What makes a Safety shot in snooker "successful"?

Question

When watching a match of snooker, especially one where safety battles take place, the broadcaster will often display a "Safety Success" statistic for both players above the current score, or via a "summary" infographic. For example:

I imagine that, similar to Pot Success and Long Pot Success, Safety Success will use the total amount of the safety shots attempted by the player, and use this to divide against the number of successful attempts - but what makes a safety shot "successful" in this context?

Snookering the opponent?
Getting the ball within X distance of the baulk cushion?
Not leaving a on ball potable?
A combination of these?

Joe · Answer

One possible answer comes from the world of AI pool.
From the paper PickPocket: A computer billiards shark, we have the following basic definition:

A successful safety is one where the opponent fails to pocket an object ball on their next shot, thus the player gets to shoot again.

This is from billiards, not snooker specifically, but it's as good a definition as any, and the concept applies to both in any event.

Ambo100 · Answer

This is what I could find in a tweet from Snooker champion Neil Robertson:

Unfortunately it’s not. Someone in the van does it and the criteria is
if you get the white past the baulk line from a safety. A successful
long pot is of any ball travels 5 feet I think

https://twitter.com/nr147/status/1332034273596026880

What makes a Safety shot in snooker "successful"?

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