they do all the time, just that they have the ability to. Conversely a lot of professionals on here do not have the ability to. A title like that should reflect ability in the game, not being able to play a 600 rank 200 times and win 198 of them.

All i am trying to do is to think of a way to bring the skill back into the game. I could train a monkey to make a 60 break in arcade potting baulk colours, but it doesnt mean my monkey is a professional snooker player. He would win a lot of games, but it doesn't mean he is a good player.

Look back at the old top players and how many maxes they have hit and compare that to the people at the moment. If you want to, take their games per max count if difference in games is big (resetters not included).

Bam! Bosh! Pow! Kplunk!

is that a demonstration of the new style approach to playing carom peg?

Pah! More like chuffing arcade *tuts*

hahahaha the "whack the pots in and hope you dont snooker yourself cos you cant play a positional shot" technique lol?

i hate that lol 690's smack it and hope for the best then fluke a 30 break then snooker ya lol

Deffo! " Wow, look, the reds are the size of my house! how can i miss??"

" Son is that snooker?? Looks more like pool to me."

ah but they might win the game from there so that doesnt matter according to some people.

Hmmm adam i think the ideas good, but the MAJORITY of virts can hit a max, the majority of pro's can hit a cent, the majority of adepts can hit a half cent.... i cant see it changing much other than that one player you seem to have a grudge against xD

Its a great idea mate i love it, but obviously it will never happen you know that.

Oh well, into the "funkysnooker ultimate game box" it goes

i dont have a grudge against anyone! i can't deny someone's ranking as it takes consistent wins to get there and it is a great achievement.

What I want is something to encourage people to actually try to hit decent breaks instead of winning off baulk colours, so that the old timers who say that none of the new breed can touch the old schoolers have to reconsider. based on the stats at the minute, their claims are fully justified lol.

Look at the posts above from peg and tinie, people don't try to learn because they can win a match with potting. But there is more to being a good snooker player than potting.

If you want clear evidence look at what happened the other week when the jaws were tightened fractionally. As if by magic all the breaks dried up because so many players rely on potting alone and their poor positioning meant they had to take on harder shots which they then missed. On the other hand I played someone who i consider to be right at the top of the game now and he hit a 120 in original... see the difference there?

course it won't happen, it's not encouraging more people to play arcade so won't be considered.

This is a terrible idea.

You can't base a rank on how high a break they can have.

If i play friendlys i go for big breaks but if im playing a tourney i play however i have to so i can win, if it means turning down a chance for a max then i will.

I honestly believe to find the best players would be to hold 'big' tournaments (at least best of 3s early rounds) once a week at a reasonable time and you win ranking points/trophies for that.

At the moment the TournaPoints doesn't necesarily show who's the best but who spends the most time on the site, if there was a big tournament a week, you could possibly get all the big players on at the same time.

But i am intrigued to see which player you're talking about now lol

Go back and read the post. Where did I say the rankings should be based on high breaks? errrrmmm nowhere! wow! All I said was that TITLES should be based on a players achievements not their rank.

And what you are saying fits perfectly, in tournies you play to win, in friendlies you play for breaks. Yes perfect! Its the many players who don't even try for decent breaks in anything that are the ones I am talking about! If you win tournies by winning matches you should get ranking points and that is what ranking should be based on as you say!

And and I don't have an issue with one player!!! I saw their name so looked at their stats and it struck me, so i looked around a lot of other players stats and found quite a few people to who this applies!

Would just like to back my point up with some evidence:

Original:

Virtuosos: 10
# with a 147: 2
% of virtuosos with a max: 20%

Regular:

Virtuosos: 3
# with a 147: 2
% of virtuosos with a max: 66.67%

Arcade:

Virtuosos: 10
# with a 107: 8
% of virtuosos with a max: 80%

Original, 20% is shocking, Regular, too small a sample size to draw a conclusion, Arcade, shocking as 107s arent exactly massively difficult if i can get 3 and im useless at arcade.

I must apologise, i see now your talking about 'titles', and actually yes i probably do agree with you there lol.
I would never become a virtuoso on this site as i hate carom and orig (only because of cursor making it near impossible to line up shot) but i do see what your saying.

But what if a player just wants to be known as a class player or 'virtuoso' at Carom as thats the only gametype he likes? Or a player only likes to play original? Why should he be discriminated against and forced to play every gametype?

Edited at 02:42 Sat 12/03/11 (GMT)

Mark J Williams in real life won a world championship before he hit a maximum so you don't have to hit maximums to be one of the best players (if not the best at the time).