Redcafe Snooker

[Bertie Wooster]

The wst site lists Eurosport app as the place to watch the Northern Ireland Open qualifiers, but I'm not finding anything so far.

I was hoping to at least get to see some of those while it's 7 weeks until the next tournament. It seems daft to only schedule one tournament, and in a risky place like Turkey (given Covid issues and it's lack of Snooker history), during that time. No sooner has the season started and it's got another lengthy break.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Hmmm. I don't like to see articles like this...

https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/01/neil...nd-dated-world-snooker-championship-15189060/

Sadly, what he's saying about casual fans, and potential fans of the next generation, struggling to 'engage' with long matches is probably true. It's that kind of reason that we've ended up with shorter and shorter Snooker tournaments, Cricket matches, etc.

Everything is having to dumb down in order to be deemed 'relevant' and 'appealing' to the current generation. But I really hope they don't start reducing the length of the World Championship, Test Matches, and the like. I get that compromises have to be made to appeal to the short concentration span of the 21st century fans, but a balance has to be found between 'attracting potential fans' and 'alienating actual fans' of the Sports.

So introduce gimmicky competitions like Shoot Out at Snooker and The Hundred at Cricket if you must to attract new fans, but don't mess with the elite competitions that are the essence of the sport and that the existing fans love.

 

[Parma Dewol]

Hmmm. I don't like to see articles like this...

https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/01/neil...nd-dated-world-snooker-championship-15189060/

Sadly, what he's saying about casual fans, and potential fans of the next generation, struggling to 'engage' with long matches is probably true. It's that kind of reason that we've ended up with shorter and shorter Snooker tournaments, Cricket matches, etc.

Everything is having to dumb down in order to be deemed 'relevant' and 'appealing' to the current generation. But I really hope they don't start reducing the length of the World Championship, Test Matches, and the like. I get that compromises have to be made to appeal to the short concentration span of the 21st century fans, but a balance has to be found between 'attracting potential fans' and 'alienating actual fans' of the Sports.

So introduce gimmicky competitions like Shoot Out at Snooker and The Hundred at Cricket if you must to attract new fans, but don't mess with the elite competitions that are the essence of the sport and that the existing fans love.

Change is always hard to adjust to, but I agree with you and think the major tournaments should stay as is. The length of the world championship matches is one of the things I love most as it tends to provide an ebb and flow that the other tournaments lack.

One of Neil’s suggestions that I could get behind is a change of venue. I appreciate the history behind the crucible, but I think the World Championship should be in a different country each year. Perhaps like football, let each nation bid to host it? That could certainly help build the sport’s profile and may pave the way for world champions from Asia and elsewhere.

 

[RedChip]

Change is always hard to adjust to, but I agree with you and think the major tournaments should stay as is. The length of the world championship matches is one of the things I love most as it tends to provide an ebb and flow that the other tournaments lack.

One of Neil’s suggestions that I could get behind is a change of venue. I appreciate the history behind the crucible, but I think the World Championship should be in a different country each year. Perhaps like football, let each nation bid to host it? That could certainly help build the sport’s profile and may pave the way for world champions from Asia and elsewhere.

Did snooker ever have 'casual fans'? And is there any real evidence of demand to shorten the longer-format matches among fans other some players' opinions? I for one love them and yet I don't follow some of the shorter-format ranking events quite as much; they feel less weighty and trivial.
Snooker needs to be careful, otherwise it will end up with increasingly off-putting formats to the 'non-casual' fans. See Cricket.

 

[Pexbo]

Why do people feel they need to either watch every frame of a snooker world championship knockout or get bored?

I love having it on in the background while I’m working, the same as I do test cricket. I don’t feel the need to watch every ball or pot in either but I thoroughly enjoy following the longer formats of either sport.

 

[Stobzilla]

Why do people feel they need to either watch every frame of a snooker world championship knockout or get bored?

I love having it on in the background while I’m working, the same as I do test cricket. I don’t feel the need to watch every ball or pot in either but I thoroughly enjoy following the longer formats of either sport.

This, I remember getting through loads of books that I wanted too in the Summer of '05 with the Ashes on in the background and my attention drifting between the two. It was great.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Change is always hard to adjust to, but I agree with you and think the major tournaments should stay as is. The length of the world championship matches is one of the things I love most as it tends to provide an ebb and flow that the other tournaments lack.

One of Neil’s suggestions that I could get behind is a change of venue. I appreciate the history behind the crucible, but I think the World Championship should be in a different country each year. Perhaps like football, let each nation bid to host it? That could certainly help build the sport’s profile and may pave the way for world champions from Asia and elsewhere.

I'm not fond of the bidding idea, as China would just blow every country out of the water financially and it would just escalate the almost inevitable Chinese domination of the Sport.

