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Life After Death

2011-08-15T20:03:00.003+02:00

What can I say... it's been too long. I won't start spewing excuses, suffice to say.... there aren't any.

I'll just bring you up to date a bit with bits and bobs. 2010 was a lean year on the billiards front for me. I took a year off the tour to work on the house (friend me on facebook if you're interested to see the photos). The house, although not yet completely finished, is far more close to completion than at the start of 2010. I decided to go back to playing and rejoin the tour. The first season back on was just shocking. I'm not sure what it was, but taking a year off really makes life hard. All the young up and coming players that I remembered from before, were not longer "up and coming", but rather "arrived"! It is never easy to get your ranking back up. I was in the top 16 when I took my year off. Dropping right out of the rankings then means that when players who don't know you come up against you, they are no longer afraid of your ranking! Seems crazy, but it couldn't be closer to the truth.

It's been a super tough season for me. No real results to shout home about, and not really even been playing that badly. It can only get better from hear on in. I won't go into any details right now, but I'm sure I'll get around to it soon.

As well as rejoining the Eurotour, I thought I'd have a pop at the Players Tour Championship, brought to us by Barry Hearn. There are 12 events in the year and all the pros are now playing these events, as they carry half ranking points. It's a great opportunity to try out your game against the best of the best.

The next PTC will be in Germany at the end of August. I will report back closer to the time.

For now, I'll just head down to the club to get some more practice in. I've got quite a bit of catching up still to do to improve my Eurotour Ranking, so no rest for the wicked.

Snooker: Ronnie or Snooker

2009-02-20T15:06:00.005+01:00

A good friend of mine, and an excellent snooker player himself, decided voice his opinions to me about the O'Sullivan vs Fu match. His email went something like this.

Did you see that lazy sloppy performance from O'Sullivan last night. Missing easy shots when well ahead against Fu. The *expletive deleted* deserved to lose. He said he only picked up a cue 5 times since the Masters, and that he's not bothered. If he hits a bit of form he'll win otherwise he doesn't really care if he goes out.. complete *expletive deleted* head.. couldn't even be *expletive deleted* to wash his hair before the match, in a dishevelled mess.

...

RIP snooker

I've kept his identity secret just in case he ever bumps into Ronnie in a dark alleyway in foggy London.

It got me thinking, and nudged me into writing an article (which is kind of a reply to my good friend as well) before greenbaize ends up on Hermund's Death List.

Firstly, unfortunately, I didn't see the match, some of us have to work for a living, ...who said slavery was dead!

Secondly, I see my friend as a Ronnie fan, whereas I see myself as a snooker fan, I can be just as happy watching a variety of players, not just Ronnie.

Ronnie is a player with boundless natural talent, probably the most talented player to ever pick up a cue. He's not a player who goes into tournaments consistently with a killer instinct, he's not the best at that, that was Hendry's and Davis' realm; they were the masters of demolishing opponents. Ronnie shows flashes of this quality but is inconsistent with the mental side of his game. Ronnie is like a cleaned up version of *Mad* Alex Higgins. The crowd always makes a Ronnie/Alex match a more tense affair as well, especially in London.

For me, Ronnie's not necessarily the best player in the game to watch, he doesn't really take many risks. He's quick, clinical, economical, has a fast snooker brain and probably the best cueing action to grace the green baize. Apart from his tantrums, antics and crazy statements, he's pretty monotonous as a player, as monotonous as Davis, but quicker and infinitely more stylish. His perceived arrogance and on-the-table disrespect for other players puts me off watching him from time to time, but I will always watch him hoping to see that moment of genius

I would much rather watch Hendry, White (in their primes), the late Cliff Wilson, Drago, Neil Robertson, and Mark Allen. I also equally enjoy watching the late Paul Hunter, Judd Trump, Selby, Ding, Stevens, Mark Williams, Walden, Wenbo, Milkins, and Liu Chuang (reminds me of a young Hendry).

I loved watching Hendry play when he was in his prime, it was if his opponent was an inconvenience in the match, like a fly buzzing round your head on a hot summer's day. If a shot was on, he would go for it and invariably get it. A real all out potter and someone that would destroy his opponent in almost every match.

Alex Higgins was just mad, his twitches, temper outburst and adventurous style of play always had you on the edge of your seat. Along with Alex Higgins; Robertson, White, Wilson, Allen, Williams, Wenbo and Milkins are always very adventurous with their shot selections, playing shots with varying degrees of spin and flair to try to entertain the crowd. You don't really see that style of play very much with Ronnie these days. Just look up some of the stylish shots that people have put on YouTube from the players I've mentioned and then you might start to see what I mean.

At the end of the day, I believe snooker is in very good hands with or without Ronnie, but by the same token, Ronnie is still very good for the game and officially still the biggest draw in the game.

I love snooker, not Ronnie, I'll leave that to his missus!

Snooker: "Mad" Alex Higgins

2009-02-19T16:59:00.002+01:00

Thought you might be interested in this:

Snooker player Alex Higgins has been dropped from a charity event in Limerick next month after he allegedly threatened and verbally abused spectators and a referee at a separate match.

The Belfast-born former snooker world champion is reported to have reduced a 10-year-old boy to tears, threatened to smash a snooker ball into a spectator’s face and told the referee at last Thursday’s exhibition match in Kildare that he would stick his cue “up your a***”.

Higgins’ latest debacle took place in Athy, Co Kildare during a game against Jimmy White.

As a result, Limerick and North Tipperary Carer’s Association, who had arranged for the 59-year-old to play in a charity match in Limerick next month, have dropped him from the schedule and replaced him with seven-time world champion, Stephen Hendry.

Sports Editor with the Kildare Nationalist newspaper, Brendan Coffey, acted as referee at last week’s match and experienced Higgins’ abuse and threatening demeanour at first hand.

Mr Coffey claimed Higgins behaved like a “mad man”.

“Alex didn’t seem drunk. He wasn’t acting like a drunken man, just a mad man,” he said.

“At one stage he picked up the cue like someone with a spear in Braveheart and said that if anyone annoys him, he’d stab them in the chest with it.

“He shoved a ball in front of one person’s face and said he smash him between the eyes with it if he distracted him again,” Mr Coffey claimed.

Higgins was also alleged to have scolded a 10-year-old boy sitting in the front row for apparently distracting him. The boy was reduced to tears.

Taken from the Belfast Telegraph here

Snooker: Snookered, Split, or Bust!?

2008-09-12T16:51:00.004+02:00

Last month, snooker lost two of its major sponsors. At the time I was going to write an article, but couldn't really think of anything different to say than what had already been said in the mainstream press or what had been said on other cue sport blogs.

888.com have pulled out of the World Championships and Saga Insurance have pulled out of the Masters (I didn't bother linking to their sites for obvious reasons! :o) ). This is a pretty sorry state of events for snooker but I don't think it should be too unexpected with the current state of the world markets. Sponsors are pulling out of golf tournaments like this one here and tennis tournaments like this one here. Some high profile football clubs are even struggling get shirt sponsorship deals!! Why should snooker be any different?

I've often thought that the current format of ranking events simply doesn't work in today's day and age. Snooker could survive quite happily in the 80s and early 90s before the globalisation boom and emergence of international markets. Sponsors want to appeal to a global market these days and because there are so few snooker events worldwide, sponsors simply aren't getting the exposure they desire from the sport we love.

Over the years I've wondered how snooker could become global, and it's difficult for me to see this happening with snooker in its current state. I've consistently seen articles and blog posts blaming the WPSBA board when tournaments are lost due to lack of sponsorship, conflicts are created due to poor organisation and lawyers are getting involved due to lack of communication. The board, after the process of being elected, are, ....I suppose, at a push, responsible. But for me, the real people that are responsible for the current state of snooker are the players themselves. They all have a vote and can change their board at a moment's notice, the players have chosen who are in power. If the game was in such a terrible state, one of two things would happen.

Either the players would replace the board, or
The section of players that are so against the current system would simply no longer be able to stand it anymore and would break away from the current tour and form a new one.

I think, and hope, the latter will happen, ....eventually!

I know this is a bit simplistic and normally a lot would happen before one of these two events happen, ...but eventually, one of those two outcomes, ....would be THE outcome!

I think snooker has the potential to be a successful global, multiple tour, big money sport. I've often thought that snooker should be trying to use other successful sports as role models to try to make snooker successful. But the real people with the power to change the game, the players, don't seem to want to take chances or think "out of the box". It's easy to say let's change the format, but I think it would be very brave for the current generation of players to be the pioneers in trying something different.

When snooker was renegotiating the World Championship venue a few years back, I was one of those people hoping World Snooker would break away from Sheffield and possibly move to London or end up being a worldwide rotating venue. I really believe it was the wrong decision to keep world snooker in Sheffield, although I agree that the venue is excellent and I've been there on a number of occasions to see the World Championships. I never wanted to venue to die, snooker could have staged a different tournament there, but I was hoping the World Snooker Championships would go global, I think it would have been a great boost for the sport.

I'm also one of those people that believe multiple professional tours are needed all around the world. I like the golf model where there are multiple professional golf tours worldwide and then 4 major championships. It's interesting to know that golf tours came about almost accidentally by players splitting away from the original PGA tour. Now there are more than 20 professional tours around the world. The 20 tours are not on a equal level though and tend to be defined over tiers where you have:

1st: PGA Tour
2nd: European Tour
3rd and 4th: Champions Tour; LPGA Tour
5th - 7th: Asian Tour; Japan Golf Tour; LPGA of Japan Tour

source: Wikipedia (not a great source, but a source)

It's interesting to see the LPGA tour is ranked above some of the men's tours and the tiers are purely defined through financial reward.

I don't think for a second snooker can support more than 20 professional tours but maybe they can support half a dozen round the world. Something like the following might be sustainable in the long term:

UK & Ireland tour - tier 1
European tour - tier 2
Asian tour - tier 2
Oceania tour - tier 3
Americas tour - tier 3
African tour - tier 4

I've also added different tiers using the tier methodology used in golf with the tier 1 tour being the most lucrative going to tier 4 that's the least lucrative. Some of it guess work of course! :o)

From the different tours you would need members to co-sanction an official world snooker ranking system that would somehow need to be weighted depending on the tier the tour is in.

The world snooker rankings would determine who plays in the "4 majors" per year, yes, ...very like golf (and tennis as that is structured in a similar manner)! The top x players from each tour would battle it out in these 4 elite tournaments and each major would be played in different parts of the world where the tours are based. We could have our 4 snooker majors in:

UK
Mainland Europe
Asia
Oceania or America.

Then we would have a truly global sport! And how does this happen? Well I think it would be a very slow process possibly initiated by a split in the current professional ranks.

I've discussed this on Dave Hendon's snookerscene blog and on the World Series Snooker forum where John Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney themselves are contributing to the discussion!

Snooker: Belgian Open

2008-09-09T17:35:00.005+02:00

A new pro-am tournament starts in Duffel, Belgium from 19th-21st September.

The top professionals who will be competing are Stephen Maguire, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Neil Robertson, Graeme Dott, Mark Allen, Mark Williams, Ken Doherty, Matthew Stevens and John Parrott. This really is an excellent line-up!

If you can't get to Belguim for these dates then there's no need to panic as you can watch the tournament online at cuesport.tv I've had a look at some of the coverage from some of the other other events this cue sports channel covers and the quality really is first class!! The cost is £8 for the 3 days.

More information about the tournament can be found here. Win free cuesport.tv passes here! But be quick, the closing date is Monday.

Billiards: Billiards in the Olympics

2008-08-18T14:20:00.002+02:00

This is a good article on the state of getting Billiards as whole into the Olympics.

Snooker: Snooker Calendar

2008-08-08T00:36:00.004+02:00

I've updated the Google snooker calendar for the 2008/2009 snooker season. This calendar includes last season as well as this season and hopefully as the seasons go by, I will just update this calendar so you do need to keep adding new ones to your own Google calendar (If you know what I mean).

For 2008 and 2009 I've included the main tour including the qualifiers, John Higgins' very successful World Series of Snooker and Matchroom's Premier League Snooker.

Click on the Google Calendar image below to view the calendar.

Or click here.

Snooker: World Series, Berlin

2008-07-07T16:50:00.002+02:00

As you may have read elsewhere, the World Series of Snooker is now well underway. The first event was played in Jersey and Higgins was the victor, beating Mark Selby in the final.

The World Series of Snooker is the brainchild of John Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney. The next event is to be held in Berlin, Germany, and will feature professionals John Higgins, Graeme Dott, Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy. The top amateurs who will be trying to beat the top stars are Chris McBreen, Lasse Münstermann, Hans Blanckaert and Patrick Einsle. From what I remember, Lasse Münstermann and Patrick Einsle have briefly played on the main professional tour. The challengers are all excellent players and if they're on top of their game and nerves don't get to them, they all have a good chance of beating the professionals. The draw is as follows:

Graeme Dott (Scotland) v Chris McBreen (New Zealand)
John Higgins (Scotland) v Lasse Münstermann (Germany)
Stephen Maguire (Scotland) v Hans Blanckaert (Belgium)
Shaun Murphy (England) v Patrick Einsle (Germany)

Dott/McBreen v Higgins/Münstermann
Maguire/Blanckaert v Murphy/Einsle

Einsle has been Germany's best player for some time now and Lasse Münstermann used to be Germany's number 1 star. Lasse is as ambidextrous as the great Ronnie O'Sullivan but you rarely see him using the other hand in the top matches. Hans is also a great player with a very wristy cueing action. It's possible that we could get some fireworks and comments from him in his match. :o)

Unfortunately I know nothing about Chris McBreen, but I'm looking forward to seeing him play.

All the action can be seen live on Eurosport on Saturday and Sunday evening (12th and 13th July).

You can get to the dedicated website for the World Series of Snooker by clicking here.

Snooker: World Championships - Ronnie Triumphs

2008-05-05T22:12:00.004+02:00

Well my prediction of a close final fell by the waste side. At least the match went to the final session! There wasn't really any fantastic snooker in the final and it was a bit of a breeze for Ronnie in the end.

Carter was simply mentally exhausted, he had nothing left in the tank after great wins over Barry Hawkins, Shaun Murphy, Peter Ebdon and Joe Perry. And of course the amazing maximum that he made the day after Ronnie made his.

It's been an excellent championship this year and Ronnie fully deserves his win, he's been totally focused for the full 17 days and hasn't looked in any danger in any of his matches. The final session against Williams was awesome with very high breaks and his record breaking 9th maximum, the way he simply blew away 7 times world champion Stephen Hendry, nobody can say any other player deserves the title.

Before his talk of retirement in the interview after the final, he did say he wants 4 or 5 world titles. Ronnie won't be retiring just yet, he's too good at the moment and the joy on his face was plain to see after winning and after his maximum. It will be interesting to see his reaction after the disciplinary action against him in the summer for his lewd comments in China though. But once he gets through and over that, he'll be fine and he'll be back.

This win puts Ronnie in the same league as only 2 other players, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry, as players that have won 3 or more world titles at the Crucible.

The following are some of the moments that stand out for me in this years' tournament.

The sheer number of attempted maximums by several different players as well as Ronnie's and Ali's maximums. There could have easily been 3 or 4 this year, the standard of break building was so high despite the record number of centuries in the tournament not getting beaten.

The young 17 year old Chinese player Liu Chuang. For a player so young, his all round game and potting was excellent. He won something like 5 qualifying matches to get to the Crucible and took 5 frames off Ronnie in the first round. He looks quality and I'm looking forward to seeing more of him in the future. Could he be better than Ding?

Liang Wenbo, what a star! He beat Doherty convincingly in the first round and was involved in a Crucible thriller against Joe Swail in the last 16. To win that match against Joe, who is one of the best Crucible match players in the game, shows the guy has real nerve and talent. Again, one for the future.

Jamie Cope and Mark Allen were excellent and it was only their inexperience that let them down. We should be seeing a lot of Mark Allen next season as getting to the Crucible was enough to earn him his top 16 place. Allen is a fantastic break builder as is Cope, and Cope is a devastating single ball potter.

It's great to see Mark Williams and Stephen Hendry playing good snooker again. Even though Williams has dropped out of the top 16, I think he will qualify for many of the tournaments next season and hope to see him back in the top 16 soon!

For me the biggest disappointment was Ding Junhui. He fell over the line against Marco Fu in the first round and barely turned up at all in his match against Hendry. I think Fu would have given Hendry a better match. It was Ding's chance to be the youngest ever world champion but he was just nowhere in the tournament. I hope his match play and temperament improves next season, because when on form, he's just a joy to watch.

From the top 16 we've lost Williams, Doherty, Lee and Davis. The biggest surprise is Doherty, a couple of years ago he was provisionally ranked number 1, and now he has to qualify for all events next season.

King, Fu, Allen and Perry come into the top 16. A big surprise for Allen as he thought he wouldn't make it after getting beat in the first round by Hendry. I saw this guy play in the 2004 European Amateur championships in Austria when I was playing there and he's such a huge talent, a great player to watch.

I'll keep on posting through the summer so don't forget to add greenbaize to your feed reader by clicking here or any of the icons on the right for the favourite reader of your choice.

Congratulations Ronnie O'Sullivan on a great performance!

Snooker: World Championships - Ali O'Sullivan Final

2008-05-04T06:09:00.006+02:00

Why did I start the title off with Ali first, alphabetically obviously. :-)

The final is going to be a lot tighter than we all think, why do I think that?? There's a stunning 147 that Carter made and went completely nuts about. He beat Perry 17-15, it was a fantastic semi final encounter and Carter held his nerve exceptionally well, that is a fact, and the guy has won absolutely nothing!!!

So why do I think he has any kind of chance. Well, I don't know, Graeme Dott, Shaun Murphy. These guys have won it from nothing! A few other names spring to mind, and Ali beat Shaun Murphy in the 2nd round. The purists will be saying it should be a Ronnie vs Murphy/Maguire final. But remember, he's knocked out Murphy convincingly, beat Ebdon, a former world champ and one of the best players in the world today, and knocked in a 147 maximum to boot!!!!!!

Carter's reaction to beating Perry was just amazing!! It looked like he'd won the tournament and it was great to see, and we want to see scenes like that in the final.

Carrter's there and ready to win, he will match him pot for pot and the match will be measured as one of the greatest matches in snooker history!!

Of course I'm not sure of any of this but I hope it's going to be the case. Will it be a walkover, no! Does Carter have a chance? Well, it's the best chance he's had of winning any ranking event.

Can he play? Rumours from my sources say he was Ronnie's practice parter of and used to beat him quite frequently.

It has to be said though, it's great to see the 2 maximum men in the final. And may the best man win!

Snooker: World Championships - Ronnie Hammers Hendry, ...Again

2008-05-02T23:43:00.003+02:00

Stephen Hendry was hammered by Ronnie O'Sullivan in the semi finals of the World Championships. Ronnie was simply in blistering form and completed his win with a session to spare beating Hendry by 17 frames to 6.

Honours looked pretty even after the first session when the duo were locked at 4 frames each. But Ronnie looked awesome in the second session winning all 8 frames although Hendry had chances to win 2 or 3 of the frames. But for the majority of the session Ronnie was simply flying, doing to Hendry what Hendry has done to many others in the past. Ronnie had to win the third session 5-3 to stop the match going into the final session but in the end won it convincingly.

