Snooker is a small life

Snooker is like a dangerous virus. Just watch one or two games, and you get it forever. I am sure that in 5-10 years this game will be the highest rated TV game a spectacle, leaving behind tennis, football and baseball. In 1967, snooker took 14 minutes in the grid of the BBC. In 2007 this figure increased to 400 hours, i.e. more than one hour per day!

   The highest level of modern snooker achieved, in many ways, thanks to TV broadcasts when the boys of the 90's you could see the game of a living legend - Stephen Hendry.
   Stephen was born in Edinburgh on 13 January 1969 and first time picked up a cue at the age of 12, when his father ave him a smaller snooker table for Christmas (and his birthday). At age of 16, Hendry turned professional, and in 21 years old, in 1990, won the title of the World Champion. In 1992-1996 and 1999 the undefeated Scot takes another 6 world titles.

   For comparison, in 2019, brilliant English player Judd Trump only at the age of 29 became the Champion of the World first time. Hendry,  when he was 30,  had  won 7 (!) titles of the World Champion. 

   Hendry was not only the best in break-building, he was the inventor of techniques, which became classics after him. Prior to Hendry, players would usually attempt to break the pack of reds by cutting the black in the corner. However there was always a great risk of burying the cue ball and losing an attack.  Hendry invented, now common technique,  of potting the blue with pace and bottom spin on the white ball to cannon into the pink, with the object being to hit the pink ball to open the pack of reds and develop them for break-building. 

   During his professional career (1986-2012)  Stephen earned £8.97 million  in prize money, made 775 centuries, and 11 highest breaks.