The Snookerbacker Blog

I really don't fancy his chances.

Ronnie O’Sullivan has been using some pretty strong language to describe his feelings about slow players on the snooker circuit, going so far as to say he actually ‘detests’ them.

The dictionary definition of ‘detest’ pulls no punches and presumably Ronnie looked this up before making the statement as what he is basically saying is that he feels abhorrence of; hates and dislikes intensely these players. Strong words indeed and the natural progression of such feelings may include murder or mass genocide. A bit strong for just taking your time knocking a few balls about, but I suppose it signals that the Rocket is at least taking the game seriously again.

In another astonishing announcement, the man who once asked a Chinese female journalist if she would ‘like a little gobble on this’ said on Twitter that ’Political correctness is not my strong point’, in other shock news Ricky Martin announced he was gay.

He continued with his rant unabated clearly feeling he was on a roll with the statement ‘Come on we need to cut out the dead wood. It’s the tail wagging the dog in our game.. golf and tennis have it right.’

But it appears that our Ron just wants all the fast boys to come and play with him in China, not in the same way that he wanted the journalist to play with him you understand and he elaborated that ’I would love to set up my own team of players and have a proper tournament I promise it would be a winner. Maybe China would be the place to do this??? I know all the players I would invite would come and play…’ Well, he’s a bit hopeful there as I think Rory would think twice about taking up his invite given Ronnie’s comments about slow players.

Dr Steve then came and they both agreed it was time for Ronnie’s medication. It’s amazing what you can pick up on Twitter these days, it’s like your own personal tabloid.

The Q-School continues at apace again today, minus Tony Knowles who was beaten again last night to the despair of the local ladies. My guess is that Q-School 2 will produce at least two new Chinese professionals with a very strong contingent from there still heavily involved.

Talking of Chinese players, the man they all want to emulate has been promoting his long-awaited 52 episode cartoon series here. Now I’m sure it’s very good but the striking resemblence of Ding’s main character to that of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong will surely be spotted by all. I mean, who hasn’t seen that Chinese epic ‘Journey to the West’ at least five times?

It got me thinking of which other players might slot into cartoon roles. The obvious shoo-in is Dave ‘Bananaman’ Harold, but perhaps there might also be an opening for Ryan Day to star in a baize version of ’Kung Fu Panda’ perhaps? Mark King and Peter Ebdon might be at loggerbaldheads to take the starring role as the follicularly challenged main character in ‘Bod – the Movie’ while Shaun Murphy would surely be the Director’s choice to paint himself blue and don a Smurf’s hat in ‘The Adventures of Smurfy’.

Mark Allen strikes me as one of the naughty Bash Street Kids from ‘The Beano’ who is always getting himself into bother whilst Neil Robertson I’m sure could slot easily into the blonde bloke called Steve who drives the van in the Scooby Doo cartoons, with MJW filling the role of Shaggy with his laidback demeanour and general levels of lethargy. Those pesky kids. The Captain can often resemble a Thunderbird puppet when he’s staring into space so they would surely have to make him one of the heroic pilots from the Tracey family. Oh, and there would even be a part for Martin Gould alongside Ali, here.

I’m sure there are more out there, can anyone think of any?

10am

69. Bash Maqsood 2-4 David Singh
70. Michael Wild 4-1 Mike Hallett
71. Jak Jones 1-4 Chen Zhe
72. Lee Spick 4-2 Steve Judd
73. Shahram Changezi 1-4 Adam Duffy
74. Saqib Nasir 4-1 Phil O’Kane

1pm

75. Luke Simmonds 3-4 Gary Wilson
76. David Morris 4-2 Mei Xi Wen
77. Hans Blanckaert 1-4 Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon
78. Mitchell Mann 4-0 Jamie Walker
79. Lee Walker 4-2 Zak Surety
80. Chris Norbury 1-4 Ian Burns

4pm

81. Lasse Munstermann 1-4 Ben Harrison
82. Liam Monk 2-4 Joel Walker
83. Bhavesh Sodha 0-4 Stuart Carrington
84. Mohammed Raoof 0-4 Simon Bedford
85. Craig Steadman 1-4 David Gilbert
86. Ian Glover 2-4 Martin O’Donnell

7pm

87. Craig Barber 2-4 Mitchell Travis
88. Stephen Rowlings 4-2 Alex Davies
89. Ben Judge 4-1 Stephen Groves
90. Rob James 1-4 Tian Pengfei
91. James Silverwood 0-4  Shaun Wilkes
92. James Hill 0-4 Sean O’Sullivan

 

We can expect a bit more TV snooker next season

Lots of chatter and shuffling behind the scenes in the closed season this year as you would expect from Chairman Bazza, who was described to me by one person recently as ‘the man who never sleeps’.