It seems only a matter of time before Snooker becomes China dominated like Table Tennis. Almost all the main younger players coming through are Chinese and it seems inevitable within a generation or two that they'll be the dominant nation. The only thing that's slowed it down so far is the Tour keeping more tournaments in UK and Europe than in Asia - and, especially, the Triple Crown events: World Championship, UK championship, Masters, all remaining in Britain.

Once China can just 'buy' the rights to hosting tournaments, especially the major ones, then it's only a matter of time before they start to fully dominate the sport.

 

[Parma Dewol]

I'm not fond of the bidding idea, as China would just blow every country out of the water financially and it would just escalate the almost inevitable Chinese domination of the Sport.

It seems only a matter of time before Snooker becomes China dominated like Table Tennis. Almost all the main younger players coming through are Chinese and it seems inevitable within a generation or two that they'll be the dominant nation. The only thing that's slowed it down so far is the Tour keeping more tournaments in UK and Europe than in Asia - and, especially, the Triple Crown events: World Championship, UK championship, Masters, all remaining in Britain.

Once China can just 'buy' the rights to hosting tournaments, especially the major ones, then it's only a matter of time before they start to fully dominate the sport.

Yeah, I think you're right, perhaps a bidding war isn't the way to go. Still, I would love to see the World Championship hosted in Canada, China, Australia etc. Not that there's anything specifically wrong with the current format - it's great at the Crucible and I watch it every year - but it just seems to me a World tournament ought to be more broad in scope. Is there also a question mark over fairness? Could be argued that having it in Sheffield each year gives local players an advantage.

On the other hand might just be overthinking it all. If it ain't broke...

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Yeah, I think you're right, perhaps a bidding war isn't the way to go. Still, I would love to see the World Championship hosted in Canada, China, Australia etc. Not that there's anything specifically wrong with the current format - it's great at the Crucible and I watch it every year - but it just seems to me a World tournament ought to be more broad in scope. Is there also a question mark over fairness? Could be argued that having it in Sheffield each year gives local players an advantage.

On the other hand might just be overthinking it all. If it ain't broke...

I think that's something that the Chinese players especially will call for in coming years - that it's only fair that some of the major tournaments are played in China to spread the 'home advantage' about. Especially as they start getting more players in the top 16 and winning more tournaments.

Neil Robertson has spoken in the past about how difficult it is for overseas players coming in - especially from countries where there aren't many other players on the circuit - when so much of the Tour is UK centred (even qualifiers for foreign tournaments are often held in UK).

It's a difficult balance, I suppose. It's good they're spreading more tournaments to Europe and Asia, and trying to encourage players from more nations. But China is so huge, and has such a financial and population advantage to the other snooker nations so far, that, unless they're happy with them dominating - which goes against the whole 'spreading it out to as many countries as possible' idea - then they need to try and maintain some control over the sport and not let it become overly China dominated.

That's why I don't like the idea of opening it up to bids for tournaments (China would dominate the bidding), and am wary about the 3 major tournaments going to China. Maybe, at most, spread them around so one year in Britain, then Europe, then Asia, back to Britain, etc - but I suspect that would just be the first step to opening the door to them moving abroad permanently to China so I'd prefer the Triple Crown events to remain UK based to help keep the balance weighted more this way than China for as long as possible.

 

[SirAnderson]

Judd Trump v Joe McGee now live on Sky Sports Arena.
Pool championship though.

 

[One Night Only]

Judd Trump v Joe McGee now live on Sky Sports Arena.
Pool championship though.

Trump absolutely wiping the floor with Magee

 

[ChrisNelson]

Trump currently being used to wipe the floor 0-6 down to Jayson Shaw.

 

[Pexbo]

Trump currently being used to wipe the floor 0-6 down to Jayson Shaw.

No shame in losing to Shaw (OK 9-0 is pretty bad )

Shaw is quality though, watched him for years in the Mosconi Cup.

 

[ChrisNelson]

He is one of the best but Trump talked himself out of the win in his interview following his previous match.

He basically said he was just buzzing to be playing Shaw and would use it as a learning curve in terms of pool as a totally different game to snooker, which it is.

Most of the big guns are playing well, I just hope Strickland ends up drawing a European player and getting absolutely stuffed.

 

[Pexbo]

Just watched a couple of his frames then. He just doesn’t think like a pool player at all. I don’t think people realise how different it is to snooker. It’s not just about being a good pot and position player, there’s so much more work to do with the cue ball and unlike Snooker there is one ball to position on at any time.

I’d you listen to some of the coaching videos and interviews on YouTube of the likes of Immonen, Filler, Boenning etc it’s all about the patterns, trying to leave an angle on the ball so the white is naturally moving towards the next number off one or two cushions.

