Badsnookerplayer wrote:Apologies if this has been answered before.
What happens in a situation where a player is faced with a snooker that is impossible to escape? For example, the white comes to rest in the jaws of the green pocket and the black ( for example) comes and rests next to it making it impossible to get past it?
Often wondered what would the ref do.
This situation is covered directly within the Rules of Snooker (even using the exact term, "impossible"). It is Section 3., Rule 14., (a) (iii) if you care to look it up but in essence it says that if the situation is such that an escape is literally impossible, then Foul and a Miss shall NOT be called provided that the White is played with sufficient strength toward the ball on to reach it if not for the obstruction.
So in your conjectured scenario, if the snookered player just plays White lightly to touch Black and then lay up against the Baulk cushion in the open but nowhere near the ball on (whatever it is), then the Referee can and should call FAAM. However, if the snookered player basically "blasts through" the Black ball in the general direction of the ball on, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, come what may....well, then, of course it is still a foul, but should not be called as FAAM. Some people may think that it should still be called FAAM if the incoming striker does not get resultant good fortune to play at the ball on but that is not what the Rule says. Following the Rule, blasting through like that is no FAAM even if there is no good play at the ball on.