Redcafe Snooker

Draw Bracket

O'Sullivan 1
Allen​
Allen 6

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Higgins

Day

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Trump

Murphy

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Wilson 6
Wilson​
Williams 1
 
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Fair play to Allen, showed real quality throughout the tournament and is the deserved winner.

Nice to see a new Masters champion too. Feel for Kyren but he just couldn't find the consistency on the day, hope he comes back to win it another year.

Good tournament all round, looking forward to April 21 now. :)
 
That snooker shootout championship was unusually entertaining. Is snooker headed the way of T20 cricket and darts?
 
Dumbstar said:
That snooker shootout championship was unusually entertaining. Is snooker headed the way of T20 cricket and darts?
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It was good fun at times but there was some insufferable cnuts in the crowd some matches. I’m all for the more vibrant atmosphere but some know your limits.
 
Pexbo said:
It was good fun at times but there was some insufferable cnuts in the crowd some matches. I’m all for the more vibrant atmosphere but some know your limits.
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They must have cleared them out as today's crowd seemed better.
 
Pexbo said:
It was good fun at times but there was some insufferable cnuts in the crowd some matches. I’m all for the more vibrant atmosphere but some know your limits.
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Completely agree, was a fantastic finish to the competition but some of the twats just need to lay off the shandy a bit.
 
They are encouraged to be rowdy to be honest, and the players are encouraged to interact and give the crowd some encouragement.

I certainly don't think Snooker is heading down this path, but its just adding an extra dimension to what it can offer.

I also watched a doubles match on youtube somewhere recently and O'Sullivan & Williams battered two poor sods without even breaking sweat. It was an interesting concept in that they took it in turns to build the break, rather than have a full go each, if you know what I mean.

Anything that can promote the game is good, but I do believe that lots of the players now pick and choose their tournaments now that there are so many.
 
There's no doubt in my opinion that this tournament has its place on the calendar. As Clive Everton said yesterday though it should remain as a stand alone in terms of the format. Otherwise the format loses its appeal and warning sirens will start to sound for the traditional game.

It's a good chance for some of the lesser players to pick up some ranking points and prize money. Georgiou seems a nice lad (well, he's 30 now) and he's had some really tough draws this season, drawing Ronnie early on a couple of occasions and others too. So it's good that he's had chance to show what he's capable of and under such pressure too.

Martin O'Donnell when he won one of his matches then did commentary said he likes it but would prefer it earlier in the season as it's a bit late now to make a push for the WC Quals and the Grand Prix which starts next week, this was more or less done or dusted before the Shootout started and there was very little movement.

As for the crowd I think they sometimes need a reminder not to make any noise while a player is on a shot but for the majority of the tournament I don't think it got out of hand and everyone had fun.
 
The format is absolutely crying out for Tony Drago. No idea if he's still at the level to compete though. Would be great to see Ronnie and Judd too.
 
I don't agree that it should be a full ranking tournament as every match is a flip of the coin, you could have world number 1 against world number 1,000 but if that top player makes a mistake and gives his opponent ball in hand then it's very often end of frame.

Having said that there is still skill involved, albeit a different type of skill to normal snooker, it's a test of how you can play under pressure and I think that a shot clock will one day be brought in to all forms of snooker, although it will be much longer than 15/10 seconds like at the Shootout. Perhaps half ranking points would be fair, and agree with @Pexbo it would be good to see more top players attend, although it didn't help that Murphy and Hawkins drew each other in round 1 this year.
 
Pexbo said:
The format is absolutely crying out for Tony Drago. No idea if he's still at the level to compete though. Would be great to see Ronnie and Judd too.
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He's a blast from the past. He was quite entertaining. There was another older player, Cliff something? Not Thorburn, who hated safety so went for crazy pots all the time.
 
Mrs Smoker said:
It's embarrassing that's a ranking tournament. Fun maybe for once in the year, but to hell with that decision.
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Yeah i think its a crazy decision to make it a ranking tournament, especially when theres “proper” snooker ones that arent.
 
spwd said:
Yeah i think its a crazy decision to make it a ranking tournament, especially when theres “proper” snooker ones that arent.
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The Masters is the obvious example, part of the Triple Crown but not a ranking event. But then with only 16 players and invite only I suppose it has to be non-ranking.

The Shanghai Masters as of 2018 will also become invitational and non-ranking, with 24 players to be invited and a prize fund of £725,000, a record for an invitational event.
 