From what I saw of Trump he thinks he can leave it straight and screw back on every shot looking to keep the white tight and economical on a string like you ideally want to in snooker. It’s just not the right approach for 9 ball. The white needs to travel around the table over the course of the game and it’s about learning how to make it do that with as little effort as possible.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Been watching the English Open qualifiers on Eurosport Player.

Hammad Miah wasn't happy tonight - at 3-2 down he was 48-0 up and in amongst the balls when an easy red stayed in the jaws and Carrington cleared up. Miah looked fuming at the time and in his chair and at the end of the game he came to the table to slowly hit a ball towards that pocket to see the roll of the table. You could then hear him swearing as he moaned to the ref about it being a f***ing disgrace that there were handmarks all over the table and asking what kind of professional establishment it is with rookie table cleaners not knowing how to clean a table?

It's the last couple of minutes of the Carrington - Miah match on Eurosport Player, about 2 hours 8 minutes into it.

 

[ChrisNelson]

Last 16 in the Northern Ireland Open today and most of the big guns are still going strong considering how long it's been since a competitive tournament.

Trump v J. Robertson
Stevens/ Allen v Highfield/ Maguire
Murphy v Bingham
Page/ Lisowski v Walden/ N. Robertson
O'Sullivan v Bingtao
Haotian v Mann
Higgins v M. Williams
Gilbert v Selby

Some very tasty matchups there, the last 3 finals bizarrely have all finished Trump 9-7 O'Sullivan and they are in different halves of the draw this year too... Surely not!

Next few days (final is on Sunday) should be very entertaining.

 

[ChrisNelson]

Scratch that.... Ronnie loses 3-4 to Yan

 

[ChrisNelson]

Mark Allen wins the title on home soil with an epic 9-8 win over John Higgins!

Safe to say he’s a popular winner in Belfast!

 

[Gringo]

Higgins losing a lot of finals

 

[ChrisNelson]

Ronnie has just lost 0-5 in 54 minutes to Hossein Vaffei in the German Masters qualifiers.

And at no stage did he even look remotely interested. Glad he won’t be in Germany if that’s the extent of his interest in the event.

Odds would have been long on that result too.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

The other day, Mitchell Mann lost a frame to Zhao Jianbo 96-88.

That has to be one or the highest losing scores in a competitive frame, but I haven't seen any reporting of it. Does anyone know? I've found Peter Lines beat Dominic Dale 108-84, so that had more points in it, but Mann scored more than Dale when losing so can't find a higher losing total than 88 so far.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Pleased to see 17 year old amateur, Paul Deaville, win his first game on the circuit by beating Mark Lloyd 4-0. I've been following his and one or two others progress from afar the last couple of years, hoping they'll get on the circuit.

He was delighted when he initially drew one of his heroes, Mark Williams, but then Williams had to withdraw with Covid and was replaced by Lloyd - a less exciting tie but it gave Deaville a much better chance of victory and he took it with a good performance.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Great performance from Luca Brecel tonight, knocking out Mark Allen 4-1.

I'd like some of the European players to kick on, and Brecel's looked the best and most likely for some time. Despite being the only European player to win a ranking event, he's underachieved the last couple of years to drop down to 40's and 50's in the world. He's definitely got the game of a top 32, pushing for lower top 16, position if he can improve his consistency (and defensive game for a top 16 spot).

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Pleased to see 17 year old amateur, Paul Deaville, win his first game on the circuit by beating Mark Lloyd 4-0. I've been following his and one or two others progress from afar the last couple of years, hoping they'll get on the circuit.

He was delighted when he initially drew one of his heroes, Mark Williams, but then Williams had to withdraw with Covid and was replaced by Lloyd - a less exciting tie but it gave Deaville a much better chance of victory and he took it with a good performance.

Deaville now into the last 16 after two 4-3 victories against Chang Bingyu and, just now, 29th seed Zhao Xintong.

He now faces the very experienced Mark King in the last 16 - a man who, at 47, is almost 3 times as old as Deaville.

 

[ChrisNelson]

And has previously won a Home Nations event!

That should be a good match, they're first on this evening however it's highly doubtful they will make the main TV table (or the Eurosport Player table).

 

[sallycinnamin]

John Higgins through to the final. O'Sullivan was up 5-3. Robertson v King later on this evening.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Another great final.

Shame for John Higgins to lose another final frame decider, but I was pleased to see Neil Robertson win it.

I think he generally gets a bit of a raw deal from the pundits. It often feels to me that there's a thinly veiled anti-Australian attitude towards Robbo from a lot of them. They're always quicker to criticise him than they are the other top seeds and multiple winners in the game, and a lot of the supposed praise often comes along with terms with negative connotations such as 'typical Australian swagger' (instead of just saying confidence) and that he 'bullies opponents around the table', etc.