Ronnie had breaks of 64, 102, 93, 57, 87, 133, 135, 85, 70, 126, 68, 123, 56 and 59. Only 5 centuries in the match!! :o)

In the frames Hendry won, he had breaks of 140, 60, 53, 85 and 54. 5 breaks over 50 and he's lost 17-6, that's extremely high quality snooker!! This isn't Hendry's worst result against Ronnie, in their 2004 World Championship semi final, Ronnie demolished him 17-4, but this year Hendry did play much better when he got to the table. It did still look like someone slowly throttling an animal to death though and even I wanted Ronnie to win quickly so Hendry could get out of the arena.

After the match Hendry said Ronnie's play was the best he'd ever seen and said that if Ronnie continued to play like that in the final, Perry or Carter wouldn't have a chance of beating him. Obviously, just about everybody, except maybe Perry and Carter, would have to agree, he just doesn't miss. It has to be said though, Hendry in the 90s just didn't miss either, and he's the one with 7 world titles under his belt. I've never seen anybody look as natural or as fluent as Ronnie when he's on song though, that is a certainty

In the second semi final, Carter came back from 5-3 down to lead 9-7 after the second session. The last 2 sessions are played tomorrow at 10:00 and 19:00. I haven't really seen any of this match so can't really comment. I think it will take either player the best form of their lives to beat Ronnie in the final though.

Snooker: World Championships - The Final Four

2008-04-30T23:48:00.004+02:00

The last 4 of this years World Championships are Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Stephen Hendry and Joe Perry vs Ali Carter.

Ronnie and Hendry made their quarter finals look easy with wins over Wenbo and Day respectively. Both Ronnie and Hendry won their matches by 13 frames to 7.

Perry's and Carter's matches were a little more difficult though with Perry beating Maguire 13-12 in a fantastic final frame thriller. For me, Perry has knocked out this year's favourite so who's to say he can't go all the way. Carter beat Ebdon 13-9 in yet another very high quality match, and of course Carter, made his magnificent maiden maximum.

Now Maguire is out of the tournament, I would have to say the favourite to win the title is Ronnie, he's looking good and looks like he has his head together. I think Ronnie is just too strong for Hendry as Hendry still hasn't shown the kind of form that would beat Ronnie.

Ali Carter has done really well and played some great snooker to get to the semis as has Perry and it's really difficult to choose a winner here. For me Perry beat the tournament favourite, Maguire, so on that basis, I'll say Perry will beat Carter in a very close semi final.

I envisage is a Ronine vs Perry final, but I think Ronnie will just be too strong for the relatively inexperienced Joe Perry.

Snooker: World Championships - Another Maximum

2008-04-30T10:08:00.003+02:00

It's finally been done, two maximums in the same tournament. I've embedded the maximum below over 2 parts. This was great to see, Ali's previous highest break in a tournament was 144, so not only is this his first ever maximum at the Crucible, but his first ever maximum ever!! It wasn't as easy as Ronnie's either, he really had to work for it. Some of his positional play was excellent, there was a delicate little slight swerve shot, a plant and the blue was off its spot. The final black was very tricky with the white on the pink spot line and near to the cushion. It really was a very well played final black!! Well done Ali Carter!

This is a very high quality match, in the previous frame Ebdon had gone for a maximum and missed the 15th black, and earlier in the match, Ebdon had a break of 143.

The standard of break building in this years tournament has been the best I've ever seen, in just about every match, there's been some kind of maximum attempt. I wouldn't be surprised to see a third maximum in this years championships because we're only half way through the quarter finals.

This first ever double maximum tournament has come exactly 25 years after Cliff Thorburn made the first maximum at the Crucible.

Liang Wenbo is still there, playing against Ronnie in his quarter final after a very dramatic last 16 match against Joe Swail. The match went all the way to the final frame which swayed in both player's favour a couple of times. Wenbo prematurely celebrated his win before Swail brought him back down to earth and there was even a little bit of controversy when a free ball wasn't put back in exactly the right position. It didn't really affect the match though as Swail had his chances afterwards and will be ruing missing the brown when on the colours in the final frame for days, if not weeks to come.

It seems unlikely, but if Wenbo wins the title, I think he'll become the youngest ever World Champion!!!

Snooker: World Championships - The Genius Does It Again

2008-04-28T16:51:00.006+02:00

Amazing, Ronnie's come out in the final session of his match against Mark Williams in magical form and made a maximum 147 break to win the the match in the 20th frame of the match, the frame that took him to his winning 13th frame!!!! He's taken the match 13-7.

This makes him the leading maximum man with 9 to his name in competition, Hendry is now second with 8.

Well done Ronnie! 157,000 smackeroonies (and a Bently GT convertible by the sounds of things) are coming your way! :o)

Snooker: World Championships - More Shocks

2008-04-27T16:50:00.005+02:00

This tournament is turning into an unpredictable one with more shocks over the last couple of days.

Carter beat Murphy, one of the favourites, quite easily by 13 frames to 4. I thought either Murphy or Maguire were going to win the tournament this year so now, for me, Maguire has to be the favourite. There have been many complaints about the tables, particularly the cushions springing and Murphy delivered some scathing criticism about the tables in his post match interview. Murphy has been playing so well this season that I didn't expect him to lose to any player, never mind Carter, this is a great victory for Carter and he has to be really pleased with the win.

I was very surprised to see Hendry beat Ding in a match where Ding really didn't do very much in the first session. Hendry still isn't on top form so it's a bad result for Ding to lose. Ding's temperament and form really fluctuates depending on his mood and in the first session he just didn't seem up for it, ...a big mistake against an old master such as Hendry. He started to put some good snooker together in the second and third sessions but in the end it was too little too late. It even seemed like a bit of an easy match for Hendry.

Ding had a chance of beating Hendry's record of the youngest ever World Champion and it's good to see Hendry put a stop to Ding's attempt directly! If Liang Wenbo wins this year, I think he could become the youngest ever winner. Wenbo at the moment is 21 and his birthday is in March, do he could beat Hendry's record by a couple of months!! It would be some feat though as he's never even won a ranking event. He's playing some really good stuff in his match against Joe Swail right now thought and he soundly beat former World Champion Ken Doherty.

The biggest shock of the day has to be Higgins losing to Ryan Day 13-9. Higgins was 4-0 and 6-3 up but Day played some really solid snooker to win 13-9. Amazingly, Higgins completely lost his temper with the way the table was playing, banging his hang on the table, muttering and throwing the balls up and down the table when walking out of the arena for the mid-session interval. After the match, he complained very strongly about the state of the table and the cushions just like Murphy did (but Higgins' match was before Murphy's).

So with Higgins, Ding, and Murphy out of the tournament, who are now the favorites to win? I still think Maguire's in the driving seat and he's currently 8-0 up against Robinson which is another surprise scoreline! Suddenly out of nowhere, Hendry has a chance, I think he will have to ride his luck though for him to take his 8th title. Of course there's still Ronnie and Williams but they're playing each other and Ronnie is currently leading. For me Ronnie is the second favourite.

Keep you're eyes on Wenbo though, he's looking solid and is 4-1 against Joe Swail as we speak!

Snooker: World Championships - Ronnie Through, Doherty Out

2008-04-25T11:13:00.004+02:00

Ronnie O'Sullivan eased through his first round match against 17 year old Liu Chuang yesterday with a 10-5 win. Ronnie went 3-0 up but then lost his way a little bit and the young Chinese player pulled back to go 4-3 up. Ronnie ended the session 5-4. In the evening session Ronnie played much more solidly and ran out a relatively easy 10-5 winner.

It's the first time I've seen Chuang and I think he was very impressive. His technique is first class and he potted some some first class balls. He looks a big talent and I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future. There were a lot of comments from the coverage on the BBC and some of my snooker colleagues that he looks like a young Stephen Hendry when he plays, and I think I have to agree.

A good snooker friend of mine, Douglas Hogan, bet me 100 Swiss francs that Chuang would not get 5 frames off Ronnie, at one point it looked like Chuang was going to win 5 frames in the first session!! In the end he only just won the 5 frames, ...and it was a real pleasure taking the money off Hogan, ....thanks Douglas!!! :o)

Liang Wenbo beat former World Champion Ken Doherty 10-5. This is a great scalp for Wenbo and said it's the highlight of his career so far. Doherty was very disappointed and said he didn't play anything like he can. This defeat means that Doherty will drop out of the top 16 and now has to qualify for tournaments next season.

In other results, Shaun Murphy beat Dave Harold 10-3 and Joe Perry beat Graeme Dott 10-7

Snooker: World Championships - Another Thriller

2008-04-22T23:58:00.004+02:00

As most people expected, the Ding Fu battle turned out to be another tight 10-9 thriller. Another great, high quality first round Crucible match where Ding took an early 5-1 lead and looked like he was going to dominate. Fu then took the next 5 in a row with breaks of 78, 103, 100 and 96. From then on it was very tight high quality snooker all the way to the finish with Ding making a break of 76 in the final frame.

Both Ding and Fu looked like they could win the World Championships this year. I thought Fu looked really solid and Ding made a few too many mistakes. Ding could have wrapped the match up 10-7 or 10-8, either way, it could have been anybody's match but Ding was victorious in the end.

With this been such a tough opener for Ding, he might find the next round a little easier, but definitely still needs to keep his concentration on not lose his head. It still looks like he can lose it at any time if things don't go right for him. I would love to see Ding win the World Championships this year and beat Hendry's record as the youngest ever winner, but I still fancy Murphy or Maguire a little more, especially Murphy who's got such a great temperament.

The biggest shock of the day was Mark King beating Mark Selby 10-8. I didn't see much of the match but there were 3 centuries and 9 other breaks over 50, so it looked like a high quality match. Mark King made two of the century breaks. This is a big win for Mark King and is obviously looking in good form for the tournament. Selby will be disappointed after having such a good season, but it doesn't look like he threw the match away.

Earlier today Mark Williams thrashed Mark Davis 10-3 in his first round match and Dott started his campaign against Perry. It's good to see Dott at the Crucible after revealing that he's been suffering from depression. More can be read about that here. The first session ended 5-4 to Perry.

Tomorrow, ....Ronnie! :o)

Snooker: Ronnie's Lewd Comments

2008-04-22T12:20:00.003+02:00

Ronnie O'Sullivan is in trouble with his lewd comments after the match with Marco Fu at the China Open. The video is embedded below.

It's absolutely astonishing to see Ronnie doing this and making these remarks, you can see his boredom in the interview and whoever he was talking to is also clearly an idiot. The person out of picture should have put a stop to this immediately.

The incident has been referred to the WPBSA disciplinary committee, and whatever punishment Ronnie receives, I don't think he'll be in a position to complain.

Snooker: World Championships - One Comeback Too Many

2008-04-22T11:20:00.004+02:00

Last night David rolled back the years to recover from 8-3 down to 8-8 against Bingham. At one point it looked like it was going to be another remarkable recovery along the lines of Houdini Hendry and Ebdon the Grinder, ...or at least another 10-9! It wasn't to be, Davis missed a mid range final black when at 8-8, left it over the pocket and Bingham took the frame to lead 9-8, he then took the next one to win the match 10-8. It was a great match though, a thriller along the lines of Ebdon vs Cope and Hendry vs Allen.

Among today's matches are Selby vs King and the long awaited Ding vs Fu.

I think Ding needs to win this match to get his snooker aspirations back on track, he was beaten soundly by Fu earlier in the season and hasn't won a tournament for quite some time. This is of course Ding's last attempt to become the youngest ever World Champion and beat Hendry's long standing record. I'm expecting a very good match here, and if Ding's the quality he's supposed to be, he'll have forgotten about Fu beating him and put things right with a win.

Selby vs King plays to a finish this morning, currently it's locked at 5 frames each. Remember King knocked out Jimmy White in the final qualifying round, but don't let that influence who you're supporting in this match! :o)

Snooker: World Championships - Houdini Hendry

2008-04-21T23:06:00.004+02:00

What a match, what a match!

I was one of his doubters, I really didn't think he could do it, I thought he wasn't playing well enough, I didn't think his safety was good enough, I thought his long potting was all over the place, I thought he was missing too many balls, as Stephen said with his interview with Parrott straight after the match, ..."I still have big balls", well how would we know, but what a great match and how wrong I was!

As daft as this sounds, I think the first frame of the evening session won it for Hendry, he needed 2 snookers with just the colours left, and played an extremely risky blue to put it next the black that was over the corner pocket. Allen knocked in the black when going for the blue and it was 6-4 Allen. Hendry got the match back to 6-6 and the Allen pulled away again to take the match to 8-6. Hendry played some great snooker to take the match to 8-8 and made a magnificent break to take the decider.

Hendry's reaction to the camera said it all after the match, punching the air while staring straight into the lens. He said it was probably the best first round win of his career. Allen was understandably devastated, he said in his post match interview he thought he'd blown his top 16 place, I'm not too sure whether this is the case or not.

Now I think I'll go and get another gin and tonic and watch the exciting end to the Davis vs Bingham match, ...another thriller, 8-8 as I write.

Think I'll go and eat my hat too.

American Pool: Darren Appleton Takes Italian Eurotour

2008-04-21T13:14:00.003+02:00

Yorkshire's finest pool player takes home the spoils of his first Eurotour Victory!

242 players started at the “Dynamic Italy Open” at the Holiday Inn Resort in Castelvolturno. Of these there were 20 British and 2 Irish players and a total of 33 represented countries.

Darren Appleton (GBR) triumphed, defeating Bruno Muratore (ITA) in the final. Appleton had a tough route to the final, beating 5 previous EuroTour winners in a row in the single elimination stage (Tony Drago, Oliver Ortmann, Imran Majid, Mark Gray and Bruno Muratore) to lift the trophy for his first Eurotour victory.

It was another good event for the 20 British players many of who battled their way through the field of competitors, 7 of them reaching the single elimination "Last 32" stage, but many were clustered in the same half of the draw so it wasn't long before they were knocking each other out of the event.

Our congratulations here at GreenBaize go to Darren on a fine victory. We trust it to be the first of many!

Snooker: World Championships - Two Deciders on Day Two

2008-04-21T00:20:00.004+02:00

Today was a great day of snooker at the Crucible. Joe Swail beat Stephen Lee fairly easily 10-4 but made hard work of it struggling to get over the line when it was really an easy win. Stephen Lee doesn't look as fluid over his shots as he did years ago. He's got such a great cue action but nerves always slows his game down and I think that bogs him down. His technique is still fantastic though. After the match he threatened to quit the game, but obviously he's very disappointed at the thrashing from Swail.

The Carter vs Hawkins match was a grinding match all the way to the final frame. Hawkins went 3-0 up, but Carter won the next 7 frames on the trot to lead 7-3. Carter has a habit of really struggling to get over the line and Hawkins slowly pegged Carter back to 9 frames each after Carter was at one point 9-6 in front. The players had to be taken off at this point because it was too close to the next match starting. Hawkins was really unhappy with the decision which I find astonishing, he should have known this was going to happen and accepted it. After the Swail vs Lee match finished they came back on to play the deciding frame. It was a tense affair but Carter finally won the match. I think Carter's game and nerve has to improve for the next round though.

The match of the day has to be Cope vs Ebdon. Both players played really well all the way through the match and some of Jamie Cope's potting was incredible. Ebdon took the lead for the first time at 8-7 but Cope didn't crumble under the pressure in his Crucible début. It was Cope that had to force the decider when 9-8 behind. The decider went all the way down to the colours but it was Ebdon that held his nerve with some great single ball potting to win 10-9. You really have to hand it to Ebdon, in the first session Cope was looking in devastating form to take a 4-1 lead, and Ebdon had to dig really deep to finish the session only 1 frame behind at 5-4.

In the past I've not been a big fan of Ebdon with his loud outbursts in the early days around the table when potting key balls and closing out tight matches, but he really has his emotions under control these days when in the arena. His powers of concentration are second to none and his mental powers win him many matches rather than pure talent. I'm sorry to see Cope out of the tournament though, he's a really exciting player to watch but he'll definitely be back!

Mark Allen looked in great form against Stephen Hendry earlier today. He was quick around the table and knocked in some very nice big breaks to go into the second session tomorrow with a 6-3 lead. I think Allen will have to lose some form and Hendry will have to improve a lot for Hendry to have any chance in the match tomorrrow. I'm looking forward to it though, Allen, like Cope is a really exciting player to watch.

The only other match that was played today was Ryan Day vs Micheal Judge. I didn't see much of this match but Day has taken a 5-4 overnight lead.

Snooker: World Championships - Under way!

2008-04-20T14:10:00.007+02:00

Finally 17 days of snooker are under way at the Crucible in Sheffield. There are some great matches lined up for the opening round and it's as hard as ever to pick a winner.

At the time of writing some matches are already complete. Most noticeably Higgins beat Stevens 10-5. This was definitely one of the draws of the round. Up to now, Higgins hasn't had a great season and neither has Stevens, so Higgins needed to prove a point and re-affirm his authority in the game and Stevens needed a couple of wins to reclaim his top 16 place. Early on in the match Stevens played well, but Higgins was solid all day. At one point, the start of the second session, it looked like Stevens might make a comeback but again, Higgins showed his true class to close out the match. Stevens needs some really good results in next season's qualifiers to arrest his decline in the game. A lot of players and pundits feel that Stevens should still be in the top 16, and ability wise he should be. But he needs to re-apply himself, possibly change something in his life so he can get back to doing what he does best.

Neil Robertson was way too strong for Nigel Bond and eased into round 2 with a 10-4 victory. He played really solidly all the way through the match.

A couple of the matches I'm really looking forward to are Hendry vs Allen, Fu vs Junhui and of course Ronnie vs Chuang.

I think Mark Allen might upset Hendry. Allen is improving rapidly and Hendry simply isn't the force he used to be. Whoever wins, I'm really looking forward to watching the match which starts today.

Fu vs Ding is a really difficult one to call. Fu has recently beaten Ding in a ranking event but you could say Ding has more talent. Over the last couple of seasons, Ding has had real problems with his temperament and needs to keep himself under control and play well if he's going to beat Marco Fu.

I don't think I've seen Chuang play before, but I hope Ronnie plays well and Chuang pushes Ronnie all the way. It's always such a pleasure to see Ronnie play, normally it's irrelevant who he's playing against.

Snooker: Hamilton and Murphy Through

2008-03-14T15:35:00.006+01:00

Anthony Hamilton and Shaun Murphy are through to the final group of Matchroom's Championship League.

Hamilton beat Carter in the final of group 3 and Carter was defeated yet again in the final of group 4 by Murphy. Carter has now been beaten in 3 of the 4 groups played. Hopefully the final defeats are not shattering his confidence too much!! On the plus side, so far in the competition he's earned over £17,000, much more than anybody else.

The irony of Hamilton's win is that it was only last week that he was complaining about tinpot tournaments and no money in the game. Now he's in the final group of the Championship League with a chance of playing in one of the biggest tournaments in the game.

Group 5 is to be played on the 14th and 15th April. Carter will be playing along with Mark King, Mark Allen, Joe Perry, Stephen Lee, Dominic Dale and Neil Robertson.

Snooker: 2008 World Championship Draw

2008-03-11T16:16:00.004+01:00

Here's the draw for the 2008 World Championships:

Ken Doherty Ire v Liang Wenbo Chn
John Higgins Sco v Matthew Stevens Wal
Ali Carter Eng v Barry Hawkins Eng
Ding Junhui Chn v Marco Fu HK
Mark Selby Eng v Mark King Eng
Peter Ebdon Eng v Jamie Cope Eng
Neil Robertson Aus v Nigel Bond Eng
Steve Davis Eng v Stuart Bingham Eng
Ryan Day Wal v Michael Judge Eng
Ronnie O'Sullivan Eng v Liu Chuang Chn
Mark Williams Wal v Mark Davis Eng
Graeme Dott Sco v Joe Perry Eng
Shaun Murphy Eng v Dave Harold Eng
Stephen Lee Eng v Joe Swail NI
Stephen Hendry Sco v Mark Allen NI
Stephen Maguire Sco v Anthony Hamilton Eng

Amongst the noticeable draws are Higgins vs Stevens. Stevens couldn't have wished for a tougher draw as he's in serious need of ranking points, at least he made it to the Crucible.

