Best snooker escape? Hossein Vafaei’s incredible off-the-jaws pot

Hossein Vafaei gave us further proof this week of just how ridiculously skilled professional snooker players are.

From Judd Trump to Ronny O’Sullivan, Jimmy White to Stephen Hendry, the internet is littered with copious amounts of footage of these snooker wizards making pub dreams look like child’s play.

White’s masse shot still lives rent free in the memory of many a fan while Trump’s 2021 “shot of the season” could only be rivalled by Louis Heathcote’s remarkable use of the jaws to land a stunning pot.

And, of course, 2022 is already proving to be no different with the above-mentioned Vafaei producing some madness of his own.

Taking on Andrew Higginson in the BetVictor Welsh Open qualifiers, Hossein found himself in a truly sticky position with absolutely no way out – or so it would seem.

With no line to the red balls it looked, on the face of it, like Hossein had no shot available but the Iranian-born master wasn’t about to admit defeat.

When Hossein first lined up his shot, you’d be forgiven for thinking he had gone a little catty considering the necessity to go after the red ball but once Hossein genteelly struck the white, it all began to make sense.

In what can only be described as a stroke of genius, Hossein used the jaws of the middle pocket to redirect the white ball, in boomerang-like fashion, back towards the red he was after.

It was already a quite brilliant shot but it was about to get even better as the red headed straight for the corner pocket and dropped in.

You can see the remarkable moment in the footage below:

Some fluke