So I'm always quite pleased for him when he wins finals as it feels to me that there's often more warmth and support in the studio for his (usually British) opponents.

 

[acnumber9]

Shame for John Higgins to lose another final frame decider, but I was pleased to see Neil Robertson win it.

I wonder what kind of odds you would’ve got on that. John probably would’ve known.

 

[ChrisNelson]

I wonder what kind of odds you would’ve got on that. John probably would’ve known.

Don't even go there.... I called 9-8 Robertson but never got around to putting a bet on, I'm fuming .

To be fair it was a good tournament, all of the big guns looked good which is handy going in to the UK Championship in a couple of weeks (where I'll be taking up my usual seat ).

Just a shame about Trump losing in the QF's really as a SF between him and Robertson would have been epic.

 

[ChrisNelson]

Champion of Champions warming up nicely.

Judd Trump will play Kyren Wilson in the first semi-final tomorrow after they won their groups.

Yan Bingtao won the third group last night and will play the other semi-final on Saturday against the winner of today's group.

That group includes Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stuart Bingham, John Higgins and Ding Junhui so to call that a group of death is an understatement!

Should be a cracking next few days.

All live on ITV4 in the UK!

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

I hate those darts shirts.

 

[Ayush_reddevil]

Proper awful match this where Higgins can’t pot anything today and Ding is letting him get away with it by making mistake after mistake. Really poor quality

 

[ChrisNelson]

I hate those darts shirts.

They're not great but it's the kind of thing that will attract new fans.

Young kids can no longer relate to a 'sport' where the players are walking around in a waistcoat and bow tie.

Perhaps needs tweaking a bit but I think it's the way forward.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

They're not great but it's the kind of thing that will attract new fans.

Young kids can no longer relate to a 'sport' where the players are walking around in a waistcoat and bow tie.

Perhaps needs tweaking a bit but I think it's the way forward.

It's sad but, yeah, if sports are going to be popular nowadays then some things need to be dumbed down to appeal to a modern audience - it's the same with the cricket and The Hundred competition.

I can accept the changes so long as they're kept to a necessary minimum (unfortunately I suspect they won't be). I'm not a fan of the Shoot Out and would hate many tournaments being like that but one is acceptable if they think it'll act like Twenty20 and The Hundred and appeal more to new / younger fans.

And the same with the polo shirts - it's a shame to lose the traditional snooker outfit just to dumb down to appeal to non / future Snooker fans. But if they think that'll help then I guess it's necessary. But I hope (as they've said) that we'll still see the waistcoats, etc, at the major ranking tournaments for many years to come - though I suspect if this 'experiment' is deemed to work then the polo shirts will soon become the norm.

 

[ChrisNelson]

I think the triple crown - World Championship, UK Championship and Masters (even though this isn't a ranking event) are probably going to remain with the full dress code for the time being because of their history and prestige. The ties might go but I'd be surprised to see any of them dumbed down massively anytime soon.

I expect the rest of the calendar will follow suit with these polo shirts very soon.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

I think the triple crown - World Championship, UK Championship and Masters (even though this isn't a ranking event) are probably going to remain with the full dress code for the time being because of their history and prestige. The ties might go but I'd be surprised to see any of them dumbed down massively anytime soon.

I expect the rest of the calendar will follow suit with these polo shirts very soon.

Yeah, I think that'll be how it goes initially.

But then I can't see it being too long before the argument starts to be made that: we've switched to polo shirts because the traditional outfit doesn't appeal to a modern audience; the big, triple crown tournaments are the ones most 'non fans' are likely to watch on TV; therefore it doesn't make sense to wear the traditional outfits for those very tournaments instead of the polo shirts that will appeal more to newer 'fans' who don't normally watch.

So I can't see it being too long before the polo shirts are used exclusively.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

Yeah, I think that'll be how it goes initially.

But then I can't see it being too long before the argument starts to be made that: we've switched to polo shirts because the traditional outfit doesn't appeal to a modern audience; the big, triple crown tournaments are the ones most 'non fans' are likely to watch on TV; therefore it doesn't make sense to wear the traditional outfits for those very tournaments instead of the polo shirts that will appeal more to newer 'fans' who don't normally watch.

So I can't see it being too long before the polo shirts are used exclusively.

Are young people really going to watch more snooker because the players look like Ted Hankey. Sad generation I belong to.

 

[sallycinnamin]

What happened there: Higgins 6-1 vs O'Sullivan.
Still two very decent semis and finals the weekend.

 

[ChrisNelson]

O’Sullivan has capitulated like that against Higgins before, I think he has too much respect for him.

You only have to listen to Ronnie’s interviews, anytime the greats of the game come up in conversation he can’t wait to name Higgins!