Jippy said:
He's a blast from the past. He was quite entertaining. There was another older player, Cliff something? Not Thorburn, who hated safety so went for crazy pots all the time.
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Cliff Wilson?
 
World Grand Prix starts this evening in Preston, straight knockout from 32 down.

Draw bracket:

O'Sullivan 4-0 Milkins
Gould 2-4 Bingtao
Allen 3-4 Guodong
Higgins 4-3 Carter
Murphy 4-1 Walden
Day 3-4 Lisowski
Maguire 4-0 Li Hang
Brecel 0-4 Georgiou
Trump 1-4 M. White
Dott 2-4 Perry
N. Robertson 4-1 Gilbert
Selby 4-3 J. Robertson
Ding 4-1 King
Wilson 3-4 Joyce
McGill 4-1 Yupeng
Williams 2-4 Bingham

Some good ties in there, in particular near the top of the draw. Looking forward to how Georgiou follows up his first ranking event win - he's had some very tough draws in the longer format tournaments this season but his game against Brecel should be good fun. Potential second round matches between Allen & Higgins and N. Robertson & Selby.
 
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Second round continues this afternoon and quarter-finals begin tonight in Preston.

I've got my ticket for tomorrow night and if Ronnie wins tonight I will see his semi-final.

O'Sullivan 4-3 Bingtao
Guodong 4-3 Higgins
Murphy 4-2 Lisowski
Maguire 4-3 Georgiou
M. White v Perry
N. Robertson v Selby
Ding v Joyce
McGill v Bingham
 
It's still very much the case that if Ronnie turns up and really wants it, he will win it. A lot of players are beaten before they play a shot against him. Ding's record in particular is dreadful, and even worse in finals.

Straight on the Welsh Open which starts today, some decent first round ties for saying it's flat 128 draw, including Jimmy White vs. Yan Bingtao, Michael White vs. Martin Gould, Mark Williams vs. Mark King, Kyren Wilson vs. Robert Milkins, Mark Allen vs. Cao Yupeng and Joe Perry vs. Steven Maguire. Ronnie faces Robin Hull who has been around for a good few years but shouldn't pose too many problems.
 
ChrisNelson said:
It's still very much the case that if Ronnie turns up and really wants it, he will win it. A lot of players are beaten before they play a shot against him. Ding's record in particular is dreadful, and even worse in finals.

Straight on the Welsh Open which starts today, some decent first round ties for saying it's flat 128 draw, including Jimmy White vs. Yan Bingtao, Michael White vs. Martin Gould, Mark Williams vs. Mark King, Kyren Wilson vs. Robert Milkins, Mark Allen vs. Cao Yupeng and Joe Perry vs. Steven Maguire. Ronnie faces Robin Hull who has been around for a good few years but shouldn't pose too many problems.
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I don't like that turn of phrase in regards to Ronnie. He's the most talented player to ever pick up a cue but it's not down to how much he wants it. He's an imperfect player just like anyone else and he has his off days. The difference with Ronnie is that when he has an off day, the narrative is set that "he's not interested" or "his head's not right" which is nonsense. Every player has days where they struggle to get going or don't quite get the rub of the green and he's no different.
 
Pexbo said:
I don't like that turn of phrase in regards to Ronnie. He's the most talented player to ever pick up a cue but it's not down to how much he wants it. He's an imperfect player just like anyone else and he has his off days. The difference with Ronnie is that when he has an off day, the narrative is set that "he's not interested" or "his head's not right" which is nonsense. Every player has days where they struggle to get going or don't quite get the rub of the green and he's no different.
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To be fair you only have to look back at some of his interviews, albeit not so much the last couple of years or so, to see that there have been many occasions where he's lost interest and simply 'not been bothered'. He's also threatened to quit the sport on numerous occasions.

Yes he is the most talented player ever but you ask any snooker pundit or regular visitor to tournaments and they will tell you that without all the baggage he would have won more world titles than Hendy, although he still might.
 
ChrisNelson said:
To be fair you only have to look back at some of his interviews, albeit not so much the last couple of years or so, to see that there have been many occasions where he's lost interest and simply 'not been bothered'. He's also threatened to quit the sport on numerous occasions.

