Steiner and the Hypnotic Cue

CHAPTER 14 Master of the Craft

We flew in relative silence to the Costão do Santinho Resort, in Florianopolis for the Brazilian Masters, relieved to be out of the grasp of ‘Mr Fernandez’. The adventure was continuing, but our little hiccup in Rio knocked the wind out of sails. Over the last few days, Scott spent a little less time on the beach and more time on the phone. David Noble became enmeshed in his own dealings. We didn’t see him much.

Sitting beside me, David Noble spent most of his time tapping into his laptop, ‘making contacts and setting up deals’ as he termed it. Our approach was two pronged—try to promote snooker around the world and enter every competition possible. Back home, Hendry would organise my tour card. Eventually, Noble snapped out of this and went over the Masters.

The real danger man was Shaun Murphy, defending champion. He had whitewashed Graeme Dott in the final and destroyed Stephen Hendry in the semi: five games to one. Of course, I knew something that David Noble didn’t and I was confident of winning. I had learned not to be too confident, but overall I was very relaxed as we descended into Hercílio Luz International Airport for the three day tournament.

I was pitched against a local champ, whose name I couldn’t pronounce in the first round. I quickly disposed of him.

That didn’t generate too much interest, but when I dispatched Peter Ebdon (dubbed the most boring man in snooker) in the Quarter-final, the eyes of the world were upon me, or so it seemed. The TV crews tried to interview me, but I didn’t know what to say, so I let David do most of the talking, and he didn’t do much.

He kept repeating this maxim he devised:

“Keep yourself scarce.

Maintain the mystery.”

(Well, he claimed he invented it, but I saw him reading a book: The 48 Laws of Power, and I was sure he just copied it from there.)

By the time I had thrashed Judd Trump, the media was in a frenzy.

I, or should I say we, were a lot richer as I had notched up three 147’s.

The atmosphere in the arena was electric when Shaun Murphy entered to defend his title. It was quite hot, but not that hot as the air conditioning kept things comfortable, but as I shook his hand I noticed a trickle of sweat running down his temple. He was very nervous, and had only nine frames to hold his title, retain his pride and earn $40,000.

I had nothing to lose. What a great position to be in.

I started to hypnotise him with the cue.

Nothing happened! Nothing!

He refused to be mesmerised and would not look my way. I concentrated harder. He started to get pulled towards me, but at the last second he pulled his head away. What kind of will power did this man have? No one was able to resist.  I was sure I could even have got Fernandez to comply.

He must have worked out my secret before the game, But how? He must have seen the YOUTUBE clips—perhaps it was obvious from that. Maybe he had special insight, like the Yoga Teacher.

I couldn’t count on throwing him off his game, but I knew I could still play well enough to beat him.

He got the toss, which meant he had five breaks to my four. There was potential danger in this.

For the first time since the Higgins game, an opponent took a game from me. 75-33. I got the second with a break of 92. I was nervous alright. This was the first time I had gone under a hundred since the Higgins game. I had lost the third, but narrowed it to 67-61. I took the fourth and so it continued. In the eighth, I managed a 147, and the audience exploded in applause. This unnerved Murphy somewhat, but he had the break and the advantage.

The game looked like a repeat of his first.  He potted some. Snookered me. Missed a couple of shots. I potted some, but had to resort to snookers. He was ahead, but there was little between us. Then came my stroke of luck, the white followed the blue into the pocket. It was a devastating blow to Murphy whose head immediately dropped. He knew the game was mine.

With those extra four points, I went on the rampage and pushed the game beyond him.

The audience applauded for about ten minutes.

They positively screamed as I was presented with the trophy. 

The raucousness descended into a chant ‘Destruidor, Destruidor’ (which I learned meant ‘Destroyer’).

Wow! In just a couple of weeks I’d picked up a couple of nicknames—Destroyer and 21st Century Boy—how cool is that? Neither would stick, but it was better than school—the best I got there was Shiner. 

But what’s a few nicknames compared to hard cash and trophies?