The Snookerbacker Blog

We're giving him Xmas Day off at least.

Well readers, it’s been some sack hasn’t it? Over £1000 worth of free bets as well as all sorts of other goodies have been won over the course of December, but like all good things my friends, it must come to an end.

But not quite yet!

Oh no, for there are still a few little goodies left in the Sack which need a home. But rather than test your brain cells at this time of the year, when there are many other things on your mind I’ll just ask you to say in the comments if you would like any of them.

I will then conduct a live draw from a green baize hat which will be independently witnessed by Mrs Snookerbacker, a whippet, a cocker spaniel, Reardon the Butler and a rather large spider that I had to have Reardon evacuate from the bath at Snookerbacker Mansions last night. So as fair and transparent as the random draw for the World Open, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As a nice little festive tale I must divulge that there is already a parcel being delivered to blog regular GER147 (though given the post in the UK hopefully he’ll get it for summer). The reason being that on winning a £100 free bet during the month he decided in the spirit of Christmas to give this to Mrs Snookerbacker as he had already won a contest. He didn’t want anyone to know about it but I thought I’d share this with readers anyway (sorry GER!) . What a gent and indicative of the high standards of the followers on the blog. Top Drawer.

So,the goodies still left in the Sack that you can have are as follows:

A Crucible Heritage Room DVD (donated by One Step)

A Betfred Legends T-Shirt Size Large (again donated by One Step)

3 X £20 Rileys Snooker, Pool and Drinking Emporium Vouchers. Kindly donated by Rileys (click link to find your nearest club).

2 x Tickets to all sessions of the first day of the Masters at Wembley very kindly donated by World Snooker (for further details of how to obtain Masters Tickets please click here). These are a must for fans of Mark Selby and Ali Carter who are both involved in matches on Day One. JAYKAY GETS THESE BEING FIRST TO EXPRESS AN INTEREST.

3 x exclusive signed copies of Mrs Snookerbacker’s Cookbook!! How can you resist this collectors item?

Please indicate in the comments section if you would like any of these and I will have Reardon package them up and get his loafers to the Post Office, but I’d allow a couple of weeks if I were you, he is getting a bit lazy and we’re thinking of letting him go.

Remember if you are a first time poster you will need to include an email address in the box provided, nobody else will see it and I don’t use it for anything. It’s just to stop the riff-raff and spammers.

From the new year I thought it would be a good idea for the blog to go back to grass roots and back a player trying to make it to the big time.

With John Parrott retiring and Rod Lawler rarely seen on our screens I feel it’s high time my home city of Liverpool had a baize boy to be proud of on the box again. Some of you may remember Allan Taylor from the PTC events, he first came on the radar of the blog with a win over Graeme Dott in a very early event, when I referred to him as a bit of a nuisance.

Since then Allan has taken numerous professional scalps and finished second highest amateur on the overall Order of Merit in joint 62nd place. He has also been an avid viewer of the blog and in my book that makes him an all round good egg.

Next year is a big one for the man they call ‘The Albino Assassin’ and the man I call ‘Pretzels’. As he is going to try and make professional at the Q School and I thought that we’d officially back him to do just that. He’s even promised to wear the blog logo until a better offer comes along.

Obviously, with the weight of the blog behind him he cannot fail in the vocal support department and I’d encourage anyone to go along and support him in his quest in true blog fashion.

But Allan also could do with a sponsor to help him along the way. So if any of our friends in the bookmaking or any other industry fancy taking a chance on an outsider and coming along for the ride, just get in touch with me. Maybe you’d like to purchase a bridge hand, a cueing arm, his fine head of trademark milky bar hair to help him with his expenses?

Every little helps and your company can be assured of plenty of publicity on here for a start.

But enough of me, let’s hand over to the man himself as he introduces the first installment of ‘The Assassin Files’….

Allan, can you explain how you came by the nickname ‘The Albino Assassin’, do you assassinate albinos? Are they safe from you?