While there are still some gaps to be filled in on the 2011/12 season calendar, one thing is for certain, snooker will be busier than ever and this time there is the added bonus that we might actually get to see more of it rather than driving ourselves potty watching that bloody scoreboard.

The calendar as it stands has been updated over at World Snooker here with cut-off dates for ranking list updates included. It still includes slots for three unnamed or undecided ranking events, one of which you presume will be the World Open (or whatever they decide to call it this year), which is likely to be moved away from Glasgow to an overseas venue. You’ll remember a few weeks back there were rumours of an event in India and while I assumed that if it happened, this would most likely be in the later spare slot directly after the China Open and before Sheffield, it seems that it may actually be a lot sooner than that and that the World Open may be moved there. We are told too that Australia will get it’s own event and one assumes that this will fill one of the other slots. This still leaves one spare so we await more news on that. But one thing is for sure, snooker is truly going global with the World Cup in Thailand and the Brasilian Masters in ermm Brasil both happening this side of new year.

Another great piece of exclusive news over on Dave Hendon’s blog is that the European legs of the PTC event are planned to be televised on Eurosport. This I’m sure would make them far more attractive a proposition to bookmakers who have previously steered clear in droves from pricing them up due to the uncertainty of the attendance of some of the top players. They may now become live betting events which I believe is essential to cement them into the calendar and increase interest and exposure. We can only hope that the PTC events that are staged in the UK can sort out streaming to the devoted fans on the internet. But as ever, us here in the UK are way behind more forward thinking countries when it comes to new ideas. However the one exception to this sweeping statement is the South West Snooker Academy. The one event that was held in Gloucester last season, won by Stephen Lee, was a great success and proved that streaming could be delivered with minimum fuss and I’m pleased to see that Paul Mount’s excellent facility has deservedly been given two of the events to host this season.

My own view on the PTC’s this season and one which to some extent is backed up by conversations I’ve had with a few of the players is that there will be far fewer withdrawals and no-shows this year and that the top players will now be taking these events very seriously. Some of them will have to if they want to maintain or improve their high ranking positions, with last season’s number one and world champion Neil Robertson currently residing at number 16 on the one-year list, regular PTC stay-aways Mark Allen, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan at 23,25 and 27 respectively, whilst those that attended them and did well such as Matthew Stevens (8th) and Martin Gould (9th) are flying high in the rankings. Remember at the end of the season the final ranking list will reflect the points on this list added to the points the players gain this season, making it the first complete post Bazza ranking list.

Exciting times on the baize.

10am
45. Mohammed Raoof 4-3 Lee Stephens
46. Fraser Patrick 1-4 Simon Bedford
47. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh  0-4 David Gilbert
48. Charlie Walters 2-4 Ian Glover
49. Martin O’Donnell w/o Rune Kampe  
50. Craig Barber w/o Aditya Mehta

1pm
51. Dean Venables 1-4 Mitchell Travis
52. Stephen Rowlings 4-3 Michael Leslie
53. Alex Davies 4-3 Kurt Maflin
54. Marc Harman 0-4 Ben Judge 
55. Stephen Groves 4-0 Oliver Brown
56. Simon Bevz  0-4 Rob M James

4pm
57. Tian Pengfei 4-0 David McLellan
58. Shaun Wilkes w/o James Wattana
59. Gareth Edwards 1-4 James Hill
60. Yu De Lu w/o Sean O’Sullivan
Round 2
61. Nick Jennings v Brijesh Damani 
62. Gareth Allen 1-4David Gray

7pm
63. Antony Parsons 4-2 Alex Taubman
64. Li Hang 4-1 John Astley
65. James Burrett 0-4 Michael Wasley
66. Kyren Wilson 4-3 Duane Jones
67. Li Yan 4-0 Tony Knowles
68. Lee Page 3-4 Vinnie Calabrese

The WPBSA have just released this statement:

Allan's first opponent arriving for his match earlier

Good morning everyone. Well it turns out he was fooling us all along. Yes, after letting Mike Hallett beat him in Q-School 1, Tony Knowles got back to winning ways yesterday to secure his place in Round 2 of Q-School 2, striking terror into everyone in his section. A return to the glory days is surely now in the bag as the Legendary Lancastrian Lancer shags his way back to the top of the pile. 