Ding Junhui and Marco Fu have to face each other in the first round. Marco has to fancy his chances after getting the better of Ding in the big matches this season. Ding needs to win the World Championship this time round to beat Hendry's record of the youngest ever winner. With his form this season, I can't see him doing it.

The new young 17 year old Chinese sensation, Liu Chuang, plays Ronnie. Ronnie has already beat Chuang in the season opener and Chuang couldn't have asked for a more testing first round match. I don't think I've seen Chuang play before to I'm looking forward to seeing this match. It's worth pointing out that Chuang beat Dominic Dale in the final qualifying round, a great achievement as Dominic has won a ranking event this season.

Mark Selby is to play the man who beat Jimmy White, Mark King. Selby has had an amazing season so far and had a brilliant tournament last year getting to the final against Higgins. Could this be Selby's year!?

Snooker: White Out!

2008-03-11T10:23:00.003+01:00

Jimmy White lost 10-3 to Mark King in the final qualifying round of the World Championships yesterday. This is a disaster for Jimmy who will not be in the top 64 for the 2008/2009 season. I believe this means he needs a wildcard to get back onto the main tour.

Jimmy has been putting in some hard practice to try to get back in form so he doesn't drop off the main circuit, but his efforts seem to be too little too late.

Somehow Jimmy cricked his neck on Saturday and had massages all day Sunday, but the treatment didn't seem to work.

This is the second year in a row that Jimmy has failed to reach the televised stages of the World Championships and currently it doesn't look good for him as a main tour professional. Let's hope he can get fit again and find some of his old magic.

Maybe we haven't seen the last of Jimmy White yet.

Snooker: Not Looking Good For Jimmy White

2008-03-10T14:39:00.003+01:00

At the time of writing, the score between Mark King and Jimmy White in the final qualifying round of the World Championships is 8-1 to Mark King. The latest score can be found here. Mark needs 2 more frames to get to Sheffield.

Jimmy needs a miracle comeback against an excellent player if he's to save his season and possibly his career.

Snooker: Jimmy White Article

2008-03-06T18:17:00.004+01:00

You can find an good Jimmy White article here.

Particularly funny/tragic is the following story in the article that talks about Jimmy taking his dead brother out for drinks!!!:

We were so sad. We'd been drinking in the pub the night before the funeral and the bill came to £4,600. It was a proper drink. We were all crying and so I told my sister we were going to get Martin.

I kicked the door of the undertakers and the lock fell off. Just like that, it opened! I went in, there was no alarm. He was there, in his suit, so I phoned a driver and we took him out and carried on drinking. We felt we had to spend more time with him.

We were crying, laughing, crying, laughing. It went on for about five hours. The driver going back realised my brother wasn't alive, so he refused to take us. We had to get a taxi. On the way, the next driver looked in the mirror and said: "He don't look too well.

We put him back and then the police came. They sympathised with me, there was no damage done. We lost his hat somewhere, but no charges followed.

It would be good to see him playing at the World Championships in Sheffield this year.

American Pool: Tony Drago Takes Paris Eurotour

2008-03-04T06:44:00.012+01:00

After many years of trying and 3 failed attempts as the losing finalist, Tony Drago has finally secured his first victory on the Eurotour beating Christian Reimering by 10 racks to 6 in a thrilling final. For many of us who know him it was a great night since Tony is certainly one of the most deserving players on the tour who was yet to win one. His fast and furious play has made him a star on the snooker scene over the last 20 years and now he's been bringing his unique style of play to the world American Pool scene, having already made a big name for himself over the last 4 or 5 years.

The tournament was held for the first time at a new location outside the centre of Paris:

Leader Club Billard 94
8 rue Christophe Colomb
94370
Sucy-en-Brie
Paris

The club itself is spectacular with 17 Dynamic Olympic tables and a huge mezzanine overlooking the play area for spectators and players to socialize and take in the atmosphere.

This event held a great importance since the top four players on the Eurotour rankings after this event have been entered into the Matchroom Sports 2008 World Pool Masters to be held in Las Vagas from 9th-11th May. The lucky selected four are: Mark Gray (GBR), Christian Reimering (GER), Bruno Muratore (ITA), and Imran Majid (GBR).

6 British players made it through to the last 32 in this event, showing that the strength of American pool in the UK is growing all the time.

the results from the last 32 were:

THE EURO TOUR PARIS OPEN 2008
THE LAST 32
Thomasz Kaplan	POL	10 : 4	DEN	Kasper Kristoffersen
Marco Tschudi	CH	10 : 4	GER	Michael Schmidt
Imran Majid	UK	10 : 6	GRE	John Vassalos
Niels Feijen	NL	10 : 3	UK	Mark Gray
Marc Vogt	GER	10 : 3	DEN	Martin Larsen
Marcus Chamat	SWE	10 : 4	GRE	Nick Malai
Christian Reimering	GER	10 : 9	UK	Karl Boyes
Bruno Muratore	ITA	10 : 3	RUS	Konstantin Stepanov
Ralf Souquet	GER	10 : 7	GER	Sven Pauritsch
Oliver Ortmann	GER	10 : 4	UK	Gareth Esprit
Markus Juva	FIN	10 : 7	AUT	Albin Ouschan Jr.
Martin Kempter	AUT	10 : 8	SLO	Matjaz Erculj
David Alcaide	ESP	10 : 9	NL	Nick van den Berg
Thomas Engert	GER	10 : 4	HUN	Vilmos Foldes
Darren Appleton	UK	10 : 2	UK	Jonni Fulcher
Tony Drago	MAL	10 : 3	ESP	Carlos Cabello

THE EURO TOUR PARIS OPEN 2008
THE LAST 16
Marco Tschudi	CH	10 : 5	POL	Thomasz Kaplan
Niels Feijen	NL	10 : 7	UK	Imran Majid
Marcus Chamat	SWE	10 : 7	GER	Marc Vogt
Christian Reimering	GER	10 : 6	ITA	Bruno Muratore
Oliver Ortmann	GER	10 : 6	GER	Ralf Souquet
Markus Juva	FIN	10 : 4	AUT	Martin Kempter
Thomas Engert	GER	10 : 7	ESP	David Alcaide
Tony Drago	MAL	10 : 9	UK	Darren Appleton

THE EURO TOUR PARIS OPEN 2008
THE QUARTER-FINALS
Marco Tschudi	CH	10 : 9	NL	Niels Feijen
Christian Reimering	GER	10 : 6	SWE	Marcus Chamat
Markus Juva	FIN	10 : 8	GER	Oliver Ortmann
Tony Drago	MAL	10 : 3	GER	Thomas Engert

THE EURO TOUR PARIS OPEN 2008
THE SEMI-FINALS
Christian Reimering	GER	10 : 7	CH	Marco Tschudi
Tony Drago	MAL	10 : 3	FIN	Markus Juva

THE EURO TOUR PARIS OPEN 2008
THE FINAL
Tony Drago	MAL	10 : 6	GER	Christian Reimering

Snooker: Championship League - Groups 1 & 2

2008-02-29T13:19:00.004+01:00

The first 2 groups of the Championship League Snooker have now been played and we now have the first 2 players for the final group. The winner of the whole event will be the final player in this season's Premier League Snooker Tournament.

The first 2 players through are Ryan Day and Ken Doherty. Ryan has won £6,100 and Ken has won £8,300, good money for internet only TV and a non-ranking event.

The big losers that are out of the event so far are, Mark Williams, Nigel Bond, Matthew Stevens and Barry Hawkins.

Here are the group 1 and group 2 reports and results.

The next Championship League Snooker can be seen from March 10th - March 13th through the following betting websites:

www.betfair.com
www.bet365.com
www.willhill.com

Snooker: Selby's First Ranking Title

2008-02-19T12:44:00.003+01:00

Mark Selby claimed his first ranking event of his career in the Welsh Open on Sunday with a great win over Ronnie O'Sullivan.

The first session was a bit scrappy with Ronnie really struggling to find his A game. I thought Mark should have capitalised a lot more and when it finished 4-4, I feared Mark had probably blown a good chance to get a good lead and put himself in a commanding position for the evening session.

I was expecting Ronnie to come back a better player in the evening session, and he did, winning 4 of the first 5 frames in style, and leaving him one frame from victory. To me, Selby looked dead and buried and I was pretty astonished with the fightback that ensued.

Selby said he had to resort to his B game and ground out the next 3 frames to take it to 8 each. Ronnie came flying out of the blocks in the decider and, early on in the frame, looked like he was going to blow Selby's fightback to smithereens, but he broke down and Selby knocked in a break taking the match to the last 3 or 4 reds. Ronnie got back in, tried to move a red off the cushion but missed a solid cannon. He got down quickly to back double the same red, a match winner if it went in, not necessarily a match loser if he missed but the white flew round the table and went in off! This left Selby with a sitter and he didn't need a second invitation.

Ronnie was clearly devestated and seemed to struggle to comprehend his loss. The Welsh interviewer/commentator didn't help, "Great match, highest break, congratulations", I was shouting DUCK!! at the TV in fear that Ronnie was going to hit him! What a plonker. Ronnie came out with some comments which I think were due to the heat of the moment: "Mark was very tactical" and "I don't know if Mark's talented; he plays a very negative game. He doesn't take a ball on unless he's going to leave it safe.". The media have obviously stirred the comments up a bit, but Mark has subsequently come out and dismissed them with diplomacy I don't think even he's used to. Let's face it, it can't be easy giving a live interview when you've just lost a major final from a very commanding position.

Selby didn't only beat Ronnie at the Welsh Open, he beat 3 other past World Champions in Hendry, Higgins and Doherty which has to make his vctory even sweeter. I'm really pleased for Selby, he's a very funny guy as I found out when he came to the Swiss Open a couple of years ago. He can stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes all night long. He's a fantastic character in the world of snooker, ...not a bad player too!!

Well done Mark!

Snooker: Hustle Hassle

2008-02-13T14:05:00.003+01:00

There's more talk of dodgy dealings in snooker. This time with the group phases in Malta and spurious betting on dead games. Check out various articles here, here and here.

We've discussed the pros and cons before here and here.

The Premier Snooker League doesn't seem to suffer at all with the league format or from spurious betting on dead games. It offers £1'000 per frame and £1'000 per century break. One can't help thinking that if the WSA did the same, ranking events, or events under the control of the WPBSA wouldn't suffer these problems either. Better still, for ranking events, build in a ranking point structure for the results of dead games.

And I've got no sympathy for bookies offering odds on dead games, surely they're asking for trouble when the players aren't playing for anything.

Snooker: Murphy Wins in Malta

2008-02-11T11:09:00.000+01:00

Shaun Murphy beat Ken Doherty in the final of the Malta Cup by 9 frames to 3.

Murphy's looking good going into this weeks Welsh Open which is a ranking event. But that's just it, ...the Welsh Open is a ranking event and will probably be a slightly different challenge to the lowly Malta Cup. Ken Doherty has been looking in good form but collapsed in the final which is a real shame. It would have been good to see him keep it all together for the full duration of a tournament, ...even if he would have lost 9-8 in the final.

Ronnie is back for the Welsh and seems to be in good spirits judging by this BBC report. The tournament will be shown live on the BBC, but only on BBC Wales. If you've got Sky, you'll find these regional BBC channels in the high numbers. In the past, the latter stages of the tournament have been shown on BBC interactive. I believe it will also be shown live on Eurosport.

American Pool: Ralf Souquet Wins 2008 Paris Open

2008-02-06T17:59:00.000+01:00

2008 Paris Open top four: Niels Feijen, Ralf Souquet, Yannick Beaufils, & Jonni Fulcher.
The 2008 Paris Open

David Bare has been running the Paris Open for several years now and the format was the same as before... Qualifiers just before at Akademy Beaugrenelle, a cavernous club with lots of tables, and then the actual event at the Clichy Montmartre club, one of the most beautiful clubs in the city.

This year it was Ralf Souquet who continued his rich vein of form by taking the title. Clearly the in form player, Ralf showed his class yet again by taking the tidy 4000 Euro first prize in a thrilling final against Yannick Beaufils from France.

2008 Paris Open Champion, Ralf Souquet receiving his trophy.

Qualifying

Exciting atmospheres in both the qualifying and the final stages of the tournament made for a fantastic event with some nail biting matches. This event had 4 invitees, namely Majid, Feijen, Van den Berg and Souquet, who were placed directly into the last 16. Competition for the remaining 14 spots was fierce, with 64 hopefuls sparring it out in the Akademy Beaugrenelle. Big names came from all over Europe to compete but of course the majority of the players were French. There were a number of Eurotour regulars such as Jonni Fulcher, Serge Das, Vincent Fauquet, Willy Wu, Bertrand Deroliol, Yannick Beaufils, Stephan Cohen, Andreja Klasovic and many more.

2008 Paris Open semi-finalists Jonni Fulcher and Niels Feijen.

Early on in the qualifying Yannick Beaufils showed he meant business with an early 9-7 victory over Jonni Fulcher in a thrilling match on the very tough shimmed club tables. Among the other big match ups were Fauquet vs Das which was won by Fauquet, Das later coming unstuck in the one loss side and crashing out of the event early.

After a long day starting at 10am and finishing at around midnight, the 12 qualifiers who came through were: Antona, Beaufils, Cohen, Deroliol, Fauquet, Fulcher, Klasovic, Lemaire, Lettre, Merabtene, Vernendal and Wu.

The final day saw the four invitees joining the rest of the field with some immediately interesting last 16 match-ups:
Willy Wu played Vincent Fauquet, Wu proved strong this time and took a solid victory. Jonni Fulcher played Nick Van den Berg in an epic thriller. Van den Berg led the entire match from the first rack and at 9-6 up he looked certain to sail into the next round, but Fulcher showed his true fighting character and pressured Van den Berg into a crucial mistake scratching the white into the middle bag giving Fulcher a chance to come back, Fulcher took the next two racks to level it at 9-9 and in a tense final rack it was Fulcher who emerged the victor with the only 10-9 result of the tournament.

Cohen played Klasovic in what turned out to be quite a one sided affair with Cohen emerging the victor.

But clearly the biggest upset of the last 16 was Beaufils' victory over Majid 10-5. Again showing his tenacity and desire to win, Beaufils outplayed Majid who left the building shortly after his defeat.

2008 Paris Open Runner-Up, Yannick Beaufils.

The pick of the last 8 matches proved to be Wu vs Beaufils, neither player looked like making a mistake, but it was Beaufils who managed to just keep his nose ahead until the end.

The first Semi Final Match up yielded what on paper appeared to be a rather easier victory for Souquet over Feijen than it truely was, both men exhibiting their class and in a nearly flaweless match Souquet moved on to the final.

The second Semi final was a rather longer affair with due care and attention paid to every shot by the clearly troublesome Beaufils. After a quick fire early start to the match Fulcher came unstuck at 2-0 and gave an opening to Beaufils to get back into the match, which he duly took. the match then stayed close until 8-7 after which Beaufils took the remaining two racks to put an end to Fulcher's quest.

The Final was another Thriller. Neither man could pull away and in a closely fought, match the scoreline never differed by more than two racks. Beaufils faught gallantly to the end, but a mistake with a safety after a Souquet push-out let Souquet in to take the match and the title.

Souqet Adds the 2008 Paris Open title to his Derby City Classic 9-ball victory and continues his great start to the 2008 season.

2008 Paris Open Champion, Ralf Souquet.

THE LAST 16
SOUQUET 10 : 2 LEMAIRE
COHEN 10 : 4 KLASOVIC
VERNEDAL 10 : 6 MERABTENE
FEIJEN 10 : 1 ANTONA
FULCHER 10 : 9 VAN DEN BERG
DELORIOL 10 : 3 LETTRE
WU 10 : 5 FACQUET
BEAUFILS 10 : 5 MAJID

THE QUARTER FINALS
SOUQUET 10 : 5 COHEN
FEIJEN 10 : 2 VERNEDAL
FULCHER 10 : 7 DELORIOL
BEAUFILS 10 : 8 WU

THE SEMI FINALS
SOUQUET 10 : 5 FEIJEN
BEAUFILS 10 : 7 FULCHER

THE FINAL
SOUQUET 10 : 8 BEAUFILS

Snooker: 2008 Malta Cup

2008-01-31T13:14:00.000+01:00

The Malta Cup starts on the 4th February and will be a group format tournament. There are 2 wilcards from Malta, Alex Borg and Tony Drago and 2 other wildcards, Marco Fu and Dominic Dale.

Ronnie will not be entering this tournament and Joe Perry has taken his place.

The groups are shown below:

Click here for a larger view.

This isn't a ranking event but it will be shown live on Eurosport I believe. More information can be found here.

Snooker: Fu Interview

2008-01-31T10:37:00.001+01:00

Check out this excellent Marco Fu interview here!

Snooker: Today vs Yesteryear

2008-01-22T16:23:00.000+01:00

I've heard a few people saying the standard of snooker these days doesn't compare to the Hendry and Davis eras. Here's a comment from an earlier post.

"It's tragic that the standard of snooker has gone down so far. Remember when Hendry, Higgins, Williams, O'Sullivan, Doherty, White, were all on top of their game 10 yrs ago, the game is unrecognisable now. Once O'Sullivan goes out, pretty much the standard drops like a stone, and so do the ratings."

Yes O'Sullivan went out early in the Masters, but I still think we saw some great snooker. Stephen Maguire had to play well to beat Ronnie in the first place! It was a great match that went down to the final pink. Look at Doherty's 3 centuries in 4 frames against Murphy. And Murphy himself played well against Ali Carter. Of course, there's also Selby, he played very well in all his matches, and 4 centuries in the final. He even matched Doherty's highest break in the final frame, a 141. It has to be said that that's a pretty awesome display for a relatively young player in his debut Masters, and winning his first ever major!

Domanic Dale played some great fluent snooker to beat Ryan Day in the Shanghai Masters final. And believe me, I never thought I would say "Domanic Dale played some great fluent snooker". That day he was entertaining and great to watch.

Again, Marco Fu played great snooker to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan in the Royal London Watches Grand Prix. Ronnie had a couple of centuries and plenty of 60+ breaks but still lost to Fu.

Maguire finally found his form to win the Northern Ireland Trophy. In that tournament, Ronnie had 5 centuries in a row against Ali Carter in a best of 9 match! Maybe a sign that Ronnie was finally finding his feet (or his brain) again in ranking events.

Ronnie was back in the UK Championship! But it did look like Selby had him in the semis until Ronnie knocked in that magnificent 147 in the final frame. Ronnie went on to destroy Maguire in the final.

And of course Selby, in the Masters.

Professionals these days say the standard is higher than it's ever been. I've heard Davis and Parrott say this on the box! This is what some people are doubting. I remember the Hendry days better than I remember the Davis days, but I've watched many of the Davis victories on tape and he was devastating in his day.

Players were truly afraid of Davis. I've heard people in the past say that if a pro drew Davis in the first round of the tournament, ...they would already be checked out of their hotels before they even played against him! Hendry was incredible, he would just go for everything, and usually get it. He's (I think this is correct) more than 200 centuries in front of his closest rival which is O'Sullivan at the moment with 700+. That's some strike rate. And Jimmy with his flair, some of his shots have been astonishing to watch on TV, he's done things with the cueball that most people didn't think were possible.

