What is Moss?
Throughout the world of snooker there are mentions of moss. Although moss is by no means restricted to the snooker table, the green baise is a perfect arena for mossters to display their ability. For those of you who don't know what moss is, here's a brief description and a few hints on how to live with it.
Definition
Moss can loosely be defined as "luck" but is not used as in "oh, that was a bit lucky." rather "Argh! You bl**dy mossy g*t!!!"
Example
The picture below shows a simple example of moss. The player intends to pot the red in the top pocket but misses by just enough to run up the table and kiss off the green into the baulk pocket ... the cue ball finishes perfectly on a colour or, more often, cannons into a colour knocking it right over the bag.
The Laws of Moss
- A rolling ball gathers no moss - the moss is proportional to the launch speed of the cue ball, or more precisely, in the case of mosscues, the intended launch speed of the cue ball.
- He who dares, mosses - the moss is inversely proportional to the difficulty of a shot. For a real mosster, a snooker escape off four cushions with lots of side is almost guaranteed to produce a mossy pot or a counter snooker. This law is enhanced if there is an easy alternative shot which is deliberately overlooked.
- Some guys have all the moss - the moss is largely genetic and is totally unrelated to actual playing ability. Moss transplants have been attempted but the results have been tragically unsuccessful.
- The bigger they moss, the harder they fall - the more moss you accumulate the greater the probability that it will suddenly desert you at a crucial point.
- It's a cruel moss - the moss will never miss an opportunity to kick you when you are down ... and then do it again.
Zeroth Law of Moss
All of the above laws are overridden by the zeroth law which states - "any amount of moss can spontaneously appear at any time in any place where it is least expected."
Anti Moss
Like most things there's an opposite to moss and this is called anti-moss. Anti-moss can turn any excellent shot into a foul by distorting the region of space containing the table in such a way that the cue ball goes in off (usually via an unlikely cannon) or a ball not-on is potted.
Moss can turn into anti-moss and vice-versa just when you least expect it. Indeed, during a single shot, some moss may transmute into anti-moss; in such cases the resultant moss is defined as the vector sum of the moss and the anti-moss.
In very unusual cases a moss to anti-moss transition may be incomplete and the result is imaginary moss. Many people refuse to believe that imaginary moss exists at all, others say that it is just skill. Whilst there are similarities between skill and imaginary moss it is clear that the magnitude of imaginary moss can never exceed that of pure moss.
Common Moss/Anti-Moss Phenomena
The best known moss mechanisms are -
- Pockets in the wrong place / wrong size - the most common mosses, the miss-moss and the in-off moss (also known as Owen's Law). Moss around the sides of a pocket can make it either completely impenetrable or totally unavoidable. Also, springy moss can accumulate in the bottom of a pocket and cause balls to bounce out onto the table / floor / player's head.
- Balls in the wrong place / wrong size - many cannons make moss work. Experienced mossters have been known to employ more than 20 separate cannons in a single shot - at this level, the balls completely lose their sense of direction and all the laws of physics collapse. Moss on balls can also make apparently wide gaps too small for another ball to pass through or make you miss a fine cut by miles.
- Cushions pointing the wrong way - most tables have a few dodgy places on the cushions that can be exploited by moss. Even on a perfect table though the moss can wreak havoc by exploiting the jaws of the pockets. Generally, any ball going near the middle pockets is highly susceptible to moss - and remember, the middle pockets might be in the wrong place.
- Mosscuing - the mosst subtle moss technique. All it takes it a little bit of moss on the tip and the cue ball will swerve just enough to correct for a bad aim. In extreme cases the cue ball itself can become completely covered in moss, causing a normally sound cueing action to produce a disaster shot.
- Kicks - the kick is the last resort of moss. When the ball is struck perfectly along the perfect line on a good table all the moss can do is jump between the cue ball and object ball at impact and send them the wrong way. This often happens to professional players because they are otherwise virtually moss-proof.
Living with Moss
Moss is one of the most mysterious phenomena about. Indeed, moss may be responsible for the missing 90% of the universe that physicists are always whining about.
The first step to living with moss is to accept that it exists and that there is nothing you can do to directly influence it. There are three ways that an inexperienced player can lose a match because of moss, corresponding to the three basic patterns of moss.
- Dilute Moss - in close games a little moss goes a long way. The odd minor moss here and there can be all that it takes to snatch a victory or defeat. Often referred to as "Some you win, some you lose."
- Concentrated Moss - when the chips are down some players can focus the moss to produce an outrageous event which proves to be the turning point in the game - either for or against. Commonly termed "I was robbed."
- Critical Moss - on rare occasions a complete mosster can achieve a state of critical moss. Here, virtually every shot becomes biased in favour of one player. This can often lead to serious side-effects in the unfortunate party and is most closely associated with the phrase "Aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!"
One thing you must never do is ignore a moss. Moss hates being ignored. If you try and pretend a little moss never happened then before you know it you're going to have a moss the size of a house hurtling towards you at 100mph yelling "see me now?"
Subtly pretending to be upset whilst actually remaining calm doesn't work either. Moss permeates all living things and can therefore tell exactly what you are up to unless you are enclosed within a gold case which is thicker than the wavelength of moss - roughly 2ft.
The best policy is to try and develop a healthy respect for moss and be on the lookout for it wherever possible. All you can really do is practice playing in mossfull situations. In time you will be able to play your own game even when your opponent plays a complete J-shot and ends up in a frame winning position.
Past Mossters
Send nominations for the "Hall of Moss" to me with a description and a sketch too if possible.
Bill Martin
The biggest mosster of all time. Bill is currently selecting a favourite moss from his large repertoire! Here's one I picked out for him - I don't remember where the other balls were but Bill is on the black and decides to hit it hard (for some reason) - the black misses the corner pocket by the right amount (ie a lot) to come off top and side cushions and find the exact centre of the yellow pocket.
Richard Taylor
One red left on the table and I'm snookered. I wallop the cue ball off the top cushion and the red flies down the table, comes off the baulk cushion, hits the white following through (dotted line) and drops into the middle pocket. The cue ball finishes in perfect position on the blue.
Martin Portman
Woodsy goes for the blue, risking the in-off. The blue rattles in the corner pocket and runs up the cushion ... cannons into the cue ball (which would have gone in-off) and drops into the middle pocket. The cue ball remains above ground, nicely placed to miss the next red.
Dave Chapman
It's rumoured that Dave is so proud of his few decent mosses that he's putting together a whole page on them ... I'll put in a link when it appears.
Coming Soon...
- Moss Victim Support Helpline.
- Mossters Anonymous.