World Snooker Championship Betting / Jack Houghton / 16 April 2009 / Leave a comment

Jack Houghton grew up playing snooker at Cromer Snooker Hall so he knows genius when he sees it - and there's only one at the Crucible.

Everyone bangs on about the Rocket's ability to rack up century breaks. But with the tables he plays on, and the balls, and with these modern tips... well, it's easy, ain't it?

I made my first century (or was it a thirty?) in Cromer Snooker Hall, and I'd love to have seen our Ronnie attempt the same. With felt as inconsistent as my hair covering, cushions of indeterminable bounce, balls the weight of dark matter, and cues like broom handles, it took real talent to succeed in the true crucible of snooker. And yet what plaudits do I receive for my snooker genius? None.

Cromer Snooker Hall is now gone. I was back there a few months ago and all that's left is the red-brick façade. The soul of the building has floated skyward; replaced by mews cottages, whatever they are. So that testament to my youth has disappeared, and all I'm left with are memories.

It was the only place in town for truancy. The barman was accommodating enough, or perhaps just lazy enough, not to call the school and inform them of a be-uniformed 13-year-old on table seven. He must have recognised the value of the education - in its widest sense - you got from the venue.

It was, for example, the backdrop to the first brawl I ever saw: an irrevocable lesson that violence of the type seen in Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris movies was not real; and that genuine fighting was neither pleasant, nor something I should involve myself in.

And then there was the lady who announced: "I can't be arsed with the lav!" right before she relieved herself where she sat. Cromer Snooker Hall was a Mecca for alcoholics, offering the type of drinking promotions that get modern politicians all fired up. If my memory serves me right (and your memory rarely served you right for long after drinking there), you could get an own-brand quadruple of any spirit for £1.20. The lady in question had clearly had her fill of Grosvenor Gin: and was ready for emptying.

So I know fighting is bad and drinking requires restraint: lessons my school would have struggled to teach me in as vivid and convincing a way. Perhaps then I can do without the adulation my snooker talent clearly deserved. That can go to Ronnie; I'll take the education.

And given my absence from this year's World Championships, is there anyone who can conceivably stop O'Sullivan winning his fourth title? In a recent interview, he identified Higgins as the only other player with an "extra gear"; stating that if either of them found their game, one of them would win. It's hard to disagree, although I would put O'Sullivan far above even Higgins in terms of the speed that "extra gear" generates.

Which is why I can have no truck with the previewers who've identified O'Sullivan as a value lay in the tournament - on the basis that his temperament has sometimes defeated him. How can you lay a competitor who is quite clearly the best in the field, by some considerable margin, on the basis of temperament? You're effectively betting on whether or not he will lose his rag: something impossible to price up.

So those who argue the [3.3] on O'Sullivan is poor value are crazy. Based on his superiority, it's a gift price. If you're concerned about his ability to capitalise on that superiority, then don't have a bet in the tournament - but don't lay him. That's the equivalent of laying Nadal at the French Open in the hope he gets injured: you're needing the gods to resolve themselves against talent that day.

I'll be backing him now, backing him big, and then wondering how much of it to keep when he's a [2.5] shot heading into the first quarter-final.

And when he wins, I might buy myself one of those new mews cottages. The one right about where table seven used to stand.