I think because the gap was so large between the top ranked players and players ranked 5 and below of yesteryear, the top players were made to look good. Yes, they were good, very good, but didn't get the kind of competition the top ranked players of today get. Last season Robinson was the only player to win more than one ranking event, the rest were won by Ding, Ebdon, Murphy, Dott and Higgins (Ronnie won the Masters).

This year's winner so far are Dale, Fu, Maguire, and Ronnie (Selby won the Masters). The standard is so high these days it's taken Ronnie about 3 years to win a ranking event! I don't think the standard is lower than 10 years ago, I think it's just as high, if not higher. But what is most noticeable from the tournament wins over the last 2 seasons is the competition is fiercer than ever. You won't get only the top 4 players winning tournaments these days, it's players ranked all the way down into the 20s!

I think it's good for the game and long may it continue.

Snooker: Selby Seals His Maiden Win

2008-01-21T16:38:00.000+01:00

Mark Selby thrashed Stephen Lee 10-3 in the final of the Masters yesterday evening. Throughout the tournament he had earned some really hard victories against Hendry, Maguire and Doherty. He took home a winner's cheque of £150,000 and, remarkably, in the final frame when the crowd were going mad and taking photographs with the flash on, knocked in a 141 to tie the highest break with Ken Doherty and take home a share of the £10,000 high break prize.

Selby's will to win is very visible when playing and it's great to see. Lee's frustration was evident, he certainly thought the balls were running against him and I think it was difficult for him to keep positive throughout the match. Lee couldn't manage a single frame in the evening session as Selby powered on.

In all Selby recorded 4 centuries in the match, a 124, 132, 125 and a 141, pretty devestating stuff! After this career debut win, is it possible to say he will win another tournament this season? Hard to tell as the standard is so high. Well played Mark!

Snooker: Master Final Preview

2008-01-20T12:38:00.000+01:00

The Masters trophy will have a new name on it this season when Stephen Lee and Mark Selby battle it out in the final today.

This year has seen some great matches, many of them close and some surprises too. I rate Mark Selby very highly but it still has to be said that it's a bit of a surprise to see him in the final as it it with Stephen Lee. It's probably more of an achievement for Stephen Lee to be in the final as his season hasn't been that spectacular.

But Selby has been pretty solid all season and has had 3 6-5 victories to get him into the final. All cracking matches. Selby had a great comeback victory against Maguire and held on really well against Doherty who has been playing some good snooker in this tournament. Doherty was coming back strongly against Selby and you could see Selby's delight as he banged the table after potting the important red that took him into the final.

Lee's first match was a 6-5 win as well against Graeme Dott, another classic match. His quarter final and semi final victories seemed to be much easier though against Ebdon and Fu. Ebdon collapsed and was chasing maximums when he should have been concentrating on securing the frame and Fu didn't show the form that earned him victories against Davis, Robertson and Ding.

Lee is looking to get some revenge over Selby after Selby beat him in the World Championships. Lee was well ahead in that match too. I hope today's match will be a classic, ...but I don't think it will be! :o)

Snooker: Tony Drago Interview on the BBC

2008-01-17T13:49:00.000+01:00

Click here for a good interview with Tony Drago BBC website. Tony slates Prestatyn in a big way. Maybe it is time to move snooker qualifiers away from Prestatyn.

I've spoken to a couple of pro players about the place and they've generally described it as a dump!

Snooker: Ding Gets the Better of Higgins

2008-01-17T11:08:00.000+01:00

Ding Junhui is back! In a ding dong battle with Higgins, Ding fought back from 3-1 down to level at 4-4. Higgins was playing reasonably well and knocked in breaks of 71, 73 and 62. But his cuing action let him down a couple of times as he seemed to hit across the ball. Ding took full advantage with breaks of 74, 54, 135, and 96. The last 2 frames went to Ding for him to win 6-4.

Once again Ding looked great when when in amongst the balls and the beat Higgins in the Masters is a yet another big scalp for Ding. He plays Marco Fu in the next round.

Dott managed to blow a 5-3 lead against Stephen Lee in the other first round match yesterday. Dott's game seemed to disintegrate a little only for him to get it back at 5-5. In the last frame Dott made a great break of 61 and was looking favorite. But he then let Lee in and he came back with a magnificent 64 break to win the match 6-5

Graeme Dott blamed the defeat on a bad bounce off the cushion when when on 61. But surely he can't take anything away from Stephen Lee's break when under immense pressure.

Snooker: O'Sullivan, The Hero of an F1 Driver

2008-01-16T14:33:00.000+01:00

Gwyn Jones, a regular commenter on greenbaize found this article through a link on this site.

Snooker: Doherty And Fu Through

2008-01-16T11:17:00.000+01:00

Doherty rolled back the years yesterday with a great win over Mark Williams. I fancied Williams to win this one as he looked to be getting some form back in the UK Championships. But it wasn't to be, Doherty was playing some of his best snooker in years to paddy power past Williams 6-2.

Williams went 2-0 up and was looking good with breaks of 118 and 69 but Doherty hit 6 of the best with breaks of 101, 89, 53 and 68. It great to see Doherty back on form again.

Williams is pretty negative about his future. He doesn't want to be playing in the qualifiers at Prestatyn next season and has said that if he's not in the top 32 he "probably won't stick around". This would be a sad loss for snooker. He's still a great player to watch and I still think he has a lot to give.

The Robertson Fu match was a cracking, long hard fought match. So much so, ...it made me late for work this morning. Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Like the Doherty Williams match, Robertson started out the strongest with breaks of 63 and 118. Robertson looked in really good form. But Fu showed then showed why he's won a ranking event this season and really got into some great break building of his own winning 4 frames in a row with breaks of 89, 71, 69 and 100.

Robertson had to dig really deep to stop Fu in his tracks but managed to win the next 2 to take it to 4-4. The next 2 were shared in what was turning out to be a great tactical game and so it went to the decider. The last frame was very cagey and could have gone either way, but Fu managed to win it on the final black. It was a really good match, ...one for the purists Clive Everton said.

Snooker: Former World Champion Number 3 Out on Day 2

2008-01-15T11:42:00.000+01:00

Yep, now Hendry is gone. I thought it was going to be a win for Selby rather than a really tough hard fought win! I didn't see the match live so it's difficult to comment on the performance of both players. From what I saw of the highlights and what I've read elsewhere, it looks like the match was a scrappy affair with Selby stepping up a gear when he was 5-3 down to come back and win 5-6. It's a great victory for Selby and another demoralising defeat for Hendry. Hendry will bounce back, he doesn't know when he's beaten. I still fancy him to win at least 1 more ranking event.

Davis was also beaten 6-2 comprehensively by Marco Fu. Davis was very unhappy with his performance and said that Marco would need to up his game in the next round. Marco agreed in his interview, actually he said this before Davis mentioned it, typical Davis diplomacy! ;o) There were some interesting quotes from Davis after the match:

"The end result was that I played rubbish."

"Who knows if this is going to be my last Masters because I might drop out of the top 16 by the end of the season."

"I'd prefer to qualify for the Masters by right, but if I get an invite I won't refuse it. I'll think about my career in the summer."

Ebdon is one of the former Wrold Champions through to the next round. Ryan Day will be very disappointed with his performance, he missed some really easy balls.

Snooker: Shock On The First Day

2008-01-14T13:06:00.000+01:00

Ronnie's out! What's more, Ronnie's nerves got the better of him.

Maguire played much better than in the UK championships before Christmas, but Ronnie's form had dipped a bit. He couldn't really get himself into top gear.

Maguire went 4-1 up with breaks of 64, 103 and 84. He was playing pretty solidly although the snooker wasn't scintillating. Ronnie saw the danger, upped his game through sheer necessity and managed to claw back to 5-5 with breaks of 112, 72, 66 and 64.

The match went into a decider and the crowd was buzzing. Maguire had the initial chance but ended up letting Ronnie in. He was on the way to a magnificent clearance, it would have been a real classic. Ronnie had to play the final blue with the rest, it was a pretty simple shot. The problem was, to get position on the pink, which he needed, he had to punch the blue in and stun the white on and off the cushion. I thought he played the blue a little quick, regardless, he missed it, the blue ran up and down the table and Ronnie had left it for Maguire who also needed the blue and pink for the match. Maguire calmly knocked them both in to the disbelief of the crowd who were clearly backing Ronnie. Ronnie walked despondently out of the arena and Maguire followed him with a look of disbelief, and the hint of a smile, on his face.

Earlier in the day, Murphy beat Ali Carter 6-3. Murphy was 2-0 down and looked to be struggling, but as Carter was out of the arena for a comfort break, the look on Murphy's face seemed to harden, he looked a lot more focused for the rest of the match. Ali Carter didn't play great snooker and looked under pressure. Eventually, Murphy ran out with a well deserved 6-3 win.

Barry Hawkins couldn't get his game together at all against Welshman Ryan Day in the wildcard round. Day always looked too strong throughout the match and came though 6-2 to put him in the first round against Peter Ebdon.

I can't imagine delivering many more reports through the tournament as I won't have much more time to see the matches. But when I watch one, I'll deliver on the blog.

I think the Masters is now wide open though, there's something like 8 World Champions left in the draw. Keep watching!

Snooker: Masters Preview

2008-01-09T13:53:00.000+01:00

One of my favorite tournaments starts on Sunday, the Masters. Staged in London at the Wembley Arena, the tournament has always seemed to exude class and glamor. For over 20 years it was staged at the Wembley Conference Center which has witnessed some unbelievable Masters snooker. With great crowds exceeding 2000, the atmosphere can be electric for one player and demoralizingly daunting for the other as Ding Junhui unfortunately found out the hard way last year. The crowds can destroy players long after the tournament finishes, more so it seems here than any other venue, ....again, as Ding Junhui found out last year!

Gold always comes to mind when I think of the Masters, probably because of the years it was sponsored by Benson & Hedges. Flowers! With flower beds flanking the table on either side. Jimmy White and Kirk Stevens dressed up sharp in their shiny white suits, and who can forget Kirk's fantastic maximum! The one table situation and top 16 only invitation format (with the exception of a couple of wildcards which are Marco Fu and Barry Hawkins this year) seems to add that extra prestige to the tournament.

As a huge fan of Stephen Hendry when I was younger, I never missed a match, and there were a lot of matches to miss! Hendry, almost 6 years unbeaten at Wembley, won in his debut season in 1989, went on to win 5 consecutive titles and eventually lost in 1994 in the final, ...in the final frame, against Alan McManus. I was distraught, as I'm sure Hendry was too. McManus was the first player to win the current trophy, the previous one having been given to Hendry for winning it for the previous 5 years.

Another player that was almost single handedly destroyed by the Masters was Mike Hallett. Now a regular commentator on Eurosport, in 1988 he was thrashed by Steve Davis 9-0 in the final, ...yes, whitewashed in the final. Mike probably thought that it couldn't get any worse until 1991 where again, he got to the final. Hallett was playing Hendry, playing well and led 7-0 and 8-2. He only needed one more frame to take trophy away from Hendry who had won the 2 previous seasons. It was not to be, Mike's game abandoned him and Hendry staged a brilliant comeback to win 9-8! If I remember rightly, that wasn't the last of the disappointments for Mike that evening, upon returning home with his wife, their house had been burgled. Talk about getting kicked while you're down!!

Back to the present and hopefully Ding will not succumb to the Masters' demons, who can forget his magnificent maximum last year. That gave him the record for the youngest player make a televised maximum! He hasn't had a great season so far but he's so talented and looks so good amongst the balls that I really want to see him do well. However, it's going to be tough for him at the Masters this year, his first round match is against current world champion John Higgins who also hasn't had a great season so far. They both have something to prove and I think this will be a classic match.

The wildcards, Marco Fu and Barry Hawkins are playing Steve Davis and Ryan Day respectively, I expect these to be tough matches too. The Masters' great, Hendry, is playing Selby who is playing some brilliant snooker and is flying up the rankings. I think Selby is going to carry on his great form and beat Hendry in his tournament, unless Hendry can find some divine inspiration.

Two out of form players, Doherty and Williams are matched up in the first round and I think this will be a tight scrappy affair. Doherty thinks his newly born son will give him inspiration at the Masters and he thinks he can go on and win it! Williams looked to have found some of his old form in the UK championship before Christmas and I fancy him to beat Doherty, ...just!

The biggest match-up of the first round has to be Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Stephen Maguire, provisionally ranked numbers 1 and 2 in the world! Maguire won't want Ronnie destroying him again so I think this could be a lot closer than the UK final.

Spare a thought for Jimmy White who will miss his first Masters for many a year. Currently he's not on form at all and struggling to stay on the main tour next year. I dare say his fans will miss him as much as he will miss Wembley! And while on that note, ...don't forget 3 times Masters winner Paul Hunter. Who can forget his constant Plan Bs!!! Personally, I think he used to plan to be way behind after the first session on purpose!!! ;o) May he rest in peace.

All in all, I'm quite looking forward to Sunday, let's hope Wembley can produce some more magic!!

Snooker: World Series To Be Launched!

2007-12-17T15:38:00.000+01:00

This is great news that I've read on Snooker Scene's blog. Click here for the article.

It would be great to have more snooker players with this kind of foresight. More details are to be released in due course. I'm astonished at the claim that all these tournaments will be televised!! I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of the coverage on Eurosport. This isn't BBC quality coverage but it's certainly good coverage. I've heard Dave Hendon, Mike Hallet, Mike Smith and Joe Johnson all commentating on Eurosport and they're all very good knowledgeable commentators. Rolf Kalb (Wikipedia entry in German) is the German speaking commentator. A few of my German speaking friends have told he's quite good "but still learning his trade". I'm not too sure who commentates in the other languages that Eurosport broadcast in.

With this and the Championship League, there should be much much more snooker in the 2008/2009 season than in this season. Snooker may well be starting a new boom! Ronnie took home £100,000 for winning the UK Championship, a significant improvement over recent years.

Snooker: Ronnie Takes A 4th UK Title

2007-12-17T11:35:00.000+01:00

Ronnie played some great snooker to take his 4th UK title 10-2 last night. In the first session yesterday, Ronnie blew away and whitewashed Stephen Maguire 8-0 who looked completely out of sorts. It wasn't superlative snooker from Ronnie, most of the time he needed a couple of chances to win a frame. Maguire failed to take his chances and came increasingly and visibly frustrated as the match progressed. I think Maguire was probably happy when the first session was over.

Maguire took the first frame of the second session with a break of 99, he missed a simple blue for the century. Ronnie responded in great style by knocking in a 126, then Maguire made a 57 break and Ronnie rounded off the match with a 94 break. So Maguire looked to have found some form in the second session but a comeback was almost an impossible task with Ronnie in such good form.

This is Ronnie's first ranking event since March 2005 when he won the Irish Masters. It is worth noting that he won the Masters this year as well as the Premier League though, so it's not like he hasn't been playing well enough to win titles. This also puts Ronnie provisionally number 1 in the world with Stephen Maguire provisionally number 2, both players leapfrogging Shaun Murphy.

It's great to see Ronnie winning a ranking event again and he's come a long way from walking out of the UK Championship in York last year. The O'Sullivan camp looked very happy with his partner Jo and their daughter Lily getting in on the photo action at the presentation.

The next tournament is the Masters at Wembley in January, and the next ranking event is the Welsh Open in February.

Snooker: O'Sullivan and Maguire In The Final

2007-12-16T14:04:00.000+01:00

Maguire played some good snooker to beat Murphy and get through to the final of the UK Championship. In the end Maguire took the victory by 9 frames to 5. I thought Murphy would have put up more of a fight but he let Maguire build up too much of a lead.

Ronnie claimed his final spot with a really gritty fightback against Mark Selby eventually winning the match in the deciding frame with a maximum. I'm quite gutted to have missed this match and after talking to a few snooker friends, they say it was a real cracker. You could see what the match and the max meant to Ronnie when he clenched his fist in delight as the last black dropped. I think I'm going to have to start re-arranging my life round Ronnie's snooker matches as there seems to be moments of magic every time he plays these days!! For those of you who missed the maximum, or simply want to see it again, ...here it is.

Snooker: The Grudge Match Is On!

2007-12-14T14:34:00.000+01:00

Today Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy play each other in their UK semi-final match. This is their fourth meeting after the famous chalk incident a few years ago.

Maguire has made no secret about the fact that he dislikes Murphy. In 2004 Maguire was docked a frame at the Grand Prix in Preston for leaving the arena having forgotten his chalk. Murphy applied the letter of the law and asked referee Johan Ooomen to deduct him a frame for breach of match rules. The Scot was incensed and thought Murphy's tactics were not in the spirit of the game.

Earlier this year, Maguire said, "Shaun is a great player. I respect what he does on the snooker table but I don't like him."

"We don't speak - and I prefer it that way. I've never really liked him. We don't speak at the venues and we probably never will."

Murphy has said he has no idea why Maguire won't speak to him. He said, "The incident at Preston a few years ago was not my fault. I don't make the rules. I don't see why I should be punished for that."

Both players are in good form at the moment and Maguire beat Murphy 6-5 in the semi-finals of the Northern Ireland Trophy last month.

May the most sporting man win....

Snooker: UK Championship Results

2007-12-12T13:17:00.000+01:00

Mark Williams played some solid snooker against Mark Allen to come back from 5-1 down to 5-3 at the end of Monday's play. Yesterday, Williams took control of the match to win 6 frames in a row to beat Mark Allen 9-5. It's good to see Mark back. He can have a quirky style and generally plays exciting snooker. He will play Maguire in the last 8.

Ronnie steamrolled Mark King 9-1 in a match where King didn't really take his chances. In the quarter-finals Ronnie will play Jamie Cope who beat Barry Hawkins in a very tense affair by 9 frames to 8.

Mark Selby will play Marco Fu and Shaun Murphy will play Ding Junhui. The matches of the quarter finals would have to be Ronnie vs Cope and Murphy vs Ding.

Snooker: Matchroom Launches New Tournament

2007-12-12T10:47:00.000+01:00

The original article can be found here. I've also copied the original article into this post and I've discussed the new venture below the article.

===

MATCHROOM Sport and the recently merged Premium TV / Inform Group have launched a new snooker event - The Championship League Snooker.

Staged over 20 days between February and May, 2008, the competition will be a league for some of the world's best players, solely broadcast on and funded by internet distribution.

There is a massive incentive as the eventual winner will take the seventh and final place for the 2008 Premier League Snooker tournament, which will be played out in front of packed crowds (pictured above) across the country and shown live on Sky Sports.

The Championship League Snooker will also have a total prize fund of £200,000 with money awarded for every frame won as well as substantial sums for reaching the latter stages.

In a world first, all aspects of the Championship League Snooker will be optimised specifically for an internet audience, with matches scheduled between Monday and Thursday so not to coincide with major football competitions.

All sessions will play between 2pm and 10pm to maximise both workplace and home viewing in Europe and Asia, snooker's biggest two regions in terms of fan base. Live coverage will be exclusively for the Internet.

Premium TV / Inform have already started distribution discussions and expect The Championship to be distributed by a variety of major portals, internet service providers, web TV and betting websites globally.

The competition will originally feature seven of the top players from the World Rankings who may not be picked automatically for the 2008 Premier League Snooker.

These seven men will then play each other in a round-robin basis and the top four players will play in semi-finals, then finals with the winner qualifying for the final phase.

However, the competitors finishing in the bottom two spots of the league will be eliminated but those who have not advanced to the final or been knocked out will move into the second group. They will then be joined by a further three players for another league phase.

The process is repeated until seven qualifying groups, featuring a total of 25 players, have been played. Only the winners of each group will advance to the last round.

