The Snooker Shoot-Out returned last week for the 2019 edition of the event at the Watford Colosseum, with Thai professional Thepchaiya Un-Nooh winning the tournament's tenth edition.

The Shoot-Out is the lesser-known shortened form of the game of snooker, with its noisy fans and unforgiving ten-second shot clock encouraging fan interaction and quick point scoring over hushed audiences and traditional safety play.

Think of the event as snooker's version of twenty20 cricket, where a five-day Test match is instead reduced to around three hours of run-scoring madness.

It is this departure from tradition that has rubbed a few purists up the wrong way, with the lovers of two-day long, best-of-25 frame, tactical battles considering the ten minutes of action-packed, panic-inducing, 'hit and hope' play to be an aberration.

But it has been good for attracting the casual viewer, with some open-minded snooker supporters remarking at the spike in visitors to their local snooker club while the four-day event was taking place.

That is certainly the key thing in my book. I am a lover of the original form of the game, but the fast-paced Shoot-Out is going to be what captures the imagination of potential new fans in this age of immediate gratification. As a young and impressionable viewer, are you going to be more interested in a frantic, high-scoring match that is decided within minutes, or a dreary, mid-frame safety exchange in the eighth frame of a all-day, best-of-19 match?

The casual viewer, as a general rule, is going to become a regular viewer if they have to wait ages to find out the result of something. They don't want to wait hours to see who wins a match or wait weeks to see who wins a tournament. The Shoot-Out began with 128 players in a knockout tournament on Thursday afternoon and was over by Sunday evening.

The loud, frantic nature of the shortened format also lends itself to those viewing at the arena. In a sport where the audience is used to having to be deathly quiet, where even a cough can be detrimental to a player's concentration, the Shoot-Out offers some light relief to those who just want to yell, holler, and relax like they can watching almost any other sport.

It is not just good fun for the viewers, but for the players too. For the big-name professionals it acts as a chance to relax a little without the stresses of winning high-profile tournaments with massive amounts of prize money and ranking points at stake.

For those lower down the food chain it offers a rare chance to play on live television and be in with a serious shout for some prize money. The event also offered an avenue for two female wildcards to compete against the men and raise the profile of women's snooker, while a smattering of promising, young prospects were also handed wildcards. One of whom, 16-year-old Ryan Davies, reached the last 16 of the event before bowing out to former world number 20 and eventual Shoot-Out finalist Michael Holt.

Yes, it is not perfect, with the introduction of ranking points for the event being an idiotic decision by the sports' governing body, but it is still a fun variant of much-loved game that will have no doubt got some people picking up cues for the first time in a long time, or even the first time ever. Long may that continue.