Whoever called snooker "chess with balls" was rude, but right.

Clive James’s quip plays on a familiar comparison: snooker, like chess, is a slow, highly strategic contest in which position and foresight matter as much as immediate gains. Calling it “chess with balls” is “rude” because it sounds like a reductive, faintly snobbish put‑down—treating a cue sport as a mere physicalized version of a “higher” intellectual game. Yet it is also “right” because elite snooker really does reward calculation, long tactical sequences, and risk management, with players thinking several shots ahead and shaping the table the way a chess player shapes a position.