This final phase will also be played in a league basis with the overall champion clinching a spot in the main 2008 Premier League Snooker competition.

Matchroom Sport chairman Barry Hearn said: "This will be a very exciting Championship.

"The players, venue, staging, cameras and production will all be of the usual highest quality but the distribution will be a completely new phenomenon for sport.

"We are delighted to be partners in such a forward-thinking initiative that could help fund all sorts of new sports leagues around the world."

Simon Denyer, Joint CEO of Premium TV/Inform Group, said: "The launch of Championship League Snooker illustrates how far the internet and our company have come. We have spent recent years helping major rights holders monetise digital rights that have been seen as marginal.

"This shows that the internet can now be the lead medium for some sports and we look forward to a great working relationship with Matchroom and the players."

Matchroom Sport will stage the event to its usual exceptionally high standards while Premium TV/Inform Group will produce all coverage using purpose built internet-based delivery broadcasting equipment.

===

Additional points/discussion

Here and here is a bit more information on Premium TV and Inform Group's merger.
Here's Premium TV's take on the new snooker tournament (similar to Matchroom's obviously).

This has to be good news for snooker and snooker professionals who want to play top quality snooker against top professionals and also gives them the ability to earn good money.

I have to say that press release doesn't really explain the format very well. Yes I understand that there will be a qualifying league of 7 players that will presumably be played under shot clock conditions (and this is only a presumption) like the main Premier League tournament. The winner will be entered into the Premier League tournament along with 6 invitees. Then a new qualifying league is created from next 4 highest ranked players from the qualifying tournament plus what I guess would be 3 wildcards as the bottom 2 players are ejected from the league.

What I don't fully understand is how the tournament ends up with 25 players and 7 qualifying groups. I guess this will become clearer as time goes on. I'll try to get some more information from matchroom.

Another interesting development is that the tournament will be shown exclusively live on the internet!! This may well be done through Premium TV/Inform Group's proprietary channels watchandbet.tv, mobilesport.tv and ipsport.tv. So it looks like this could essentially be pay per view snooker via the internet.

Not everybody likes watching TV through the internet and most people's attention span for this kind of viewing is for only the short clips, the kind you would see on YouTube. I have a Mac Mini hooked up to a 50" plasma TV, so I know I can get a pretty good viewing experience through the internet. I dare say most people don't have this kind of set-up yet and watching TV through the internet can still be a bit complicated for the layman which essentially cuts off a huge market for companies that are trying to utilise it. Content I watch is free content in the form of podcasts and up to now I've never considered paying for live streaming content through the internet. I'm still not sure whether or not I'll do it for this new snooker tournament even though I'm a huge snooker fan. It should be interesting to see how successful the concept is. I'm clearly going to have to do some more research! But well done to Barry Hearn for seeing through this new, innovative, and possibly risky concept.

Snooker: Higgins Out Ronnie Through

2007-12-11T10:44:00.000+01:00

Jamie Cope thrashed John Higgins yesterday in the first round of the UK Championship. What I saw of the match, Higgins was missing some balls that he simply shouldn't be missing but Jamie looked really comfortable and completely unfazed as he eased to victory. Higgins has had a really bad start to the season and needs to pick it up for the second half of the season. Cope won 9-3.

Ronnie stuttered to a 9-6 victory against Michael Holt. He looked to be getting some strange bounces of the cushion and lost his temper by throwing his arm at a shot at one point. But Holt couldn't capitalise on Ronnie's patchy form and eventually Ronnie came home an easy winner.

Mark Allen started his match well against Mark Williams leading 5-3 overnight. Williams had to scrap for the last 2 frames of the session and will be pleased to on be 2 frames behind. Williams didn't play particularly badly, Allen played very well and didn't give his opponent many chances. It will be interesting to see what happens in this match.

In other matches, Nigel Bond and Ding Junhui are locked at 4-4 and Neil Robertson lost to his practice partner and friend Joe Perry by 9 frames to 6. It's been a pretty disappointing start to the season for both Robertson and Ding as well, they were 2 shining stars last season and Robertson really needs to get his game together. At least Ding, at the time of writing, is still in the tournament.

Snooker: Ranking Event Catch-Up

2007-12-10T13:29:00.000+01:00

Apologies if you read my blog and expect reports immediately after matches/standard ranking events. Unfortunately I have to work for a living so I can't produce content as often as I would like to! Be sure to add my blog to your feed reader using the links to the top right of this page and you'll see immediately when new content is available.

We are already into our 4th ranking event of the season (the UK Championship) and the first 3 events have produced 3 surprise winners. Last year was an open season producing 6 different winners from the 7 ranking events. Neil Robertson was the only man to win more than one ranking event and many of the big names including Hendry, O'Sullivan, Davis, Doherty and Maguire could not manage a ranking event victory.

Our winners so far this year have been Dominic Dale with the Shanghai Masters, Marco Fu with the Grand Prix and Stephen Maguire with the Northern Ireland Trophy. All 3 winners have played exceptionally well to win their respective tournament which goes to show the kind of standard we're now getting from tournament to tournament. I've already talked about the Shanghai Masters and Grand Prix, but haven't said anything about Maguire winning in Northern Ireland.

Maguire played solid snooker throughout the even to take his first title since 2004. He must be delighted to back into the winner's circle as he had a serious dip in form throughout 2005 and 2006. Fergal O'Brien was a shock finalist but played some great snooker to get there; particularly against John Higgins where he was 4-3 down but knocked in 2 centuries to win 5-4.

Ronnie O'Sullivan had a moment of brilliance in a record breaking match against Ali Carter. He knocked in 5 centuries including a maximum, a feat that will be difficult to equal.

Now we're already onto the UK Championships, the second biggest tournament in the game. The shocks continue with Hendry, Ebdon and Doherty already out, ...and in an even bigger turn of events, Mark Williams has made it through to the next round! :o) At this moment in time, Higgins is 5-3 down to Jamie Cope but there's still a long way to go in these longer, first to 9 matches.

Hendry looked to get well beaten by new up and coming super star Mark Allen. Hendry seemed miffed in the interview, he thinks his game is great but his confidence is gone. Mark Allen was extremely happy with his win saying he "had just beaten my childhood hero!" I think Mark Allen will go a long way, I was at the 2004 European Championships in Austria when Mark Allen took the title and he certainly looked first class back then.

The Ebdon vs McCulloch match was a real tense affair. McCulloch was 5-0 down and came back to win 9-8. He was 8-7 up but Ebdon leveled with a good break. McCulloch showed great determination and nerve to knock in an 80+ break in the decider.

Could we have a differerent winner for each tournament this season, I'm looking forward to finding out.

Snooker: Ronnie Wins Again!

2007-12-10T10:57:00.001+01:00

Once again Ronnie O'Sullivan has proved to be the Premier League king after defeating John Higgins 7-4 in the final of the PartyBets.com Premier League. He didn't have it so easy this year, his 24 match unbeaten run was broken in the league stages and he conceded 4 frames in the final. This is Ronnie's 4th successive victory in this tournament and looks as unbeatable as Hendry did in the Masters in the 90's.

Ronnie took home £83,000, consisting of a £50,000 winners cheque, £24,000 for frames won in the league stages and £9,000 for 9 centuries. When asked about his lack of tournament victories over the last couple of years, he replied that a "win is a win", and this tournament now ranks as one of the biggest on the snooker circuit. He said that he would rather win this one than the Northern Ireland Trophy or the Malta Cup. It certainly suits his game and temperament.

Ronnie played pretty solidly as did John Higgins, but John's ultimate downfall was the shot clock. He had trouble with it all the way through the tournament but no doubt he will be playing in the premier league next year and should be more accustomed to the format.

Ronnie disposed of an under performing Stephen Hendry in the semi-final and said after the match that he would have to play much better in the final to beat Higgins. Overall, Hendry had a reasonably good Premier League showing that his game is beginning to come back after deserting him for a few years. He could be a force to reckon with in the remaining ranking events this year, ...although at the time of writing he has just been beaten 9-4 by Mark Allen in the UK championships.

Ding had been playing so well that I thought he would overcome Higgins in the semi-final, but Ding didn't show the form he had in the league stages. Higgins' win wasn't just down to Ding playing badly though, it was Higgins' strongest performance under the shot clock which shows his champion qualities in pulling his best snooker out of the bag when it's required the most.

But congratulations to Ronnie, his first tournament victory in 9 months.

Snooker: Premier League

2007-11-23T13:49:00.000+01:00

If you've been watching the premier league snooker, you will have seen some really great stuff over the last 10 weeks or so. As it stands now, the group phase is complete with Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins going through to the semi-final stage in Aberdeen on the 1st of December. The final is the following day and both the semis and the final will be televised live on Sky Sports. Here's how the table ended up.

Pos	Name	P	W	D	L	Frames W	Frames L	100+	Pts	Money won
1	Ding Junhui	6	4	1	1	25	11	12	9	£37,000
2	Stephen Hendry	6	4	1	1	20	16	3	9	£23,000
3	R. O'Sullivan	6	4	0	2	24	12	9	8	£33,000
4	John Higgins	6	2	2	2	17	19	3	6	£20,000
5	Steve Davis	6	2	1	3	15	21	1	5	£16,000
6	Jimmy White	6	0	3	3	13	23	0	3	£13,000
7	Neil Robertson	6	0	2	4	12	24	2	2	£14,000

In the final matches last night, Robertson played White to see who would come bottom of the group, Ding played Hendry to see who would come top of the group and Higgins played Davis to see who would take the final knockout place.

The Robertson White was a fairly average affair that finished 3-3. Both players were disappointed with their form in the groups stages. White thought he could have won a couple of previous matches when in good positions and Robertson simply never got to grips with the shot clock stating, "I definitely know how long 25 seconds are now!".

Then came the match of the evening, Ding versus Hendry. Ding was absolutely awesome, I think this is the best I've seen him play, and quite possibly just as good as I've ever seen Ronnie O'Sullivan play. Now all he needs to do is to learn how to play left handed! :o)

Ding opened the first 4 frames with breaks of 133, 87 (could easily have been a century), 136 and 138. During these first 4 frames Hendry didn't score a single point and Ding eventually amassed 495 points without a reply. This is a new record beating the old record 494 set by John Higgins against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2005 Grand Prix final.

After the first century, Hendry got out of his chair to congratulate Ding, I've never seen this before from Hendry. And after the third frame (I think it was the 3rd frame), Hendry was overheard by the commentary team mentioning that he hadn't potted a ball yet!! After the fourth frame, the cameras caught Hendry staring at the table with a rye smile on his face, shaking his head in disbelief. I caught myself doing the same but I was staring at my 50 inch telly! :o)

In the 5th and 6th frames Ding only managed a 40+ and 50+ break. I don't know, I was expecting greater things! When Hendry finally did manage to pot a ball in the 5th frame, the Scottish crowd went wild, but it didn't last long and Ding eventually won 6-0. Hendry only managed 41 points in the whole match, and many of those points were fouls that Ding had conceded. Not too surprisingly Hendry didn't stick around for an interview after the match. This result is quite important for snooker fans as it means Ding won't face Ronnie in the semi-final. If we get a Ding Ronnie final and they both play to the top of their game, ...it could be absolute cracker!

Top billing was Higgins versus Davis. This was a very important match as it was a fight for the last qualification spot. Higgins has had a very slow start to the premier league and has really struggled adjusting his rhythm to the shot clock. On the other hand, Davis seems to cope with it very well, has had much more experience with it, and generally seems to enjoy the up tempo format. Higgins was one point ahead in the table before the match so only needed a draw to qualify. Davis mention how only needing a draw to qualify should be piece of cake for Higgins, providing no silly mistakes are made and the manager doesn't use a rookie goal keeper... :o) The Scottish crowd certainly enjoyed Davis' remarks, ...obviously referring to England's disastrous match against Croatia in the final group match of England's Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. But back to the snooker, ...it wasn't a great match. Davis made some mistakes which allowed Higgins to stumble to a 3-0 lead. This meant Higgins had qualified. When at 3-0, Higgins seemed to lose concentration and Davis won the next 3 to draw the match.

After a couple of matches, I didn't think Higgins was going to qualify for the knockout phase. But like a true world champion, he managed to pull himself together and drag himself through. Higgins said the public will see a different Higgins in the knockout phase and I think we will too. One thing is for sure, he will have to play much better to beat the likes of Ding, Ronnie and Hendry. His semi final match will be against Ding.

Hendry came third in the group and looks a better player this year with his new cue. However, Ronnie absolutely loves this event and has thrashed Hendry before. I really think it's going to be Ding vs Ronnie final, and with all respect to Hendry and Higgins, I'm kind of hoping so too.

It's worth pointing out that so far Ding has had 12 centuries, 3 more than Ronnie, the next highest number of centuries in the competition is only 3 by Hendry and Higgins!!! I think it was mentioned that there was only 13 in total for the whole competition last year which means Ding has almost single handedly matched that number before playing in the knockout phase. The highest break so far was a magnificent 143 by Steve Davis in Derby, a record with the shot clock. Ding's total prize money so far is £37,000, more than what Maguire took home for winning the Northern Ireland Trophy, a ranking event. Come on WPBSA (or the WSA), pull your finger out!! The matchroom crowd certainly know how to stage a snooker event.

I'm really looking forward to the final weekend, I just know we're going to see some more great snooker!

Snooker: Marco Fu Defeats Ronnie in Aberdeen

2007-10-23T13:13:00.000+02:00

It's amazing to think that a player of Ronnie O'Sullivan's ability hasn't won a ranking tournament since the 2005 Fáilte Ireland Irish Masters. That season was a reasonable season for Ronnie also winning the totesport Grand Prix and the Welsh Open, making up a trio of ranking events. He was probably feeling pretty good (by his standards of feeling good) because he'd won the World Championships the season before.

But it's worth noting that the tournament after the Welsh Open was the Malta Cup, a tournament he decided not to compete in. And the tournament after the Fáilte Ireland Irish Masters was the China Open, a tournament he decided not to compete in. Way back then the prize money was low and snooker was at a low point. I seem to remember Ronnie saying something along the lines of, why bother traveling to these events when you can only win a few thousand pounds? The fact that he'd won the previous respective tournaments might have had an impact too.

A couple of years on, and Ronnie still hasn't won a ranking event. He missed the Shanghai Masters earlier this season due to medical reasons, decided to skip the Pot Black Cup a couple of weeks ago because he fancied a run, and Marco Fu defeated him in the final on Sunday in the Grand Prix at Aberdeen.

It was a great final. Fu played excellent snooker to win and his 60 clearance in the 14th frame could be hailed as one of the greatest clearances of all time! I, for one, certainly thought that Fu could not clear the table in one visit. Ronnie had just knocked in a nice 58 but then broke down. Marco came to the table with at least 3 reds near cushions in the baulk area. For me it was a case of potting a few balls, running for cover and keeping the game tight. But Fu just kept on potting them, ball after ball, great pot after great pot, and my jaw was touching the floor as final black dropped.

This was Fu's first ranking event and makes him the third Asian player to win a ranking event, following in the footsteps of the great James Wattana, and more recently, the temperamental Ding Junhui. Marco Fu was very modest in his victory, saying that it meant more to him because he had beaten Ronnie in the final. Remember he also beat John Higgins earlier in the tournament, Fu has great records against these top players and is a player that should probably be in the top 16. Beating Ronnie and Higgins on the way to capturing a main ranking event would delight any top professional so you can understand how delighted Marco Fu is!

There are 5 more ranking events this season, can Ronnie get this curse off his back of not winning a ranking event since 2005? Marco is looking in good form. Could he win the World Championships this year. He narrowly missed the final in 2006 getting beat by Peter Ebdon by 17-16. Some people think it's Ding's year, becoming the youngest ever world champion but I think his temperament is in pieces after Ronnie demolished him in the Masters at the beginning of this year. Already we've had 2 unexpected champions this season in Dominic Dale and Marco Fu, what more will this season bring.

I'm looking forward to the second biggest tournament on the calendar in November, the Maplin UK Championships.

Snooker: Grand Prix - Sould We Have A Group Stage?

2007-10-18T11:45:00.000+02:00

There has been some furore throughout the snooker world about the group stages at the Grand Prix in Aberdeen this week. There was furore last year too! I feel it's all a bit unjustified, and I'll explain my reasoning behind this.

First of all, not all the players have been critical of the format. Some have said that it's good for the game, some have said it's bad for the game. Some people have complained that it's too complicated, difficult to follow, that there are too many matches, not enough crowds coming to watch, too many dead games, and most controversially, too many insinuations about the integrity of some of the matches, etc etc (the list probably goes on).

Let's take one of the points that I disagree with the most. Some players, and some of the big names in the sport that commentate on the matches (I will not name names), have suggested that when a player is on the verge of qualification to the knockout rounds and relying on the outcome of another match in the group, that the players playing in that match aren't taking the game seriously enough because the outcome of their match has no bearing on whether they will qualify or not!!! (I hope you got all that.)

I would say that looking at this situation from a negative point of view, you can understand why the players are complaining about the format. BUT, the way I see it, if a player wins all his matches, they would never be put in this position in the first place. If a player doesn't win all his matches, he is putting the destiny of his qualification chances into someone else's hands. Stephen Hendry is a great example of a player who thinks like this. You would never hear Hendry criticise someone else for not trying hard enough as the reason for him not qualifying for the knockout stage of a tournament, be it this one, or the PartyBets.com Premier League. And for me, this is the way it should be, Hendry hasn't qualified, and he is to blame, nobody else, it's a simple as that!

I don't really think the format is too complicated either. The general public will have their favorite players, they may only follow specific groups, they may try to follow all the groups, they might only follow specific matches or specific players. If the general public follow only specific players then the format is great because they get to see 5 matches before the tournament even reaches the last 16. OK, all 5 matches might not be televised but they can follow all 5 matches if they go watch the games live at the venue. I'd say this is a big plus. I certainly don't believe it's too complicated for the players to follow their individual groups. So who is it too complicated for? I've no idea. As for too many matches, most professionals that I've met love to have the opportunity to play under tournament conditions as often as possible, and against top class opposition. The players are getting that in the group stages and they should take full advantage of it.

I'm not too sure about the argument that there are too many "dead games" either. What I mean is, a game where the outcome of a match has no bearing on the final standings of the group. Players put on exhibitions and people come to watch. Players don't receive additional raking points for exhibitions or trophies, but they still play them. I don't see why the public can't enjoy a "dead game" as much as they enjoy any other game. Most professionals are very professional in their approach to the game, and try their hardest in every match. I would have no problem buying a ticket to go watch a "dead game".

Generally, I think different formats of snooker is good for snooker. Be it group matches (Grand Prix and the Premier League), time restricted snooker (Premier League), and straight knockout snooker (most other events). And the winner of the knockout format so far this week has to be Liu Song who's through to the knockout stages with Peter Ebdon, Matthew Stevens, Mark Selby, Dave Harold and Joe Delaney in his group. He's proven himself in a major tournament, over multiple matches, under TV conditions, and against top quality opposition.

So for now I think I've said enough, ...feel free to leave your thoughts, I will reply (constructively). :-)

Snooker: Johan Oomen Quits Refereeing

2007-09-24T15:06:00.000+02:00

Just read on the snooker scene blog that Johan Oomen has quit refereeing. This is a great shame as I considered him easily one of the best referees on the circuit.

Snooker: Jonni makes a 155 on TV!!

2007-09-24T11:28:00.000+02:00

Well, his own video camera and in practice. Still, it's a nice break. There's no sound as he refuses to read the manual on his new video camera. ;-) If he eventually figures it out and re-posts, ...I'll re-post too.

