Gone are the days when Steve Davis and then Stephen Hendry ruled snooker with a cue of iron. There is no Tiger Woods figure in the game, no player capable of making the others feel they are competing for second-prize lucre.
Consequently, the 76th staging of the Embassy world championship is the most open in the event's history.
It was a major story when Davis, the emperor of the 1980s, and Hendry, the nonpareil of the 1990s, left Sheffield without the trophy. Before a ball was struck, both were installed at prohibitively short odds by bookmakers not wishing to have their fingers re-burned. This year, there is no obvious candidate for such respect.
The list of prospective candidates for the record £260,000 first prize is headed by four players who have already passed the cerebral test inevitably posed by 17 days of pressurised Crucible competition. They are John Higgins, successful in 1998; Mark Williams, the winner two years ago; Hendry, a seven-time champion; and Ronnie O'Sullivan, the title holder.
If O'Sullivan were a race-horse, his entry in the form-book would include a squiggle, the symbol used to denote unreliability. On his day the 26-year-old from Chigwell can be unstoppable, but when dark moods descend he becomes transformed from thoroughbred to nag.
Last season O'Sullivan won six tournaments and fulfilled his unparalleled natural talent by beating Higgins 18-14 in a cracking world final. It appeared as though his inner demons had been banished for good, or at least kept at bay, but temperamental inconsistency and an on-table element of self-destruction has resurfaced.
He has talked of 'packing it all in' for a reclusive life on an exotic beach, or a career in business, and has even contemplated moving to Spain to become a waiter. However, O'Sullivan, who first mooted the possibility of retirement when he was 18, did win his third UK Championship title in December.
Although Higgins, Williams and Hendry find themselves on a far more even emotional keel than O'Sullivan, all three have shared his inconsistency of late. 'Where did that performance come from? I can't believe it,' said Hendry, incredulously, after losing to David Gray, the world No 30, in the last 16 of the Regal Scottish Open 11 days ago, less than 24 hours after a vintage display in the previous round.
'It all depends which me turns up,' said Higgins, when asked about his Crucible prospects. Since winning the first three tournaments of the season Higgins has faded, but he did prevail at last month's Irish Masters, while Williams boosted his flagging confidence by winning the China Open and Thailand Masters. Hendry's only triumph came at the European Open in Malta but the Crucible tends to extract the best from him.
Hendry, hardly a veteran at 33, admits he increasingly suffers fro 'You've only got to look at this place and you automatically switch on. If you can't get focused here there's something wrong.'
After a mildly worrying start to his title defence yesterday, O'Sullivan looked focused - more than half the battle with him - en route to building a 6-3 first session lead over Drew Henry. Maybe his concentration levels had something to do with the influence of the Buddhist teachings in which he has recently become interested.
Having made 57 in the fourth frame, O'Sullivan cheekily attempted, and missed, a thin cut black with the frame still in the balance having clearly targeted a 147 break and the £167,000 bonus that accompanies it.
At 3-3, Henry was still in the market for a shock but he scored only five points in the following three frames as O'Sullivan pulled away with runs of 94, 91 and 45.
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