Yes he is the most talented player ever but you ask any snooker pundit or regular visitor to tournaments and they will tell you that without all the baggage he would have won more world titles than Hendy, although he still might.
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Yeah I know the deal, I've been watching him for over two decades now and I agree that there has been times that his mental health has been to blame but that's not what I'm disagreeing with. It's the bit I bolded "if Ronnie turns up and really wants it, he will win it." that I disagree with. Before the semi's in some of these tournaments, you only need four or five frames to win the match. The Top 32 on the circuit let alone the Top 16 or Top 8 are more than capable on their day of making four or five 70 breaks over the course of 7/9 frames. So even if he's in good form, with a positive mind frame he's still beatable.
 
I've started to completely ignore these best-of-seven tournies. After this one, there's Gibraltar Open (which is best of seven even in final), and Romanian Masters -- invitational, yet again best of seven. This year so far is quite the failure of snooker for me.
 
I agree that best of 7 matches aren't the best, however I think in general what Barry Hearn has done for snooker in the last few years is fantastic.

There are more tournaments, more players in them and less of a comfort zone for the top players. Look at the Grand Prix for example, won by Barry Hawkins in 2017 and he didn't even qualify this year, that would never have happened in the past.

I also like the Shootout which is great for re-distributing some of the wealth amongst the lower earning players, Michael Georgiou earned £32,000 for winning that a couple of weeks ago.

It's also getting much more exposure as a sport thanks to the (in my opinion) great coverage by Eurosport, while ITV4 and BBC also carry some of the tournaments.

I do agree that none of the finals should be best of 7, I think they should aim for best of 11 in semi-finals and best of 17 or 19 in finals. But by introducing 128 flat draws in virtually all tournaments, this is what we're left with.
 
I love that pretty much every round of every tournament of snooker is getting on youtube. Living away in New Zealand and previously Australia, I feared I'd lose touch with snooker.
 
Mark Williams rolling back the years with his first round win over Mark King.

I've followed his snooker all of his career, and I never knew he was colorblind! Not until he had to ask the ref to identify the brown ball as it was near some reds, fascinating. Peter Ebdon is also colorblind
 
World Championship Qualifiers are down to the final round - 16 matches, best of 19 frames over 2 sessions with the winners heading to the Crucible to face one of the seeds:

Ryan Day v Peter Ebdon
Daniel Wells v Liam Highfield
Adam Duffy v Xiao Guodong
Stuart Carrington v Zhang Anda
Graeme Dott v Mike Dunn
Michael Holt v Robert Milkins
Rory McLeod v Lyu Haotian
Matthew Stevens v Ken Doherty
Liang Wenbo v Jamie Jones
Jack Lisowski v Alan McManus
Andrew Higginson v Ricky Walden
Mark Davis v Joe Perry
Tian Pengfei v Chris Wakelin
Alfie Burden v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Jimmy Robertson v Michael White
Hossein Vafaei v Stephen Maguire
 
Yes the coverage on the last couple of days is always good. I've been watching it for the last few days on the Eurosport Player app, I pay a few quid a month for that and you get extra table coverage at a lot of the tournaments.

Liang Wenbo been my player of qualifying so far, hit a 147 in his first match and very nearly hit another in the final frame of the same match! Doesn't look like there will be any easy matches for the seeds this year looking at some of the names that are playing today & tomorrow.
 
Mrs Smoker said:
I almost see these qualifiers as a second best tournament of the year. Missing all the best players thou. ;)
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You've got a point! The matches, despite them only being qualifiers are amongst the longest played on the tour. By the very nature of the sport they always contain the best up and coming young players (slightly surprised Yan Bingtao didn't make the final round) and older players that can no longer command a top 16 spot. Look at Matthew Stevens, 2 time runner-up, playing against 1997 champion Ken Doherty. Mark Davis and Joe Perry also against each other, both have been seeds at the Crucible in recent years.
 
Liang Wenbo's a frame from going out, think he made a 147 the other day and all. A relief for some of the seeds given how far he pushed Ding last year and Trump the year before.
 
Giggsy92 said:
Liang Wenbo's a frame from going out, think he made a 147 the other day and all. A relief for some of the seeds given how far he pushed Ding last year and Trump the year before.
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He made one and missed the final black in the last frame for another, would have been the first ever... obviously...

Absolutely amazed he’s 0-9 down given a) how he’s played in Quals so far and b) as you say he has experience at the Crucible. Fairly astonishing scoreline TBH.
 
Yeah, that's a bizarro result of the week, definitely.

Wakelin (first time) and Stevens just qualified for the WC, congrats to them. Stevens was poor for a huge part of the season, but very good showing here. Wakelin, I think, might be a problematic opponent for a lot of top 16 players. Beat Murphy 6-0 recently.
 
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