For those of you that don't know, Jonni occasionally contributes to this blog. He has footage of himself on youtube making a 155 on a pool table, but this is the first time he's videoed himself making one on a snooker table. Currently, Jonni is number 2 on the Eurotour circuit (9-ball). Enjoy the video.

Snooker: Premier League, Great Malvern

2007-09-16T12:36:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday saw Steve Davis play Neil Robertson and Stephen Hendry against Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Roberton didn't look that comfortable in his first match against the shot clock and Steve's experience led the way as he won quite comfortably. I think it was a bit of a baptism of fire for Robertson and the experience he's picked up in this match will mean the rest of the players in the league won't get it as easy as Davis did. I certainly don't want to sound like I'm taking anything away from Steve though. He played really well, looked really comfortable and very fluent. Even though Davis is now 50 years old, ...it really is a pleasure to watch him when he's playing in this mood and certainly looks like he can still give the majority of the top 16 a run for their money. Davis won the match 4-2.

Ronnie suffered his first defeat in 24 matches to the 7 times world champion Stephen Hendry. Stephen won 4-2. It was good to see Stephen play so well although his long potting still seems to be suffering. Before this match, Ronnie has had 18 wins and 6 draws. It's astonishing that he's had such a long winning streak! He didn't look quite on the ball but it wasn't a disastrous performance by any means. His century in the last frame was a real pleasure to watch, he turned it on for the crowd and it was real classic exhibition Ronnie O'Sullivan. I won't bother mentioning the league table at this early stage but if you want to see it, pop over to the official premier league snooker site.

Snooker: O'Sullivan Interview

2007-09-11T19:44:00.000+02:00

I first read this interview when Dave Hendon pointed to it on his blog. The original interview is here in The Times. He was interviewed by 3 times Commonwealth Games Table Tennis champion Matthew Syed.

‘Before every match I expect to lose. I am petrified and it cripples me’ - For a man who has collected two world titles, the inner demons and feelings of failure are never far away. He is at a loss to explain why.

“In a way, the most unhelpful thing you can do is examine the depressive’s situation logically because depression has nothing to do with logic” – From Ronnie, the autobiography of Ronnie O’Sullivan

Ronnie O’Sullivan has never been short of advice. In 2001 his doctor told him that his depression stemmed from a lack of serotonin in the brain and prescribed a daily dose of Prozac. In 2002 a therapist from the National Drugs Helpline told him that his problems were the consequence of his addiction to marijuana and that if he kicked his habit he could kick his demons.

A counsellor from the Samaritans – which O’Sullivan had called in a state of fevered desperation on the eve of the World Championship in 2001 – told him that it was all about his destructive relationship with snooker and that if he quit, things would start to look up. A sports psychologist who worked with O’Sullivan told him that his problems were to do with focus.

O’Sullivan has that effect on people: everyone wants to help, to advise him, to get inside his head and make things better. Maybe it is that irresistible combination of eccentricity and vulnerability. Maybe it is his roguish humour and immense personal warmth. Whatever it is, people want to reach out and attempt to understand him. For every friend and acquaintance there is an opinion on what is wrong and what to do about it.

But it was Mike Brearley, the former England cricket captain and now a psychotherapist, who offered O’Sullivan the most novel perspective. “Is your dad right-handed?” he asked O’Sullivan after he had confessed to problems with his cue action during one of their therapy sessions in 1998. O’Sullivan nodded.

“So that means there’s a good chance he stabbed the man he killed with his right hand,” Brearley said. “Maybe what happened in the club that night is affecting your right arm. There were people in the war years ago who were made to shoot people and didn’t want to do it. Years later their arms became paralysed.”

Brearley reasoned that if O’Sullivan could come to terms with the night his father knifed a man to death, it would solve his cueing problems, which would help him to feel better about life. It was Freudian logic that, to quote O’Sullivan, “was off the wall and did my head in for a long time”.

O’Sullivan, 31 with a steady partner and three children, is no closer to understanding why his world is shrouded in darkness. “A lot of the time I am in pieces and I still don’t know why,” he says as we sit alongside each other in the bar at Grove Snooker Club in Romford, Essex.

“Some days I think one thing, the next day I think something else. It is like there is this damn committee going on in my head. Shall I; shan’t I; am I up or am I down; am I doing the right thing; should I carry on; should I go home; have I done enough; have I had enough; do people really care; do I hate snooker; do I love snooker; have I had a good time; has it been great; hasn’t it been great; is it time to move on; have I got another five years in me; should I give up now. Arrrrgh! I’ve got all this shit in my head to deal with.”

Did the antidepressants help? “For a while, yes,” he says. “I started taking them at the start of the World Championship in 2001 and they helped me to get through that event [his first world title] because I was ready to walk out of Sheffield at the beginning of the competition, I was feeling so bad. I carried on taking them for around nine months. When I came off them, I went back to the up-and-down mood swings.”

Why not try them again? “I never really wanted to take them in the first place because I had read things about people who had come off them and ended up in a bad way and it kind of frightened me. I don’t want to end up suicidal because of the medication. I can handle being suicidal if the buck stops with me, but I hate the idea of going up the spout because of something I’ve taken. If I can blame myself, I can deal with that. I like to be hard on myself. Maybe that’s one of my problems. No matter what happens I always feel like a failure.”

That sounds strange, given what he has achieved on the snooker table.

“But I am a complete failure,” he says. “I feel lucky to have won two world titles, but I feel robbed because that’s all I won. If I had a bit of consistency in my game I would have never got beat by [Graeme] Dott [in the semi-finals of the 2006 World Championship] or [Peter] Ebdon [from 8-2 up in the quarter-finals in 2005].

“I threw away two titles because I wasn’t strong in myself, because I couldn’t take it. I know I was capable of challenging [Stephen] Hendry’s record [seven world titles]. But I haven’t produced. How can I be anything other than a failure?”

Is Hendry’s record that important to him?

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he says and giggles mirthlessly. “People say I am full of contradictions and they are right. I’m a walking contradiction. One day I’m up, one day I’m down. One day something is important, the next day it ain’t. On some days I don’t even try to analyse what’s going on in my mind because I haven’t got the slightest idea. I know it must be a nightmare for people who are close to me. But at least I am open about it all.”

Open enough to talk about his father?

It is the autumn of 1991 and O’Sullivan is in Thailand for the World Amateur Championship. It has been an audacious period for the 15-year-old potting machine, with a series of victories in pro-am matches and a runners-up medal at the English Amateur Championship. His precocity has secured a three-year deal with Barry Hearn, snooker’s most influential promoter, and he is enjoying the thrill of travelling around the world playing exhibition matches and tournaments. The phone rings in his hotel room and his mother comes on the line. As she talks, O’Sullivan’s stomach begins to tighten. “I’ve got some news to tell you,” she says. “I don’t want you to do anything, everything’s all right. But Daddy’s been arrested. He’s in police custody. He’s been involved in a fight and someone’s been killed.”

O’Sullivan flies back to the UK, where he is met by his mother and taken to the prison where his father is on remand. O’Sullivan looks at the man who has been the centre of his existence – a charismatic rogue who had built a lucrative chain of Soho sex shops from nothing – kitted out in standard prison garb. Then it hits him; he breaks down in tears.

For the first time in his life, O’Sullivan notices a tear escaping the eye of his father.

On September 21, 1992, O’Sullivan Sr was convicted of the murder of Bruce Bryan, a driver for Charlie Kray, the elder brother of the Kray twins.

Accounts vary, but what is certain is that the stabbing took place after an argument in a Chelsea nightclub. Summing up, the judge implied that the attack was racially motivated, a contention that was overturned in a sentence review in 2003. O’Sullivan Sr has two years of his 18-year minimum sentence to serve. The only contact between father and son for the past 16 years has been by phone or in a prison visiting room.

For many years, O’Sullivan Jr was unable or unwilling to examine the extent to which his descent into mental illness was related to his enforced separation from his father, who had lavishly financed his snooker career and provided him with discipline and inspiration. It was only recently, while leafing through the diaries he had kept as an adolescent, that O’Sullivan began to realise how much he has changed in the years since his father’s conviction.

“I found the diaries and just started to look through them,” he says. “And I had written stuff like, ‘Got to the quarters of this tournament, got to the semis of that tournament.’ But I wasn’t down on myself because I was losing. There was stuff like, ‘I need to start winning and it will happen soon.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Fucking hell, that don’t sound like me.’ I must have been about 12 at the time.

“I would never think something like that now. Now when I lose it’s, like, ‘Doom, gloom, playing shit, can’t pot a ball.’ It’s difficult to believe that I used to have so much belief and optimism. Back then I knew I was untouchable. Now I never think it’s going to happen for me. Before every match I expect to lose. I am petrified and it cripples me. Unless there are 4,000 people watching or it is the world final, I can’t do it. If I am not flowing in the first round I feel like throwing the towel in.

“It’s like when I played Dott in the semis [in 2006]. My game started to deteriorate and I thought, ‘I’ve got three days against him and if I get through that I’ve got two days against Ebdon.’ And I just didn’t have it in me. That really cuts me up because years ago that would never have entered my mind. I would have thought, ‘Just get through this game.’ Back then I knew it was going to turn around.”

For a long time after the conviction of his father, O’Sullivan tried to numb his feelings of fear, guilt and self-loathing by using marijuana and alcohol, but it sent him into a downward spiral of intoxication and paranoia. In 2000 he realised that he was out of control and pulled out of the UK Championship to check into the Priory Hospital in Roehampton, southwest London.

“It was a nightmare,” he says. “If it hadn’t been for the month in the Priory I don’t know what would have happened. It gave me some space from all the madness. Talking in groups helped me to understand how bad things could become if I didn’t get it under control. I also went to Narcotics Anonymous, where I met Jo [his partner and the mother of two of his three children]. She doesn’t really get my depression, but she relates to the addiction problems. Bloody good thing, too.”

I ask if he is still off the dope and booze. “I occasionally fall off the wagon,” he says. “The last time I had a drink was on the Sunday of the world final [in May]. I remember getting up and thinking, ‘You wouldn’t be feeling so bad if you were in the world final.’ We went out to a restaurant and I ended up having a few. I am not perfect, but it is under control, at least compared to how it was.

“I go through phases of trying to find out what’s the bloody answer. I am very into seeking other people’s philosophy on life, just to get a handle on my own problems. I looked into Buddhism and Islam, but I haven’t really bought into any of them. I still have demons and it drives me mad every day. I guess the thing is just to deal with things as they come. Maybe that’s the only way forward.”

Ronnie O’Sullivan faces a stern test in his opening match of the PartyBets.com Premier League, which starts in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, today. O’Sullivan, who has won the competition on the past three occasions, will play John Higgins, the world champion, in a best-of-nine contest.

O’Sullivan’s remarkable success in the league – he won the past three finals without dropping a frame – has led many to speculate that the format of the event suits his psychological profile. Because the seven-man competition is played over three months, O’Sullivan is never required to spend more than a night away from home.

This contrasts with, say, the World Championship, which requires an 18-day stint in Sheffield. This has never been an easy feat for O’Sullivan, who often takes solitary walks late at night to fend off the boredom and demons.

Snooker: Premier League, The Dolphins

2007-09-10T12:19:00.000+02:00

We now finally know who are sponsoring the premier league this year. It looks like partybets.com! It was great to see it under way again, I love the format and the whole feel of the tournament, I find it really refreshing when compared with the traditional tournaments, although don't get me wrong, I love the traditional tournaments too!

Jimmy White and Ding Junhui were the first match of this years partybets.com premier leauge. And it was an excellent match. Ding kept his cool, as did Jimmy and they both performed well. White had breaks 87, 70 and 66 and Ding knocked in two centuries, one of which was a 138, the highest break ever achieved with the shot clock! The match finished 3-3 and I would say Jimmy was the happier of the two. Currently though, Jimmy is really struggling in the qualifying rounds of the major tournaments and this might be our only opportunity to see him on TV. There is a chance that he will get a wildcard at the Masters, I've suggested he shouldn't in the comments for this post here, but on this performance maybe I was wrong.

Ronnie looked his relaxed usual self when playing in the premier league. This format seems to suit him more than most. He only has to play 6 frames and the tournament moves from location to location on a weekly basis. These factors and the shot clock might jazz the tournament up for Ronnie and stop him from losing interest during the matches. At one point Ronnie looked on course to beat Ding's earlier 138 but either didn't know what the highest break was or didn't care. John Higgins didn't look too pleased about losing and didn't give an interview after the match. He seemed to play reasonable well though, just running out of position at important times during the match. In the end, Ronnie took a comfortable 5-1 victory.

American Pool: Landon Shuffet

2007-09-10T12:07:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine, Gwyn Jones, pointed this little guy out. Ignoring the simple trick shots and the American presenter trying to talk everything up, ....this little guy actually looks like a damn good player for a 7 year old!

Snooker: Premier League Snooker Kicks-Off on Thursday

2007-08-31T12:50:00.001+02:00

This years Premier League Snooker starts on Thursday the 6th September. The first matches will be Jimmy White vs Ding Jun Hui and Ronnie O'Sullivan vs John Higgins in Haywards Heath.

It looks as if Betfred are not sponsoring the event this season, contrary to what I suggested in this earlier post. There was someone who suggested this would be the case by commenting on my post, unfortunately he/she commented anonymously so I can't credit him/her with a name! :-) After I saw this comment back at the end of May I contacted Matchroom for the official line on who would be the sponsors. They sent me an email back stating that they were still in negotiations with Betfred, ...but at this point in time, it looks like no agreement was finalised.

I've updated the Snooker Season 2007/2008 calendar with the Premier League dates, venues and who will be playing. Subscribe by clicking here or you can always subscribe at a later date using the Google calendar link in the right hand column at the top of the page.

It looks like all the matches will be broadcast live on Sky Sports!! Great news!!

Snooker: A Conversation, who will dominate the season?

2007-08-29T15:18:00.001+02:00

I asked an old friend of mine that I used to play snooker with, Gwyn Jones, now living in Ireland, who would dominate this season. He's kindly allowed me to publish our email gibberish! Thanks Gwyn!

Gwyn kicks off the conversation.

==

It's obvious Dale is going to dominate the season.... only kidding!

Hard to say what's going to happen. Higgins is the new no. 1 and has had his strongest couple of seasons for a while. That's quite ominous when most of the other established "big names" seem to be going the other direction.

Looking at the rankings, I think we know what we'll get from the top 6; Dott, Murphy, Doherty, Ebdon will be there or thereabouts, but problably with only one or two tourney wins between them. Ronnie obviously remains an enigma - unbeatable one event, uninterested the next.

The two biggest movers are Robertson and Ding, and they're the most likely to achieve great things this year, if they can keep grafting as well showing undoubted flair. It will be interesting to see if Selby can keep up his momentum, and I've still yet to be convinced if Maguire can keep up a sustained high level.

It's sad to see Williams and Stevens falling down the rankings. This year will be make or break for both of them. Unless they can reverse the trend now, I don't think they'll ever get back to the top.

Gwyn.

==

It's quite interesting with Dale because won't he have to qualify for most of the tournaments anyway? I thought he played brilliantly well, he was actually a pleasure to watch in the final. Something I can't say of him when watching him in the past!! I was a little disappointed with Day. I thought he collapsed a little bit and I think it should have been a much tighter finish!

Higgins looked hot in the World Champs, I can see him winning a couple of tournaments and to be fair, it's about time he pulled his finger out. I was amazed to hear he's stopped drinking completely. I've heard that he was once one of the party animals on the main tour. Still it clearly looks to have done him some good. I think Selby will keep up a good standard this season. He always looks so concentrated when playing and the changes he's made to his cueing action should hold him in good stead.

Out of the newer guys in the top 16, I can see Dott and Murphy doing some damage this season. Murphy looks deadly when on a roll with his pinpoint cueing action. And, I don't believe I'm going to say this, but Dott looked fantastic when he won the tournament in China last season. He was pretty fluent, entertaining to watch, and actually looked like he was enjoying himself for a change. He can really come across as a bit of a miserable so-and-so from time to time.

Wouldn't it be great so see Davis do win a tournament this season, in his 50th year! Great stuff, ...he still looks top quality when on form. And who can forget his magnificent 146 last season, ...or was it the season before!? :-) I think Ebdon and Doherty will feature at the thick end of the tournaments but I can't see them winning anything.

The 2 brand spanking new fresh top tournament winners, Robertson and Ding, ....well I can see Robertson having the better season. He's a real talent and doesn't get flustered in times of despair unlike Ding. For me, last season was the season that Ding showed his true colours, out of the blue he's begun to show real petulance, apparently this was shown again in the Shanghai Masters, banging the balls about like good old Quentin Hann. As I've said before, I was really surprised to see this when I first saw it in the Premier League last season. Let's hope he's got some good people round him that can keep his head screwed on right. I would like to see him do well this season. But I don't know if he's capable of becoming the youngest world champion this season at his last attempt like many have predicted.

I would also really like to see Judd Trump and Jamie Jones do well this season, they're both great to watch, especially Judd Trump, a real exciting lefty! Maybe he'll be the guy to pick up the youngest world title record in the next 3 years.

As for Williams and Stevens. I am completely shocked with Williams, ...I just don't know what's happened with him. He's sliding down the rankings faster than Jimmy White on a glacier! I think Stevens will get back into the top 16 this year though. He still looks too good to be out of the top 16!

Retort?

Andy

==

Maybe I've not been paying enough attention to Murphy. I agree at times he looks deadly, but he seems to also have aonoymous outings. I guess it's all down to his attacking style of game - when he's hot, it's very effective, but if he's slightly off, it leaves him open to defeat. The standard is so high these days that you have to have a decent plan B.

I see your point about Ding but he's still very young, so he's still got plenty of potential, even if he's not the finished article yet. He might ultimately be a better talent than Robertson though, who tailed off a bit at the end of last season and didn't start great this year.

It will certainly be interesting to see how fast Trump can move up the rankings. From what little I've seen, he seems like a great talent, but it's hard to get a clear view in this over-hyped media age we live in which over-sensationalises everything. Don't know anything about Jamie Jones.

And yes, you're right about Stevens. To be fair to him he had a solid season - it was the previous poor year that has left him down the rankings. I've always thought that it must be very hard though for well-established top-16 players who drop down to have to pound round the qualifying events. It must be very hard for the ego - it will be interesting to see how Stevens copes.

And if Davis wins a tournament, I'll eat my hat....!

Gwyn

Snooker: Dale Defeats Day in Season Opener

2007-08-19T21:59:00.000+02:00

In a very successful season opener in China, Dominic Dale defeated Ryan Day by 10 frames to 6 to take the £48,000 first prize. Personally I didn't think Dale had it in him to get to the final, never mind win the event, but to my surprise, Dale played brilliantly to come back from 6-2 down.

With a new cue, his game looked very good and Dale looked very relaxed. In the 10th frame, Dale knocked in a very well constructed 143 to take the additional £2,000 high break prize.

The tournament as a whole turned out to be a great success despite the absence of the flawed genius Ronnie O'Sullivan. The matches were shown live on Eurosport and, unfortunately, because of the time difference between Europe and Shanghai, I missed the majority of the matches. Eurosport replayed the best matches in the evening but I tended to know the results already as I was following the matches at work though the BBC website! :-)

Still, great to see 2 unexpected finalists battling it out in a ranking event final and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Snooker: New Season Blasts Off Without Rocket!

