#003: Kirk Stevens

Player: Kirk Stevens
Opponent: Jimmy White
Tournament: 1984 Masters
Venue: Wembley Conference Centre, London
Match situation: Semi-final, best of 11, Stevens was 5-3 down.

The 2024 World Championships are under way. Given the rate with which maximums are compiled these days (about one a tournament this season) I may end up further from the end of this project than when I commenced. Noppon notched one in the qualifiers, so look forward to reading about that in 2033.

Let us go back in time. The man in the white suit and arguably the emblematic visual of big ticket snooker in the 1980s was Toronto's own Kirk Stevens, a flamboyant boyband-ish type with charm and style to spare. Stevens found it difficult to get over the line in major tournaments, though he'd often run deep before getting dusted by a hall of fame level player, if billiards culture was crass enough to have such a thing.

This break in a word: echoey. The first sound of felt-on-ball rings out, with each return to table from the chair feeling slightly over-long. In short - it feels like they're not just playing at a conference centre, but in the middle of a conference on paper or shower-curtain rings. The deadness of space gives Stevens a phantasmic appeal as he struts his stuff like he's just stepped out of a Joe Longthorne support slot.

Stevens breaks and it's a good one (wonder if we'll see any 147s from the break?). The Whirlwind's response is a little ragged, leaving one red up table and clanging the brown on the way back to baulk. It is from here Stevens begins etching his name in history with a textbook long red with English billiards style 'drop' onto the bottom cushion and perfect onto the black.

Like the two televised maximums before Stevens, this one doesn't feel 'on' from ball one. There's a lot of manufacturing* to be done. In fact, his first black is relatively lousy, ending up too high for the loose red to the middle to stun for the black. He uses this un-ideal moment well, cutting the ball into the middle and playing with a light backspin to flick on-and-off the cluster of reds and gain position. He gets a very knowledgeable round of applause and Rex Williams says "that's....turned out well." Indeed it has! 

He's super straight on black #2 and plays a hard forcing backspin shot and already I think Stevens has played more 'artistically' in his four pots than Davis and Thorburn did combined. This is the kind of sexy snooker of a proto-Ronnie O'Sullivan (or Steven Lee), snooker with a swagger, every shot a serif font, the type that generally did not win tournaments for years.

You'll get your turn soon, Jimmy

 
I'll try not to comment on every shot, but black #3 is played with a flair backspin attempt to open up the remaining reds that very nearly goes wrong. Red #5 is a plant. His final development of the cluster leads Williams to declare it a "bloody good split" but he's got a tough 9th red that requires him to send the white on a mission in and out of balk.

The shot that has the YouTube massive purring is the green. He plays the yellow with a rest and works around top and right cushions and ends pretty much on the balk line to the spotted green. Let me show you:

styling out thought

I feel that this is the shot that shows the era we're in - Stevens goes around three cushions, full down and up the 12 foot surface, and ends up plum on the brown. The pot itself is not the hardest and there's some traffic to watch out for and of course - THE PRESSURE! - but this feels like the kind of shot 2023 vintage Mark Allen plays while 40 behind in a decider these days.

The rest of the colours are a procession but all the same Kirk is overjoyed and his first port of call is to hug the ref:

Judge's summary: Difficulty 6, execution 6, style 9, situation 7. Time 12.40.

Final notes: Arguably the premier moment for the One Visit Ontarian and the last 147 for a few years, and let it be noted: the man did cocaine, but he did not use performance enhancing drugs. Quite the opposite!

*one of my external examiners for my viva went in two-footed on my use of 'manufacture' as in 'manipulate' or 'produce' but I retain this usage because it is cool.