Today sees our man Allan Taylor back in action after his valiant attempt in Q-School 1 ended at the penultimate phase. He faces a tough encounter against Mitchell Mann, who I seem to recall beat Shaun Murphy in one of the early PTC’s last season.

With Allan facing old Mitchyboy it also gives me an excuse to repeat my gag about him having the shortest nickname on the circuit; ‘In’. But hopefully, he will be ‘Out’ and climbing back into his car come 5.30 this afternoon. The best of luck as ever to The Albino Assassin.

Incidentally, for anyone that got involved in backing Allan earlier in the year and those that missed out on the opportunity of getting involved, I am planning to do something similar next year and am talking to a few people about making this an event in itself. My initial plan is to organise a series of tournaments designed to find the next player to back from the blog into next season’s Q-School, a kind of Snookerbacker Pre-School. I will be speaking with several potential sponsors of such events but anyone that would like to flag an interest as being a potential ‘backer’ please get in touch with me. Hopefully more details will follow as things develop.

But for now, it’s time to get behind our big hope again today so it only remains for me to say….GO THE ASSASSIN!!

10am

21. Stephen Ellis 0-4 Chen Zhe
22. Steve Judd 4-1 Ross Jones
23. Shahram Changezi 4-3 Zhang Anda
24. Jason Tart 1-4 Adam Duffy
25. Jeff Cundy 1-4 Saquib Nasir
26. Phil O’Kane 4-1 Tony Else

1pm

27. James Welsh 1-4 Luke Simmonds
28. Gary Wilson 4-0 Stephen Ormerod
29. Manish Jain 0-4 David Morris
30. Mei Xi Wen w/o Andrew Norman
31. Hans Blanckaert 4-2 Jamie Rhys Clarke
32. Thanawat Thirapongpiaboon w/o Adam Wicheard

4pm

33. Mitchell Mann 4-2 Allan Taylor
34. Jamie Walker v Bobby Cruickshanks
35. Robbie Williams 1-4  Lee Walker
36. Reanne Evans 2-4 Zak Surety
37. Chris Norbury 4-0 Sam Harvey
38. James McBain 1-4 Ian Burns

7pm

39. Lasse Munstermann 4-0 Alex O’Donaghue
40. Ben Harrison 4-0 Shehzad Iqbal
41. Liam Monk w/o Brent Kolbeck
42. Joel Walker 4-0 Ryan Causton
43. Augusto Ruckauf 0-4 Bhavesh Sodha
44. James Loft 0-4 Stuart Carrington

There is something on the net now for even your most demanding snooker fan, even Anonymous, pictured above.

It’s back to square one for the majority of players over the next few days as they get their second chance to make the professional ranks at Q-School 2.

Rather than me prattle on about the ins and outs of the draw to this one I would recommend anyone to click over to Pro Snooker Blog for a preview of the second event here. Matt also did his annual feature on Snooker across the Internet yesterday here in which he described this humble website in terms people either loving or hating it, a bit like Marmite. At least that’s what I think he meant, perhaps he just meant that I love it and everyone else hates it. I dunno.

Dave Hendon has sparked the usual vociferous opinions on the changes to the Premier League over here for anyone that wishes to join the debate or alternatively just slag off some of the posters which is what some people on there seem to have made into a daily ritual, usually under the name ‘Anonymous’. Two or three posters on there are usually 1.01 shoo-ins for some insults flying their way despite the fact that sometimes they make some observant points. Chill Out!!

While I’m at it, I might as well blatantly copy from Matt in my little Snooker on the Net opinions. As well as the two undisputed kings of baize blogging mentioned above, the current flavour of the month with all the stats gurus is this website which offers more statistics than a group of statisticians talking statistics at a Statistician’s Statistician of the Decade convention in Statsville, Arizona. I’m quite new to this site I have to say but it is extremely useful and bang up to date. It is made all the more pleasant by the charity buttons on the homepage, which promote stopping global warming and giving away your food for free, as opposed to my charity tags promoting the far more important issue of giving a rescued greyhound, lurcher or whippet a new home. They make great pets and don’t omit greenhouse gases, so get one or else.

My pal Roland over at Snooker Island has developed a loyal following on his forum and when he branches out into meeting players displays impressive interviewing skills that are sure to keep you reading until the end. He certainly knows his stuff does that bloke, you can’t shut him up sometimes and don’t get him started on Selby I’m warning you. But the forum shares the ‘fun’ element of snooker and doesn’t take itself too seriously so anything in that bracket is bound to get a thumbs up from me.

