The Only Re-Spotted Black between Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins | 2008 Premier League

No two players have met as many times as Ronnie and John in snooker history, yet this is the only time they have finished tied in a frame. Stranger still, considering how good both are at frame stealing to narrowly win. This match is from the Group stage. FACT: on re-spotted blacks, the first to play win more often A sample of 61 re-spotted black cases may seem small, but it is statistically significant enough to draw conclusions and debunk myths. And given the vast number of first-to-play winners (40 out of 61 or 66%), it can be stated that the hypothesis "playing second is better" is wrong. It is the opposite. The probability that rather the hypothesis is correct and the sample was abnormal by chance is 1.02%. This error probability is low because the sample size is relatively large. The following example is statistically identical and easier to understand: imagine a supposedly tampered coin whose most frequent result is believed to be Heads. Nobody verified it, but everyone always chose Heads. My study is precisely that missing verification. I flipped that coin 61 times, which surprisingly resulted in only 21 Heads and 40 Tails. Question: Is it possible that it is true that the coin is skewed to Heads and that the 40-Tail result was just an unusual accident? The answer is yes, it is. But it's a 1.02% probability. Last year, I included my first results in a snooker video https://youtu.be/bUBQc37W6zM However, the sample size was only 36, so there was nothing conclusive yet. Other facts: -Bingham and Lisowski lost all their 7 re-spotted blacks, and they played second in all. -Robertson played first 3 times and won all; he played second twice and lost both. -25 tiebreakers in the sample are between a top 16 player against a lower-ranked player. The lower-ranked players who played first won 10 out of 16 (59%), those who played second won 2 out of 9 (22%). -Robbie Williams was the only one who won the coin toss and chose to play first himself. It was great to see the start of a possible change. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/lDGe-uiCICQ Why does the first to play have the advantage? I can only speculate that the position after the first shot, with the balls close to the side cushions, causes the opponent to attempt a double or a difficult but risky safety leading to errors. This would explain why the most frequent winning shot is the third (14 times out of 61). The statistics shown in the video correspond to the date of the match. Cesar Muroya created a unique editing technique to extract the essence of the game without losing the drama involved. Contextual information is also an innovation appreciated by viewers. This format is not intended to substitute the full version but make snooker more accessible to new fans. The fluency and atmosphere of the game stay in a shorter-length video, allowing even experienced fans to enjoy snooker at any time. ► Turn on notifications so you'll be notified of future videos and surveys. ► Choose a Playlist (counterattacks, tactical, incidents, and more) here: https://www.youtube.com/CesarMuroya/Playlists