2007-08-07T21:48:00.000+02:00

The season is under way with the Shanghai Masters. Already there's a little bit of controversy with - guess who - yes, our friend Ronnie O'Sullivan. A statement on Ronnie's official website says that he has injured his back. This looks like a legitimate complaint so nobody's really in a position complain. Although I'm sure the paying public are not too pleased and my natural cynicism is throwing a few doubts my way!!! How many of you have got your doctor to write you a not-entirely-true doctors note and how many times as Ronnie stated publicly that it's pointless travelling all the way to China for a tournament?

The statement reads as follows:

"We regret to inform you that Ronnie has had to withdraw from The Shanghai Masters, this is due to a back injury sustained while training. He has been advised by his doctor not to travel as sitting on a plane for several hours and stretching over a snooker table will significantly delay his recovery and he feels that he wouldn't be able to give the tournament 100%. The injury occurred several days ago and although Ronnie hoped that he would recover in time to appear in Shanghai he informed us this afternoon that this is not the case and he is unable to attend."

Moving on to the snooker, Monday saw 8 wild card matches with 8 Chinese players competing against 8 of Europe's "regular names". There were 3 shocks with Yu De Lu defeating Mike Dunn, Xiao Guadong defeating Michael Judge and Yang Qintainn defeating Scott Mackenzie.

The first round included a few tricky matches with Higgins having to play Jamie Cope, Stephen Lee vs Marco Fu, and Dave Harold vs Ebdon. Unfortunately I'm not getting to see many of the matches due to work commitments. I saw some of the wild card matches on Eurosport yesterday evening but none of them (that I saw) were particularly spectacular.

Feel free to comment on this blog if you see any of the matches, ...I'll add a few more posts as the tournament progresses.

It's great to see the snooker under way again! :-)

American Pool: Jonni Fulcher wins the Monfortpokal Open

2007-07-02T09:34:00.000+02:00

June saw the 17th return of the Monfortpokal in Feldkirch Austria. In previous years big names have graced the tournament such as Oliver Ortmann, Sandor Tot, Marco Tschudi, Martin Kempter, Florian Hammer... most of whom have been previous champions of the same event. This year would again prove to yield similar such competitors all vying for the esteemed title. Not to be left out, our own Jonni Fulcher decided to try his hand for the first time.

The event runs over three days in a small club on the border of
Austria and Liechtenstein in the cute little town of Feldkirch.
The backdrop for the event is fabulous with mountains lining either side of the valley floor. 80 players gathered together to battle it out for the top prize of 1400 Euros and the famous trophy. The format is groups of four players playing double knockout, race to five, down to two players for each round up to the quarter finals and thereafter single knockout, race to nine, culminating in a race to eleven final. All matches were alternate break format.

With only three days and four tables cramming in a large number of matches resulted in very long days and some matches finished at 4:00 am with the unfortunate victors returning at 9:00 am to continue the battle. Apart from this the environment and the infinite supply of beer made for an enjoyable atmosphere and a good time was had by all. Most notably one of Europe's top players Sandor Tot, who single handedly kept the beer taps well oiled!

The Final was contested between Jonni Fulcher (SUI) and Martin Kempter (AUS) and with a display of almost faultless 9-ball, Fulcher seized the trophy and the cash with an 11-4 victory.

American Pool: 9-Ball Eurotour Austria

2007-06-19T14:04:00.001+02:00

John Vassalos wins the www.poolcomps.com 2007 Austrian Open!
In a nail biting final rack John managed to secure victory against snooker star Tony Drago after spawning a previous chance to win the match 10-8 and allowing Tony to pull it level at 9-9. Luckily for John he was breaking in the final rack and was able to take control of the match and close out for his first victory on the Eurotour.

Unfortunately Tony Drago will have to wait yet again for his first victory on the Eurotour, which is sure to come at some point judging by his consistent performances over the last few seasons.

Some great performances were seen throughout the event most noteably Jasmin Ouschan, who defeated Fabio Petroni, Stephan Cohen and Tony Drago before she fell to World Masters champion Tomas Engert in the last 16. Other strong performances came from what are becoming regular faces in the latter stages of Eurotour events now and can be found in the final placements for the top 16:

1. John Vassalos (Greece)
2. Tony Drago (Malta)
3. Nick van den Berg (Holland)
3. Markus Juva (Finland)
5. Thomas Engert (Germany)
5. Tomasz Kaplan (Poland)
5. Konstantin Stepanov (Russia)
5. Niels Feijen (Holland)
9. Ralph Souquet (Germany)
9. Jonni Fulcher (Great Britain)
9. Stephan Cohen (France)
9. Huidji See (Holland)
9. Albin Ouschan jr. (Austria)
9. Zuroan Svilar (Russia)
9. Imran Majid (Great Britain)
9. Jasmin Ouschan (Austria)

Exciting moves have now been made at the top of the Eurotour Rankings, points were tight and are still tight at the top with only 105 points separating the top 5 players. With his consistant performances over the last season, Konstantine Stepanov, pictured left, has thoroughly deserved his number 1 spot. Hot on his heals only 30 points behind is Great Britain's Jonni Fulcher who also reaches his highest ranking to date.

The top 20 now looks as follows:

1	STEPANOV Konstantin	RUS	2145
2	FULCHER Jonni	SUI	2115
3	FEIJEN Niels	NED	2105
4	PETRONI Fabio	ITA	2090
5	PEACH Daryl	GBR	2040
6	ORTMANN Oliver	GER	2030
7	REIMERING Christian	GER	1990
8	SOUQUET Ralf	GER	1980
9	ENGERT Thomas	GER	1975
10	TSCHUDI Marco	SUI	1945
11	DRAGO Tony	MLT	1930
12	VAN DEN BERG Nick	NED	1925
13	MURATORE Bruno	ITA	1875
14	ALCAIDE David	ESP	1835
15	KEMPTER Martin	AUT	1780
16	FAZANES Antonio	ESP	1775
17	SCHMIDT Michael	GER	1750
18	DABOVIC Dejan	AUT	1730
19	KAPLAN Thomasz	POL	1730
20	BABICA Radoslaw	POL	1650

More results and pictures can be found at www.eurotour.nu.

Snooker: Van Hove Does The Double

2007-06-19T10:48:00.000+02:00

After an extremly classy show of solid match snooker, Kevin Van Hove from Belgium has won the European Snooker Championships in Carlow to go with his previous victory in the International Open tour card playoff. On his route to the title Kevin overcame Thomas McSorley, Gary Thomson, Brendan O'Donoghue, Vincent Muldoon and finally Rodney Goggins, who, thanks to Kevin already securing his tour card the week before, will now take up another of the tour card places available for the 2007/8 professional season.

Both men played fantastic snooker over the whole two week period and thoroughly deserve their tour cards. We wish them all the luck in the world on the main tour and hope to see them on TV soon after the start of the new season.

On a more unfortunate note, spare a thought for Bjorn Haneveer who has yet again narrowly missed claiming a tour card by the narrowest of margins. Losing 6-5 to Rodney Goggins in the semi-final, it is another case of so near and yet so far for Bjorn, who narrowly missed collecting his card through the Pontins Internation Open Series despite winning one of the events!
We wish Bjorn all the best in the coming season and hope that he can finally secure his place back on the main tour.

Congratulations also on some great performances in reaching the quarter finals go to Lasse Munstermann, vincent Muldoon, Brendan O'Donaghue, Tom Gleeson and Martin Mc Crudden.

The tournament was a fantastic success yet again, so congratulations also go to the organisers and the table fitters for preparing the tables and the tournament which ran smoothly and without a hitch over the two weeks. I personally enjoyed myself hugely and will be looking forward to having another pop at the big european amateurs again next year.

Results:

1st - Kevin Van Hove

2nd - Rodney Goggins

3rd - Bjorn Haneveer
- Vincent Muldoon

5th - Lasse Munsterman
- Brendan O'Donoghue
- Tom Gleeson
- Martin Mc Crudden

9th - Sacha Lippe
- Simon Zammit
- Yvan van Velthoven
- Robert Murphy
- Gary Thomson
- Jordan Brown
- David Mills
- Jonathon Nelson

Snooker: York Out! Telford In!

2007-06-13T00:15:00.000+02:00

Due to lots of building work going on at the Barbican in York, World Snooker have decided to move the Maplin UK Championships to the Telford International Centre.

This is a big loss for York, they weren't hoping to lose the tournament but lots of delays gave World Snooker cold feet, and they decided to jump ship. I'm sure they don't want the tournament going on in the middle of a monumental "viking style" building site.

The Telford International Centre has previously staged two ranking tournaments, the 2000 Grand Prix and the 2002 British Open, as well as the qualifying rounds of the 2002 World Championship.

A spokesman for World Snooker said, "From past experience we know that the Telford International Centre has proved a popular venue for the players, and that there is enthusiastic support for snooker in the area, so we are delighted to be staging one of our biggest tournaments there."
Maplin Marketing Director David O'Reilly said: "Maplin is excited about moving to the Telford International Centre. I think this is an excellent venue to host one of the most important events in the snooker calendar."

Tom Gray, CEO at The International Centre, said: "We are very much looking forward to hosting the Maplin UK Championship in December. It is a fantastic event - not just for our venue but for the whole of Shropshire."

"Since we last hosted a snooker tournament, our venue has gone through a massive redevelopment programme, which has seen the addition of purpose-built conference and seminar rooms, as well as the addition of a second on-site hotel, and a third just two minutes away.

"These developments help to ensure that we are a first class venue worthy of hosting such a prestigious event."

It's not known if the UK championships will move back to the Barbican next season. I'm sure Telford will want the event for more than one season. It's a bit of a blunder from the bosses at the Barbican to get themselves into a situation where they've managed to lose the event. I'm pretty sure World Snooker didn't want to leave York, as everybody involved thinks the Barbican is a great venue for a major snooker tournament. Maybe they'll get some other tournament back next season.

Snooker: Alex is at it Again!

2007-06-12T19:10:00.001+02:00

What would you do if this man confronted you? Well, allegedly, he's done it again! Local press in County Durham, where Alex was playing a charity match, have reported that Alex has punched a referee.

This is even more amazing as the match was a fund raiser against his old mate Jimmy White. Apparently the match ended in chaos when the referee Terry Riley refused to carry on after Higgins punched him in the stomach. It's said that Higgins lost his temper when the referee called a foul on him.

Terry Riley is a class one international referee and reportedly told the Northern Echo, "It was a punch and officials are not there to be punched. He just came at me and punched me in the stomach, that was when I pushed him away."

Naturally Higgins said it had been blown out of all proportion, "we were both out of order", yeah right!

This brings back memories of bad boy Higgins and I think that this kind of behaviour is best out of the professional game rather than in it. Recently I've heard Higgins say the sport isn't a Gentleman's game like when he used to play. I think he is now, and has been most of his life, a very disillusioned man with no real perspective on life, - although I don't really want to go into that too deeply! :-)

I would still love to see him play live again though, but would rather him behave himself rather than him misbehave. His talent on the table has always been a joy to watch and I consider myself lucky to have seen him play once before, LIVE, in Preston, at the Guild Hall.

Snooker: The Dream Is Over

2007-06-12T11:09:00.000+02:00

After a super human performance by Anthony Brabin, relaxed in the knowledge he was already out of the tournament, my hopes of qualifying were finally dashed last night with a 4-1 defeat. The problems of round robin format became painfully apparent. I played a good match, kept it tight, but he just kept potting long reds from tight on the baulk cushion and making frame winning breaks. I cannot take anything away from him, he played great and deserved to win the match. It's just a little bit annoying that thanks to that match, I am now out of the tournament.

It has been a great experience, my first European Championships and I hope not my last. I'm very disappointed not to have qualified, especially when looking at the high break list I am in the top 10 most consistent players in the event until now. A few people have remarked that it was a very tough group. Still not wanting to make excuses, the other guys played great. So here's congratulations to the qualifiers from group A: Alex Borg, Gary Thomson, Martin McCrudden and Itaro Santos. Good luck in the rest of the event and watch out next year!

As for me, well... I'll head back to Zurich on Wednesday, and then to Rankweil, Austria for the 9-Ball Eurotour. Perhaps lady luck will shine brighter the next time.

Snooker: Fulcher Ends Borg's Unbeaten Run

2007-06-11T18:30:00.000+02:00

In a fine display of solid match snooker, Jonni Fulcher derailed the Borg Express finally ending his run of 25 straight wins in European Snooker. Borg had only three chances in the balls in the entire match, which he was unable to capitalize upon. Five chances in all were all that Fulcher needed to clintch the match with a very convincing 4-0 winning margin. He fired in breaks of 63, 64 and 69 striding his way to one of the best of his career wins.

This is Fulcher's first European Championships representing Switzerland, where he has lived for the past four years. Currently one of the top 10 ranked European Pool players he is showing that he's not constrained to the American disciplines and, with his roots in snooker, performances like this show that he's a force to be reckoned with on the European Snooker front.

Snooker: European Championships Group Stages drawing to an exciting close

2007-06-11T11:33:00.000+02:00

After an action packed first week at the European Snooker Championships, the group stages are finally getting close to the business end of things. Things in groups C and H seem pretty clear cut and the top four seeds are now pretty much home and dry, but in groups A, B, D, E, F and G, it is still not clear who will go through to the last 32.

If you take group A for example, you have potentially 5 players who could all qualify. Martin McCrudden (pictured left) has won all his matches so far and is guaranteed a place in the last 32. However, Alex Borg, Gary Thomson, Itaro Santos and Jonni Fulcher could all potentially finish with 4 or more wins, which would mean it would come down to frame difference as to who gets the final spot in the last 32. What is sure now though is that the top 4 from this group will come from those 5 players. Jonni Fulcher is in a dangerous situation though, not only does he need to win his last two matches, but he also requires one of the other players to finish with only 4 wins, and then he has to hope that he has a better frame difference!

Similar situations exist in the other groups mentioned above. As we approach the last two match rounds the nerves are beginning to jangle and the importance of playing out the final few matches becomes strikingly obvious. It's at times like these when the problems of round robin formats become obvious with the potential for players who no longer have a chance of qualifying to no longer give 100% thus giving advantages to certain players in the group that only play such players later on.

In terms of the quality of play and players in the amature ranks you need look no further than the high break table in order to see what a truly world class field have turned out in Carlow. A clear talent in the 16 year old Michael White stands out. Consistency is the name of the game and it's the following list shows that a number of the top players continue to produce snooker of the highest standard.

Surname	Name	Breaks
White	Michael	137, 105, 84, 78, 70, 54
Brown	Jordan	136, 107, 80, 79, 68, 56, 55, 51, 50
Berkhout	Ton	131
Münstermann	Lasse	129, 50
Goggins	Rodney	127, 79, 71, 71, 59, 53, 50
Nelson	Jonathon	127, 63, 56
Mazrocis	Stefan	106, 95, 92, 89, 67, 62
McCrudden	Martin	105, 96, 53
Murphy	Robert	102, 81, 75, 74, 72, 62
Borg	Alex	100, 100, 93, 57, 50
O'Donoghue	Brendan	99, 81
Mills	David	96, 72, 71, 62, 62, 51
McHugh	Richard	93, 70, 64, 62
Van Veldhoven	Yvan	92, 76, 62, 57, 51
Lavery	Declan	89, 86, 79, 62
Haneveer	Bjorn	89, 81, 77
Cruickshanks	Bobby	89, 77, 75
Meara	Joe	89, 54, 50, 50
Zammit	Simon	86, 64, 61, 54
Gleeson	Tom	85, 83, 82, 78, 59, 58
McSorley	Thomas	81, 75, 53
Torpey	John	79, 60, 58, 54, 54
Muldoon	Vincent	76, 70, 70, 58
Fulcher	Jonny	76, 69, 64, 63, 62, 62, 61
Thomson	Gary	76, 63, 63
Lippe	Sascha	71, 68, 56, 54, 51, 51
Fernandez	Roey	71, 66, 66, 60, 50
Duffy	Adam	71, 60, 51
Steins	Jordan	70, 66, 61, 54
Rhodes	Michael	70, 60, 60, 53

Snooker: European Championships

2007-06-08T09:16:00.000+02:00

This year the European Amature Snooker Championships are being held in Carlow, Republic of Ireland. The event got underway this Wednesday with a number of big names amateur and ex-professional names in the line up. Most notably Darren Morgen, Eugine Hughes playing in the Seniors. Alex Borg from Malta (Photo left - European champion for the last two years!), Bjorn Haneveer from Belgium, Yannick Poulin from France, Stefan Mazrocis from Holland, Michael White from Wales... The list goes on.

Snooker is spreading ever further and wider accross Europe, this year the list of countries taking part is as large as ever with players from 25 countries and 26 countries in all represented when including referees.
Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Jersey, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Wales.

The format for the men's tournament is 8 groups of 8 players playing round robin with the top 4 going through to the last 32 knockout stage. For the Masters it is 4 groups of 8 with top 4 going through to the last 16 knockout stage and for the girls 4 groups of 6 with top 2 going through to the last 8 knockout stage.

The main news for the tournament can be found here. Live scoring can be found here.

We wish everyone a great tournament and I look forward to posting more about the progress of the tournament and perhaps my own progress as the days unfold.

Snooker: Paul Hunter Fundraiser

2007-06-06T11:41:00.000+02:00

If you're a Paul Hunter fan and miss him in the world of snooker, you might be interested in this article that came up in the greenbaize news feed further down this page.

After reading the article I had a quick look around for the online condolence book that was mentioned. I don't know if it's the same one, but I found this one here with hundreds and hundreds of Hunter tributes and pictures.

Paul and Lindsey Hunter's charity of choice is the NET Patient Foundation and if you want to donate you can do so here or here.

Snooker: 2007/2008 Season on Google Calendar

2007-06-03T15:44:00.000+02:00

Do you use Google Calendar? Well if you do, greenbaize have created a Google Calendar for the 2007/2008 Snooker Season. Simply click on the Google Calendar button below to add it to your calendar!

We will also keep it visible in the top right hand side of this blog. If dates change or if you think that any of the dates in the calendar are wrong, let us know and we'll fix it!

Snooker: Ronnie Punished for UK Walkout

2007-06-01T13:13:00.000+02:00

Ronnie O'Sullivan has been punished for walking out of last seasons UK Championship in York.

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's disciplinary committee ruled he had breached rules after in his match against Hendry.

Has has been fined in excess of £20,000!!! The fine comprises of £4,050 in forfeited winnings, £5,000 towards the hearing's costs and an £11,750 fine. Ronnie was also docked 900 ranking points.

Ronnie attended the hearing and his management company, 110sport, issued a statement that said they were disappointed with the decision and would not rule out an appeal. They also said, "We regret the outcome of the tribunal given that certain declarations of a sensitive and personal nature were made by the player and by myself on his behalf. We would have expected the Association to support their member."

I think the punishment is very firm and bordering on fair. It's good to finally see the governing body flexing their muscles and not shying away from punishing one of their star assets for an inexcusable action.

I only hope that if Ronnie appeals, the governing body will not crumble under pressure. This should send out a clear message to other professionals that they have a duty to the paying public and cannot behave in the way Ronnie did. I think 95% of the professionals already know their responsibilites, Ronnie is an exception. But let's not forget that Ding Junhui almost did the same thing in the Masters and I'm certain that if Ronnie's walkout would not have happened, we wouldn't have seen Ding do almost the same thing a few months later.

What are your feelings on Ronnie's punishment?? Please comment below....

Snooker: Prize Money Finally Climbing

2007-05-31T13:14:00.000+02:00

I was reading Billiards Boutique today as Pete Williams always has something good to say. He's seen that:

"...prize money will increase by £250,000 this season (assume he means 2008) with over £1 million available at the 888.com World Snooker Championships, including £250,000 to the eventual winner.

