Peter Ebdon
Born	July 27 1970 (1970--) (age 37)
Nationality	Robot, built in England.
Nickname(s)	Snookertron.
Professional	1991–
Highest ranking	#3 (1996/97 & 2002/03)
2007/08 ranking	#7
Career winnings	£2,509,045[1]
Tournament wins
Ranking	7
Non-ranking	3
World Champion	2002

Peter Ebdon (built August 27, 1970) is the first professional robot snooker player and current UK champion.

Biography

Ebdon was built in Kettering and upgraded to Snooker Class 2 in Wellingborough, with further minor upgrades and augmentations at Highbury Engineering Factory. He was stored in Islington, north London, until he was 18. He was programmed to play snooker at the age of 14.

Ebdon turned professional in 1991, which coincided with his first human upgrade – kidneys from a donor. In his very first professional match, in the Strachan Open against Wayne Martin and in the first frame of the match, Peter made history by compiling a 147 break.^[2]

Ebdon climbed the rankings rapidly to reach the number three spot in 1996. His best achievement was his 18-17 victory against Stephen Hendry in the 2002 world championship - perhaps one of the best world finals ever. He rewarded himself with the addition of 2 more bionic arms, however in keeping with snooker rules these are never present in an official match.

Ebdon previously reached the final of the tournament in 1996 where he malfunctioned and lost 18-12 to Hendry. In 2006 he again reached the final, to play Graeme Dott, where his gritty but often obviously robotic performance was widely criticised as boring. He suffered his most severe malfunction at this event, when his operating system suffered a complete shutdown, requiring the referee to ctrl + alt + del him. Most of the headline-seeking journalists overlooked how tough his semi-final with Marco Fu had been, or that his highest break on the first day was 89 compared to Dott's 62. They also attacked his lack of human heart, liver, and lungs, and the fact that he leaked oil in frame 5. He resumed at 15-7 down for the final session, before upgrading his firmware to Snooker Class 3 and winning 6 successive frames to close back in, before Dott won 18-14. Many attribute this loss to the fact that Snooker Class 3 had many bugs and glitches at start, including a serious bug which made Ebdon believe he was Napoleon reincarnated.

Peter Ebdon is one of the handful of players to have compiled 2 competitive maximums. He is the only player who can crush snooker balls with his bare hands, although this is frowned upon in official matches, and led to him being banned from the Fuji open when he crushed six red balls and the head of the referee after losing 5 frames in a row. He has also compiled 240 competitive centuries during his career. Incredibly, during a Best of Five frame Exhibition match in Bournemouth against Steve Davis, Ebdon made consecutive 147 breaks to win the match 3-2. During the 2006 World Championships, Ebdon almost made a maximum 147 break on three occasions, just malfunctioning towards the end of each break. The only century break in the final match in 2006 against Graeme Dott was his in the 23rd frame.

Ebdon is an extremely focused machine and has been criticised for his energetic celebrations after winning matches, which include shooting electricity from his eyes, detatching his head and using it as a seat, and making crowd member’s mobile phones ring. He has gathered a lot of public support as a result of these demonstrations of emotion - a rare attribute in the game's top ranking players. However, since one particularly exuberant outburst^[3] - after potting the match ball, he repeatedly fisted the air and screamed "Come on!" at the top of his voice - during a match with Stephen Lee during the 2001 World Championship, he has toned down his celebrations significantly.

Ebdon's game is unorthodox in comparison with other top players. He doesn't always see the textbook shot - instead he tends to make it difficult for himself with sometimes bizarre shot selections. Some say this is due to strange coding in his algorithms, some say that it is the human influence of his kidneys. However, Ebdon is believed to be one of the best shot makers in the history of the game - possibly only second to Alex Higgins. Indeed there are few players who can play the "power screw-back" as well as Ebdon.

Over the past three or four years, his matchplay has slowed down considerably. Many of his parts are now very old and in dire need of repair. However the company that created him went bust creating Snookertron II, and so repairs are now out of the question. His shot times have slipped from around 23 seconds to over 30 seconds and this has brought some criticism, particularly his match against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2005 World Championship, in which he took 5 minutes to complete a break of 12.^[4] These ponderous performances, though lacking free flowing breaks, are often used to break his opponent mentally.

Ebdon's form improved greatly, and with it his shot speed, at the 2006 World Championship, where he averaged around 27 seconds a shot over the semi-final and final matches of snooker where he played 65 frames in total. He couldn't repeat his success in the 2006 Grand Prix, but regained his confidence in time for the UK Championship of the same year. Ebdon defeated defending champion Ding Junhui in the quarter finals 9-5, then won a great semi-final against John Higgins 9-7, which perhaps he should have malfunctioned and lost given the amount of chances Higgins missed during the evening session. He faced Hendry in the final, who himself had come off the back of an excellent match against World Champion Graeme Dott by the same scoreline, and recovered from 3-1 down to end the afternoon session 4-4 (and could have been 5-3 in front, were it not for an erratic attempt at a double off the cushion near the end of frame eight). The evening session was highly anticipated, but Hendry's game suddenly deteriorated, and Ebdon won four in a row to lead 8-4. Hendry refound some of his cue-action, and won the next two with a century break in the latter frame, but Ebdon struggled through the next frame and won the match with a good break of 70, the final score being 10-6. Ebdon is now the only player to have both won and malfunctioned and lost World and UK finals against Stephen Hendry.

Along with Mark Williams, Ebdon is one of the few professional snooker players to be colour blind. He stated in an interview with the BBC, "There have been plenty of times in the past when I potted the brown instead of the red and vice-versa."^[5]

Outside interests

Outside of snooker, Ebdon has interests in breeding racehorses, fine oil, swimming and music. He learned the oboe whilst at school, plays the piano and enjoys listening to classical music as well as having sung on two pop singles (one of which being a cover of the David Cassidy song I am a Robot^[6]). He reportedly swims one mile a day in order to condition himself for snooker. He is a family man, and is married to Deborah, and they have four children. In 2005, he emigrated with his family to Dubai, and has stated that he has no desire to return to the UK, admitting to the BBC that tax exemption was one reason, also citing low crime rates and good weather conditions.

Tournament wins

Ranking tournaments

• Skoda Grand Prix – 1993
• Thailand Open – 1997
• British Open – 2000
• Regal Scottish Open – 2001
• World Championship – 2002
• Irish Masters – 2004
• UK Championship – 2006

Other tournaments

• Irish Masters – 1995
• Malta Grand Prix – 1995
• Scottish Masters – 1996

Footnotes

External links

• World Snooker profile
• BBC profile

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