Well apart from the blonde, milky bar kid-esque hair, my work colleague Mo Jones started to call me Silas from the film The Da Vinci Code, aka the Albino Assassin and it stuck ever since really! The lads and girls on the tour all call me ‘The Albino’ but I can reassure all readers, that every single albino out there is safe and sound when it comes to any sort of assassination attempt!! I’d like to think I am more of an albino who assassinates opponents. So in a way I’m on their side.

Taking care of business

OK, so you are basically a friend of the albino’s, that’s that cleared up. Anyway to the baize, you did pretty well in the PTC events even making a finals day in one, I assume your aim is to get your pro-card at the Q-School?

Yeah thanks, the PTC’s were a good set of events for me. Good experience playing with all the big boys. Watching and learning mostly but I took my fair share of scalps at the same time. It’s full of seasoned professionals who will steal all your hopes and dreams of winning a single frame if you slip up just once. So it keeps you on your toes. I’m just going to use that as a stepping stone into the Q School in May 2011 and I think what Big Bazza has done with the game so far is looking really promising for all. So hopefully with more hard practice I can become one of the big boys and by that I don’t mean when I eat too much turkey at Xmas.

You work full-time too, how do you juggle that with playing snooker to a high standard?

The fact I finished joint 62nd and with only one amateur above me & working full-time, I feel it was a reasonable result. Beating some big names has given me the confidence to progress in the game and it is my goal to turn professional.

I always talk about ‘Goals & Dreams’. These change as results are met. For example, it was my dream to become a professional snooker player – now it’s a goal. It is now a dream to be a professional trophy winner – but once I turn pro it’ll become a goal – ya get me SB??

It would be ideal for me to obtain a sponsor so I can further progress my game and give the sport the 100% it deserves. I am not far off the mark and if there are any snooker loopy punters out there that are willing to back an outsider who is running on good-to-soft ground then get ya wallet out! And for the record I prefer a traditional Parker style pen to sign the dotted line, none of this modern rubbish.

Hard at Work

Right, enough of all that serious stuff, it’s time to dish some dirt. Who are the ‘good guys’ on the pro-tour, the ones that you’d go out for a beer with?

Behind the scenes, the stern looks and funny faces on the tv screens the players are, funnily enough, human! At the end of the day they are just a bunch of lads playing snooker. Albeit at a higher level but even the top guys like to relax over a shandy or seven!

If you want to go out for a beer and come home with sore cheeks you need to be drinking with the likes of McCulloch, Big Dave Harold, my local pals Lawler & Higginson and of course the Jester Selby! My close mate from the amateur circuit Martin O’Donnell aka The M.O’D is always fighting fit at the bar and it’s a well kept secret until now that Alfie Burden does a decent drunken rap! We also play snooker every now and again by the way.

Are you looking forward to your new diary slot ‘The Assassin Files’ on the blog? What can the readers expect?

Well first of all, I would like to thank you SB for the opportunity and I am indeed looking forward to the new diary slot. I suppose the readers can expect a running commentary on my progress, tournaments etc and general humorous happenings. Working close with my scouse partner that is ‘Snookerbacker laaaa’ (as he is known on the streets) the Liverpudlian wit will be flying.

If anyone feels any questions need to be asked (within reason) I shall answer gladly! 

A Master of Disguise

OK finally Allan, as I feel we now know each other well, I have to ask the question that everyone wants me to put to you. Just how many pretzels a day do you eat?

Don’t push it SB, some things are ‘Top Secret’ and in a special filing cabinet marked as such with several padlocks.

There is another reason I am called the assassin I’ll have you know. I can’t tell you what happened to the last person who discovered the extent of my ermm ‘habit’. Let’s just say he’s ‘swimming with the fishes in some handmade concrete boots’ and leave it at that. Shall we? Let’s not get off on the wrong concrete foot.

OK Allan, I can take a hint. I won’t go there again I promise. Your secret is safe with us.

So let’s hope the blog can help you along the way and maybe even find you a sponsor and who knows, one day at the Crucible there might be a whole front row of blog followers dressed in silly T-Shirts, eating pretzels and cheering you on to glory.

Beer and baked knot-shaped goods are on me if that happens SB! That’s a Potter’s Pint-Sized Pretzel Promise!

Can I finally just wish you and all the readers of the blog a very Merry Christmas and hopefully a winning new year for us all, please feel free to ask me questions in the comments section. See you all in 2011!!