The additional prize money will see an increase in the payouts to the winner, runner-up and semi-finalists of the Royal London Watches Grand Prix, the Maplin UK Championship and the SAGA Insurance Masters."

This year was the first time we've seen an increase in the winner's cheque for the World Championships since 2003 when it was at its highest of £270,000. It certainly goes to show how much of a barren spell snooker has had to endure since the banning of tobacco sponsorship.

Going back to 1983 when Cliff Thorburn won the World Championships and in the years running up to 2003, the winner's cheque increased approximately 10 to 15 thousand pounds per year. It's no wonder every kid in a snooker club wanted to be a professional snooker player. I guess you could say that with growth like that, - even though growth was clearly declining - ...something had to give. And it did! People were starting to complain when Jimmy was the only one allowed to smoke in the snooker final. Not only were people complaining at the Crucible, there was a national non-smoking movement gaining pace, and people were complaining all over the country.

2006 was the worst year in recent times for a professional snooker player when the World Championship prize money (or at least the winners cheque) dropped 20% from £250,000 to £200,000 from the previous year. This was, of course, when Embassy were no longer allowed to advertise on the telly and World Snooker were ill prepared in finding a new sponsor. That's one hell of a pay cut! That meant that the winners cheque was the same amount in 2006 than it was 10 years earlier in 1996!! Coincidentally, in those two years, Peter Ebdon was runner-up, sods law, he missed the biggest runner-up cheque by a year. Of course this was a time when professional snooker players were moaning like crazy at the World Snooker Association as they thought - and in some cases rightly - their careers were falling apart around their ears!

If Billiards Boutique is correct, 2008 sees a massive jump in the winners cheque, a £30,000 increase! And last year we saw a £20,000 increase, that's an increase of 10% in 2007 and 13.6% for 2008. The last time we saw a similar kind of increase was way back in 1990 when Hendry beat White in their first final 18-12. That year Hendry took home £120,000, an increase of 14.3%

The biggest increases we've seen in the modern game are in 1973 where we saw the sponsor at the time, Park Drive, increase the winners cheque by a whopping 375%, from £400 to £1,500!! Ray Reardon, the winner that year must have been delighted! Conversly, Alex Higgins, who won the championship the previous year and only a measly 400 quid must have been a bit miffed! And he only won £25,000 in 1982! There might be your reason as to why he's been so bitter and twisted over the years (I am an Alex fan by the way)! More recently in 1993, Embassy increased the winners cheque by 16.7% from £150,000 to £175,000.

Let's hope the prize money stays on the increase for a good few years to come, it should help to attract some real talent.

Oh and by the way, ....it's worth noting that past performance is no guide to future performance!!! :-)

Snooker: Malta Cup

2007-05-24T15:04:00.000+02:00

I've heard that there's still a chance the Malta Cup could be added to the 2007/2008 season, but it's "doubtful". Let's hope it happens, the more ranking events the better!

Snooker: 2007 BetFred Premier League

2007-05-23T15:01:00.000+02:00

One of the 8 players featuring in this season's BetFred premier league will be current World Champion, John Higgins. Higgins hasn't played in the premier league for the last 3 seasons, but let's face it, BetFred can't really do without the World Champion!

Ronnie will be returning to defend his title after winning the last 3 leagues. This tournament really suits him and who says he can't win it again. But there are some great quality players there this year, with Higgins, Ronnie, Neil Robertson, Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis and Jimmy White.

With the 25 second shot clock, you would think the tournament would favour the naturally flowing players like Ronnie, Robertson, Ding and White. But as shown last year, pretty much all the players can play under this kind of time pressure, ...including Graeme Dott, who has a more measured approach.

For the players that are invited, this tournament can be quite lucrative. In the league stage players will receive £1,000 per frame and £1,000 per century break. The total prize money is a minimum of £226,000.

In the initial league stage, everybody plays everybody with the winner in each match receiving 2 points, and 1 point is awarded to both players in the event of a draw. The top 4 in the league will move into the knockout stage.

All the matches will be played on various nights from September through to December with the knockout stages taking place on the 1st and 2nd of December.

I look forward to this event every year, it really is a refreshing change from snooker-as-we-know-it! Last year Jimmy White threw his cue to the other side of the arena on national TV and we didn't see anything about in the press the next day. And it was the first time the world saw Ding Junhui completely lose it against Jimmy White, throwing his head back against the advertising hoardings and smashing the balls each time he got back to the table. This was a long time before he lost it at the Masters in London earlier this year.

Also, last year, even though Ding qualified to get to the knockout stage he had to pull out because he had committed himself to the Asian Games. Let's hope nothing like that happens this year.

I'll be watching all the matches and commenting on them when I have time, the earliest something will be up will be the following day. All the matches will be shown on Sky as well as other selected channels around the world. If you know of any other channels the league will be shown, please post a comment.

Here's the line-up with their World Rankings:

John Higgins – Scotland (1)
Ronnie O’Sullivan – England (5)
Neil Robertson – Australia (7)
Stephen Hendry – Scotland (8)
Ding Jun-hui – China (9)
Steve Davis – England (15)
Jimmy White – England (60)

Snooker: 2007/2008 Season, Provisional Dates

2007-05-23T10:24:00.000+02:00

2007

August 6-12
Shanghai Masters at a venue to be confirmed

October 6
Pot Black Cup at a venue to be confirmed

October 13-21
Royal London Watches Grand Prix, Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre

November 4-11
Northern Ireland Trophy, Waterfront Hall, Belfast

December 3-16
Maplin UK Championship, The Telford International Centre, Telford

2008

January 13-20
Saga Insurance Masters, Wembley Arena

February 11-17
Welsh Open at a venue to be confirmed

March 23-30
Beijing Open at a venue to be confirmed

April 19-May 5
888.com World Championship Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

Qualifiers

2007

June 26-29 - Shanghai Masters, Pontins, Prestatyn
September 7-11 - Saga Insurance Masters, World Snooker Academy, Sheffield
September 17-23 - Royal London Watches Grand Prix, Pontins, Prestatyn
October 23-25 - Northern Ireland Trophy, Pontins, Prestatyn
November 25-30 - Maplin UK Chgampionship, Pontins, Prestatyn

2008

January 4-11 - 888.com World Championship, Pontins, Prestatyn
January 22-25 - Beijing Open, Pontins, Prestatyn
February 5-7 - Welsh Open, Pontins, Prestatyn
March 7-10 - 888.com World Championship, World Snooker Academy, Sheffield

Originally sourced from the Snooker Scene blog

Well looking at these dates, it looks like there won't be a Malta Cup! That's a bit of a shame because I was planning on going to the Malta Cup next season!

World Snooker have announced that China will host two world ranking events. The first event (and a new event to the calendar) will be the season opener running from 6th-12th August.

The new tournament will be known as the Shanghai Masters and will be underwritten by the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association. The contract that has been signed between the WSA and the CBSA means that these two tournaments are secured for the next five years.

The second ranking event will be the China Open in March where Graeme Dott will defend his title.

Some of the information above has been sourced from Billiards Boutique

Snooker: A Davis Maximum

2007-05-14T12:05:00.000+02:00

Check out this old footage of Davis knocking in a maximum in a Budapest exhibition. Good stuff!

Snooker: Top 16 for 2007/2008

2007-05-08T16:45:00.000+02:00

2006/2007 rankings in brackets.

Big names in: Junhui, Selby, Day
Big names out: Hawkins, Stevens, Hamilton

Davis has hit his goal of being in the top 16 at 50 years of age!

1 (4) John Higgins
2 (6) Graeme Dott
3 (5) Shaun Murphy
4 (2) Ken Doherty
5 (3) Ronnie O'Sullivan
6 (7) Peter Ebdon
7 (13) Neil Robertson
8 (1) Stephen Hendry
9 (27) Ding Junhui
10 (9) Stephen Maguire
11 (28) Mark Selby
12 (8) Mark Williams
13 (10) Stephen Lee
14 (15) Allister Carter
15 (11) Steve Davis
16 (17) Ryan Day

Snooker: Higgins Takes a Fantastic Final

2007-05-08T02:16:00.000+02:00

Mark Selby pushed Higgins all the way in the 888.com World Snooker Championship Final. In a great match that swayed both ways over 2 days, Higgins finally managed to pull himself and his game together for the last four frames that took him to the title.

Higgins deserved the victory and Selby was a great runner-up. He made Higgins fight all the way and is now certainly a big name for the future.

Selby's display of cue power was awesome but he didn't quite manage to buzz the same way he did when he knocked in his 3 consecutive centuries earlier in the tournament. Selby was really looking to grind out the victory and I thought he might do it as Higgins, for me, looked the more tired of the two players.

Higgins said Selby put up and great fight and played great, he also said that when he played Selby two years ago, "he wasn't that good!" :-) a comment much appreciated by Selby who played the whole match in good spirits. But last year Selby beat Higgins and Higgins said he could see that Selby was a different class of player. Over these last 2 weeks, Selby's shown himself to be a different class again.

The last word has to go to Higgins, he's always been a class player who came onto the professional stage at the same time as O'Sullivan. He beat Ronnie to their first titles and look to move on quickly to becoming a dominant force in the game. For various reasons, probably only known to him, it didn't happen. He's a truly great player that I think hasn't achieved to his full potential over the last 10 years, but I'm really happy to see him back at the top where he belongs. I think he's got more World titles in him, and although I've lost money with him winning this year, I hope to see him winning a lot more titles in the future.

I may edit this article a little more tomorrow, but that's about it from this season's snooker on greenbaize, but add us to your news readers using the red XML or RSS links to the top right of this page and we'll be updating the site regularly with Cue Sports News! We'll keep you informed with the gossip and other non-ranking (as well as ranking) snooker events. Jonni will be blogging on the Eurotour and we will be posting interviews with players.

Snooker: Selby Storms Back

2007-05-07T20:11:00.000+02:00

What an unbelievable session! Selby has stormed back from 12-4 down to 12-10. There wasn't even time to finish the 3rd session, ...and just as Selby was well into his stride. He may have made 12-12 the way he was going but now he has to keep his focus for a couple of hours and hope Higgins doesn't gain his composure.

This could really knock Higgins for six if he doesn't get it together and if Selby comes back to take the match. But there's still a long way to go!

By contrast Selby looked to be having a great time, joking with the crowd and Willie Thorne in the commentary box throughout the match and genuinely looked like he was having a great time.

It was a bit of a collapse by Higgins as well, not just great play by Selby. Higgins' potting and position was all over the place. At times he looked shell shocked in his seat. He really needs to relax and regain his composure before the final session starts.

Hopefully there's more drama to come in the final session..., more later. I'd love to see a maximum, it would be fantastic, ...as well as earning me a few quid! ;-)

Snooker: Higgins Takes Control

2007-05-07T00:14:00.000+02:00

Well great solid match play snooker has put Higgins in a commanding overnight lead against Selby.

Higgins started slowly but managed to take the first 2 frames. Selby then took the next 2 with a break of 67. Selby also took the first frame after the mid-session interval with a break of 116 to move into the lead by 3 frames to 2. The Selby century seemed to wake Higgins up and he took the next 7 frames with breaks of 97, 75, 70 and 100.

Selby scraped another frame but Higgins was too strong and finished the day's play with another century, a 106.

Selby looked a little inexperienced and impatient. His safety wasn't quite up to scratch but he didn't necessarily play badly. Higgins was in devastating form and really looks up for it this time, his third final, having lost and won one title.

If Selby wins tomorrow, it will be the greatest comeback of all time!! Let's hope he makes a game of it. I'm certain he won't be giving it up just yet.

Snooker: Snooker Scene goes to Hollywood

2007-05-06T13:41:00.000+02:00

Found an mad tongue in cheek article on the web about Snooker Scene going to Hollywood. It was worth a post, ...just!

Snooker: O'Sullivan and Selby

2007-05-06T13:02:00.000+02:00

Mark Selby has won the 888.com Silver Chip award. Members of the Snooker Writers' Association have voted his performance in reaching the last four for the first time the most meritorious achievement of the tournament. More information can be found here and here. Congratulations to Mark and all the best to both players in the final over the next 2 days.

On another note, Ronnie O'Sullivan's hearing for walking out of the UK Championship will be held later this month. Ronnie needs a good slap on the wrist for this one if only to demonstrate that players cannot get away with this kind of behaviour. I'm sure Ding was influenced by Ronnie's actions while playing Ronnie at the Masters. Ding looked like he was trying to walk out of the match but Ronnie looked to save the day. If the WSA would have acted quickly, decisively and punished Ronnie for walking out, Ding might have thought twice before trying to do the same.

No player is bigger than the game and the WSA need to show the snooker world that this cannot happen. It should also be made public as the public partially fund the sport/players one way or another. I first read about this on Dave Hendon's blog.

Snooker: Selby Steals Final Place from Murphy

2007-05-05T23:46:00.000+02:00

Mark Selby has won a fantastic semi final. He beat his good friend Shaun Murphy 17-16 after been 16-14 down. The pair put on a great match in a very good spirited game.

Selby looked down and out at 16-14, especially as it looked like he might win the 30th frame and take the match to 15-15. But he managed to get a difficult blue that he missed out of his mind and take the next 3 frames.

Selby let a one of his quips drop in the studio when being interviewed by Hazel Irvine, he said he was so nervous and shaking so much that he felt like he had Parkinson's disease, ...he might be apologising for that one later!!

Selby said that Murphy will be sticking around to support him in the final which shows how much support each of them have for each other.

Selby now plays John Higgins in the final, and let's hope it's a good as what the two semis were.

Snooker: Higgins in the Final

2007-05-05T19:12:00.000+02:00

Maguire will be really disappointed having held a commanding lead going into the final session. But John Higgins played very well to win 7 out of 8 frames to get the final where he will play Mark Selby or Shaun Murphy.

From 15-15 the players began to get very nervy but Higgins eventually stumbled over the line. Who will do the business tonight to earn the right to play Higgins in the final. I think Murphy has to be favourite but Selby has surprised many pundits to get to semi final and currently the match is finely balanced at 12-12.

Snooker: Semis Final Session

2007-05-05T15:25:00.000+02:00

Selby and Murphy are locked at 12 each going into the final session. This is a match that just might go all the way. Both players are playing pretty well and both look confident. I think Murphy might just win it through experience.

If Selby wins the World Championships he will be the Snooker and Pool World Champion.

Higgins has a lot of work to do to beat Maguire and I think it might be too much. However, you can never write him off and I'm looking forward to a good final session. It's just started now!

Snooker: Last 4 Popularity Contest

2007-05-04T14:02:00.000+02:00

Posts that contain "John Higgins" per day for the last 30 days.

Posts that contain "Stephen Maguire" per day for the last 30 days.

Posts that contain "Shaun Murphy" per day for the last 30 days.

Posts that contain "Mark Selby" per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

Snooker: Eurosport Article

2007-05-04T11:06:00.000+02:00

This is a good article on the Eurosport website. I had no idea that Maguire didn't like Murphy so much!! It would be interesting to know why!

American Pool: 9-Ball Eurotour Germany - Day 1 Trials

2007-05-04T03:54:00.000+02:00

Eurotour really is awesome! Today I got to see just how cruel Eurotour can be. Even though I'm the no. 7 seed, the person you play in the first few matches is chosen at random from anyone outside the top 32 in Europe. My first match was David Pascarsi, he's a relative newcomer on the Eurotour, but a huge talent! I've played better pool and lost the match 10-5. Now I hear you asking... excuse me? well... if you know 9-ball, you'll know just how cruel it can be.

My next match, which I had to play at midnight tonight was against a young Marco Schmidt, an up and coming young German player. I must admit I was very impressed with the way he played. However, I played an almost flawless game. I made 2 mistakes in the whole match. in the first rack, I underhit a positional shot, not knowing the table very well, didn't get the bounce off the top rail I expected, and the white got stuck against the 8 ball. Then for the rest of the match I played perfect pool. Any chance I was presented with, I ran out. I then had one semi possible bank, normally I'd make it 80% of the time, but missed it on the knuckle and stuck the balls up for him. I lost 10-9 and I've made 2 mistakes in the entire match. Such is the level of Eurotour Players! This is a particularly bad result for me.. not just that, it's my worst ever result. Not to fear... I'll be back in Austria and hungrier than ever for a good result.

Note also another early victim of the eurotour random draw, Oliver Ortmann!!! yes.. the no 1 on the Eurotour is out! so some big points dropped there for him. That should really jam up the top 8 now!

Anyway... Since I'm now out of the event, I can concentrate on getting some good interviews and blogging some of them here tomorrow!

Snooker: Semis First Session

2007-05-03T23:07:00.000+02:00

Didn't see much of the matches. Saw Maguire and Higgins at 3-1, looked like a great quality first session semi. All frames had a 50+ break but more importantly Maguire was 3-1 up.

The match finished 4-4 with only the last 2 frames with no breaks over 50.

Saw Murphy Selby from 5-1, I think Murphy will be a little dissapointed to only finish 5-3. It was interesting because in the final frame Terry Griffiths said, "I don't agree with this" referring to Selby and Murphy having some laughs in the last frame. I thought it was fantastic, great to see snooker players having fun and giving some entertainment to the paying public. It was like the 80s all over again, except the quality of the snooker was a little better. :-)

It looks like Selby should now be in a position that he's reasonably happy with. He's got through his first one table situation against a former world champion and is only 2 frames behind going into the second session of a four session match.

Maybe Maguire and Selby will cause upsets after all! To be continued...

American Pool: 9-Ball Eurotour Germany - Day 1

2007-05-03T11:13:00.000+02:00

A quick shower and shave and on the road yesterday at 9am for my 5 hour drive from Geneva to Sindelfingen. On the way I had to collect my break cue, which had been in the shop for fixing, and then stop in Zofingen (home of snooker in Switzerland) to catch the end of the Ronnie - Higgins session. After a quick coffee and few frames of snooker with Bakki in his fantastic pool and snooker club, I headded off again at about 4:30pm on my way to Germany.

I finally arrived at the club at 8pm, so a total of 5 1/2 hours on the road; not too bad. I met up with the usual crowd: Paul Kellett, Racks (Mohammed Ahasan), Craig Osborne, Dave McCarthy and a few others. We played a few racks of pool to try out the tables; all Brunswicks. I'm much happier about the pockets for this tournament. Although big, as usual, they are definitely not as generous due to the slate fall being a bit deeper this time. I think these tables are definitely better suited for the better cuists.

Right now it's 11am and I'm sitting in the hotel lobby watching the German world go by. Lots of top players wondering around the place as usual. just said hi to Marcus Chamat, he'll do an interview with me later. Will also get interviews from Kevin Uzzel and Daryl Peach when we have time.

The hotel is great, it has a nice gym downstairs with a pool and jacuzzi! I think I might go and relax in there for a bit before I prepare for my match at 3pm. So will leave you for now. Don't forget to check out the draw on:

www.eurotour.nu

and also the live feed from the match table can be seen here:

www.bwin.com

Snooker: Selby downs Carter in final frame decider

2007-05-03T01:03:00.000+02:00

The final match of the day topped off a great day of snooker. Carter pulled Selby all the way back to 12 each before Selby finally kept his nerves in check a little better than Carter and stumbled over the line to win 13-12.

It's 1.15 in the morning, ...I can't be bothered saying anything else about the match apart from it was a thriller and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm tired. Feel free to comment and goodnight!

Oh, semi line up:

Higgins vs Maguire
Murphy vs Selby

I won't miss so much snooker now because the sessions don't start until the afternoon and we're down to the one table situation. The boys that have been there before should handle it better than the ones that haven't.