Snooker: Hustle Hassle

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

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.

Snooker: 2008 Malta Cup

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: Malta Cup

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!