There will be lots more from the Assassin in the New Year, till then…..

Chill Bro.

This time next year we'll be billionaires my son.

For the full calendar click here

Given the reception that Black Whippet’s suggestion received yesterday I think it’s only fair that he gets the £50 bet from Boylesports to play with on behalf of the blog and try to establish a mutual drinks fund for the Crucible and something for those further afield. I’m sure that the Masters will provide the first test of the blog’s power. I’m planning to have a preview to that up very early in the new year and then perhaps discussion can start on how best to invest the £50. 

Later today I’ll be launching a new feature for the new year on the blog. Another which will hopefully rally the faithful followers for a common good cause. So stay tuned!

For the full calendar click here

Good day to everyone that is still managing to steer clear of Christmas shopping and is able to join this blog for another delve into the Festive Sack. Those prizes just keep on coming.

I like to think that amongst all the hullabaloo and madness that accompanies the yuletide season, the Festive Sack and indeed the Snokvent Calendar are now becoming like an old comfy pair of slippers, a familiar friend that takes you away from it all for just a few moments in the day. A nice place to come…..and relax…..zzzzzzzz. 

Anyway, before I get too carried away. I WANT TO SEE YOU ALL BEG. For today oh faithful followers sees the one and only Snookerbacker Festive Sack Begging Contest. The prize? It’s only another £50 free bet from our pals over at: 

But to win this bumper prize calls for a bit of creativity and a bit of Festive cheer, as I would like you to come up with a way of using it that will not only benefit yourself, but also benefit your fellow posters and commenters on the blog. Preferably the winning idea will have a snooker related theme.

The person that comes up with the best most creative way of using the bet can have it. It’s as simple as that. So, how good is your begging?

I’ll leave this one open until 12 noon tomorrow. So get creative!

Good Morning All. Understandably it has been rather quiet around here since the snooker finished on Friday but we still have a few goodies left in the Festive Sack so do stay tuned.

DoctorDish correctly identified the players yesterday and wins Legends Tickets, they were 1. Graeme Dott 2. Stuart Bingham 3. Ronnie O’Sullivan & Liu Song 4. Leo Scullion, Gerard Greene, Shaun Murphy.

The online coaching guide has been won by totee, who came on and said something very nice about the blog. In the absence of the stories, barefaced flattery will win every time. Both winners should email me at snookerbacker@hotmail.co.uk to claim their prizes. We’ll bash up another one later on today.

Only 4 more sleeps now Graeme

For the full calendar click here

As we slowly drift into Christmas week round our way saw a record breaking low temperature of -17C last night, now to some on here that might just constitute ‘a bit chilly’ but to us Brits, this merits talk of a national emergency, mass governmental resignations and generally chaotic scenes here, there and everywhere. If we still did hanging, those responsible for the roads would be first for the noose to a baying, bloodthirsty crowd of motorists.

But one thing that continues unabated despite the weather is our old reliable Festive Sack and to cheer us Brits up, today we can play another round of ‘Guess The Players’, this time for tickets to one of those entertaining evenings courtesy of the Snooker Legends.

You can take your pick from any of the venues listed here (apart from the Ronnie v Jimmy match and the Crucible night) and your tickets will be waiting for you at the venue. If anyone wants to purchase tickets for any of the Legends evenings, perhaps for a late stocking filler, simply follow the links to the venues on the page linked above.

To win the tickets you must once again ‘Guess The Players’. Hopefully this one is a little more challenging than the last, when eagle-eyed Marina managed to guess the lot early in the day. I’ll turn comments to invisible mode until the contest finishes at 8pm UK time tonight. I’ll extend the deadline for the competition yesterday to that time too as there is still a free VIP subscription to the Snooker Guide up for grabs, just for a little story, click here to enter.

THE PLAYERS:

ONE GUESS EACH

WINNER WILL BE THE PERSON WITH THE MOST RIGHT ANSWERS EARLIEST IN THE DAY.

One Point for Each Player

1 point for each player and a point for the referee

Best of Luck Everyone!

Kirk's seen plenty of snow in his time.

For the full calendar click here