The World Snooker website has improved immeasurably in the last few months in my opinion and is now a daily visit for me. The videos on the right hand side of the homepage are good too, it would just be nice if they made the effort to update them in the closed season to keep people coming back, that would be my only tip. Matt mentioned that it still has a way to go to be up to a governing body website, I’d agree with him, but rather than expand the content I would think about trimming it down a little and just making the site easier to navigate and more compact. Oh, and do they really need all those advertisements? In my view they just take that bit of class away from the site and seem to slow it down a bit from a users point of view. Do they need the cash that badly?

I should also give a mention to the excellent work being done at the South West Snooker Academy and their website here will hopefully grow as fast as their ever expanding portfolio of professionals as we move into the age of live streaming, which remains the one frustration for all modern day snooker fans in its rarity.

There are plenty of other blogs out there too and it’s encouraging to see more people actually having a go rather than just commenting and criticising others for expressing opinions. It’s not easy to put yourself ‘out there’ and I admire anyone that has the courage to do it. On Cue and Maximum Snooker being two examples of fans just sharing their passion for the sport.

Supermurf is leading the way

As well as this we have our European websites. I have a particular soft spot for Romanian website Snooker My Love which is a bit girly and a bit different and displays remarkable bilingual skills, the name of the website sums it up and it’s a lesson to all those that sometimes get so bogged down in things they forget how great the sport really is. Also never far from my radar are my Spanish chums over at Snooker147 whose main representative on this blog Dani Martinez seems to win a prize off me every month, it’s probably cheaper for me to just move there and post them through his letterbox. The flourishing German snooker scene is also served well by Hit and Hope here, though they don’t have German girls like we have on here.

Back to the UK and someone who mentions snooker now and again and specialises in gambling, music and bawdy humour with a touch of healthy sexism thrown in is Blackpool Boy. This site is notable, if for no other reason than he lets me put a Morrissey or The Smiths track on there each week and even lets Mrs SB put up a song to do the housework to. Bless his cotton socks. He does know his darts though.

As for the players websites, still not the best in my opinion. The exception to this being Shaun Murphy who I think will quickly establish his website as the one the others have to match and in a short time he has it looking good and it also looks like he will keep it updated regularly, which of course is the only way that people will keep coming back.  Mark Selby updates his now and again but not enough for me to be clicking on it more than once a month to see if he’s written anything. Matthew Stevens and Neil Robertson are others with impressive looking sites but a distinct lack of fresh content. The lovely Michaela Tabb now also has a website so we’ll see if that is updated as next season progresses, but otherwise you could just look at the pictures or buy a coaster.

So that’s my blatant copy of Matt’s post which was initially just going to include the information below. I just can’t shut me up sometimes. For those I have not mentioned that is either because I have read your site and I think it’s shit, I’ve never heard of you, I don’t really like you or I have just forgotten. Sorry, either way.

For those I have mentioned cheques should be made payable to Snookerbacker and sent to the Mansions.

Thanks.

10am
1. Sachin Plaha 1-4 Nick Jennings
2. Sydney Wilson 2-4 Brijesh Damani
3. Gareth Allen w/o Sam Baird
4. David Gray w/o David Grace
5. Antony Parsons 4-3 Jamie O’Neil
6. Alex Taubman w/o Robin Hull

1pm
7. Li Hang w/o Luca Brecel
8. Stephen Craigie 2-4 John J Astley
9. James Burrett 4-0 Shahbaaz Adil Khan
10. Michael Wasley 4-1 Alex Borg
11. Justin Astley 2-4 Duane Jones
12. Li Yan w/o Gareth Coates

4pm
13. Najm Khan 1-4 Tony Knowles
14. Lee Page 4-2 Kishan Hirani
15. Vinnie Calabrese 4-0 Matthew Simpson
16. David Portman 2-4 Bash Maqsood

7pm
17. Lyndon Gordon 0-4 David Singh
18. Michael Wild 4-3 Robert Valiant
19. Mike Hallett w/o Lucky Vatnani
20. Jak Jones 4-0 George Marter

Who will be the lucky boys?

At 10am this morning on a dull, grey day across the UK, four players will emerge from a best of seven frame match as a main tour professional snooker player and will presumably spend the rest of the day celebrating in whatever way they most enjoy.

Four matches, four winners, four pro-tour cards, simple. I think I am correct in saying that seven of the players contesting this morning have had at least one season in the professional ranks, the exception being Chen Zhe. The most experienced of the bunch is ‘The Cuban from Tamworth’ Dave Gilbert who attempts to bounce straight back into the ranks at the first time of asking, he faces Robin Hull from Finland who is another with years of experience as a professional.

