Guide
What snooker is
Snooker is the pocket game: a 12ft table, one cue ball, fifteen reds and six colours. You pot a red, then a colour, then a red again, and each colour goes back on its spot until the reds are gone. Points come from the pots, but breaks are built on the shot after the pot, so almost every position on this paper asks for the cue ball to finish somewhere specific.
Potting and position
Each block is one shot taken from a real break: a red or a colour to be potted, and the part of the table the cue ball has to reach afterwards to leave the next ball easy. The Basic section is the straight potting and holding that a break is made of; Advanced moves on to screw back, stun, plants, safety and opening the pack.
How this paper is graded
A shot scores three points for potting an object ball, and one point for every ball that comes to rest inside a marked ellipse - that is the ball the zone is drawn for, usually the cue ball. Two of the shots, the break off and the one laying a snooker, are played without a pot, so there position alone is the score. Play Shot opens the position on the table, you play it, and the simulation scores it straight away. Your best attempt on each shot is the one that counts.
Reading the assessment
The strip at the top shows how many shots you have completed and your percentage of the points available, with an assessment band that climbs from Beginner to Master as the score improves. Reset clears the paper and starts you again.
Using this paper as training
This paper is more than something to be marked: it is the basis of a snooker training course. The twelve positions are the ones that come up again and again in a frame, so playing the paper repeatedly trains exactly the potting, cue-ball control and safety that build breaks. Work through it once in order, then run it again - the percentage at the top of the page is your training progress.
Prefer to just play? Open a full game of snooker, or compare this paper with the three-cushion, libre and sagu exams. All four papers are free and need no account.
Shot List
Basic
Straight pot
Roll the red in to get postion on the black.
Long pot and hold for black
Either roll the red in or hit a long dragging stun to hold for the black
Finesse positional play
Hit slowly with a hair of running side to land nicely on the black
Black to yellow positional
Slow pace with LHS to land nicely on the yellow
Yellow to green positional
Slow pace to land nicely on the green, slower than you think.
Pinching the pocket
Pot the red into the right of the pocket to generate angle to stun down for nice position on the black
Red ball plant
Make the plant and return for position on baulk colour or blue
Advanced
The break off
Low speed lots of side and aim to swing the ball around the angles and finish in the baulk area.
Soft stun long blue
Hit low to retain just enough stun when potting the blue, this kills the pace of the cue ball to hold nicely on the red
Screw back for position
Screw back off the red to get good position on the blue.
Laying a snooker
Stun the yellow down the table, hold the white behind the brown and the yellow should finish near the black making the saftey hard to escape
Open the pack off black
Pot the black along the cushion with pace to break open the pack of reds