Getting back to the original question, then, I don't think I'd class snooker as a sport.

It's a game of skill, yes, but if you take the word "sport" at its most basic definition snooker doesn't involve the physical exertion part.

In fact, my dictionary defines snooker as a game. Like cards or dominoes.

what about shooting? in things like biathlon? It is clearly a sport

It may not be physically strenuous, but it's primarily a test of manual dexterity rather than purely mental. It demands a physical skill.

Cards and Dominoes do not primarily test your manual skills. A quadriplegic could play them by proxy or on-line. Doing so with Snooker would clearly be cheating.

It's the same with shooting. If I ask someone else to "shoot that target" then I'm not shooting. If I ask someone else to "pot that ball", I'm not playing snooker.

Games like snooker and football do require more mental skill than simply running fast, but that does not disqualify them as sports.

I like the question of, 'Could video games be considered a sport?'

It certainly requires skill and reaction times, so...

In Korea it is :p See Starcraft competitions

The OED definition of sport:

an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others
success or pleasure derived from an activity such as hunting
entertainment; fun


Now obviously snooker doesn't really fall into the first (unless walking and lifting a drink are classed as physical exertion), but I suppose it's entertaining to some and fun to others, so I guess you could classify it as a sport.

Using the argument in the article I read... does that mean that poker is also a sport then?

So starcraft at the olympics next time?

Things do consistently get mis-classified though. A year or two back a jury basically had to decide whether poker was a game of luck or skill. Not too surprisingly, they came back with the result that it was a game of luck, and it will ever be classified thus. I would put a sizeable bet ('scuse the pun) that most of the jury had ever played poker seriously, or they'd have known otherwise. Yes, luck does play a part in poker, but no more than any other sport (e.g. football).

I suspect that it's down to the snooker players themselves, being in the best position to decide whether it's a sport or not.

Given that there's no such thing as "luck", success at poker is down to the skill of the player - how they deal with the cards they're dealt, what changes they make based on the odds, and whether they can bluff their opponents. At the end of the day it's all down to mathematics.