As the World Snooker Championship heats up, there is nothing that quite mirrors the torture and solitude of The Chair
Clockwise from top left: Ding Junhui, Mark Selby, Dominic Dale, Mark Allen, Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan in The Chair.Clockwise from top left: Ding Junhui, Mark Selby, Dominic Dale, Mark Allen, Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan in The Chair.
Almost all sports incorporate moments of quiet time: breaks, lulls, pauses in the action. But there is nothing that quite mirrors the elaborate torture, the solitude and powerlessness, of The Chair. It is, according to seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry, “what sets snooker apart from any other sport. You’re absolutely trapped. It’s a horrible feeling.”
Different players have always handled the monotony of The Chair in different ways. Mark Selby stares bleakly into space. Allen, one of the more kinetic players on the tour, rarely sits still: eyes darting towards the ceiling, towards the scoreboard, towards the other table. Ronnie O’Sullivan lolls and slouches, propping his head up with his hand, scarcely disguising his ennui.
The problem is that The Chair can easily become a self-prophesying spiral. “When you’re always sitting back in your chair as a result of a mistake, you have to process that mistake,” says the veteran Dominic Dale, who lost his first-round match 10-1 to Kyren Wilson. “It shatters your concentration. It takes you out of the zone.”
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