Fraser Patrick, the conqueror of Allan Taylor, faces Adam Wicheard. Adam is another who seeks to get back on the tour straight away. From all accounts our Adam belongs to the ‘cuebanging’ school so let’s hope he doesn’t let his temper get the better of him today. He has to be in good shape having accounted for the dangerous Tian Pengfei who I have to say I expected to be playing this morning.

The Chinese contingent are represented by Zhe, who plays the most important match of his short career against Andrew Norman, a former world number 42 who has spent a year out of the professional ranks. To complete the line up ‘Mighty Mouse’ Zhang Anda takes on friend of the blog, Leeds man David Grace who has been off the tour now for two seasons. I’m hoping that he can continue his run and make the step up today.

Whatever happens, I think it’s fair to say some nerves might play a part in things this morning. May the best men win.

Andrew Norman 4-3 Chen Zhe
Zhang Anda 1-4 David Grace
Adam Wicheard 4-1 Fraser Patrick
Robin Hull 4-3 David Gilbert

SO CONGRATULATIONS TO ANDREW, DAVID, ADAM AND ROBIN. REACTIONS TO THEIR VICTORIES CAN BE VIEWED HERE.

We are nearing the conclusion of Event 1 of the Q-School over in Sheffield and with 32 players left by the end of the day it will be down to just 8, who will then take to the baize tomorrow morning and attempt to win the match that secures their golden ticket.

As I write, friend of the blog David Grace is 2-0 up in his 10am start and later on I’d like to wish the very best of luck to the Assassin, who won impressively yesterday and his good mate Martin O’Donnell (aka The MO’D). It is possible for each of them to get their ticket in this first event so fingers crossed for them. Other names to note that are still in action are Mike Hallett and Reanne Evans, who have both coasted through so far.

Updates on the matches will appear below and of course you can follow them on the World Snooker scoreboard, assuming they have fixed the gremlins from yesterday which was like a return to the dark days at times.

10am
93. Andrew Norman 4-1 Luke Simmonds
94. Lee Walker 4-2 Ian Glover
95. David Gray 2-4 Ian Burns
96. Stuart Carrington 1-4 Chen Zhe
97. Nick Jennings 2-4 Kyren Wilson
98. Zhang Anda 4-1 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
99. David Grace 4-1 Sydney Wilson
100. Mei Xi Wen 1-4 Jamie O’Neill

2pm
101. Alex Davies 0-4 Tian Pengfei
102. John Astley 2-4 Adam Wicheard
103. Fraser Patrick 4-0 Chris Norbury
104. Jamie Walker 0-4 Allan Taylor 
105. Antony Parsons 1-4 Gary Wilson
106. Craig Steadman 3-4 Robin Hull
107. Mike Hallett 3-4 Reanne Evans
108. David Gilbert 4-2 MartinO’Donnell

6pm

109. Andrew Norman 4-2 Lee Walker
110. Ian Burns 2-4 Chen Zhe
111. Kyren Wilson 1-4 Zhang Anda
112. David Grace 4-2 Jamie O’Neill
113. Tian Pengfei 2-4 Adam Wicheard
114. Fraser Patrick 4-0 Allan Taylor (booo)
115. Gary Wilson 1-4 Robin Hull
116. Reanne Evans 1-4 David Gilbert

Allan 'The Albino Assassin' Taylor

A packed Saturday at the Q-School sees the end of the second round and those left in the mix after today are just three matches away from their pro-ticket.

I wish blog-backed Allan Taylor all the best as he takes on James Loft at 4pm. You can keep in touch with the action on the World Snooker scoreboard.

10am
69. Nick Jennings 4-1 Vinnie Calabrese
70. Jak Jones 3-4 Kyren Wilson
71. David Portman 1-4 Zhang Anda
72. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 4-2 Joel Walker
73. Mitchel Travis 2-4 David Grace
74. Robbie Williams 2-4 Sydney Wilson

1pm
75. Mei Xi Wen 4-2 Kishan Hirani
76. Ross Jones 1-4 Jamie O’Neill
77. David Morris 3-4 Alex Davies
78. Tian Pengfei 4-1 Lee Page
79. John Astley 4-1 Shahram Changezi
80. Michael Leslie 4-1 Adam Wicheard

4pm
81. Bash Maqsood 2-4 Fraser Patrick
82. Chris Norbury 4-1 Robert Valiant
83. Jamie Walker 4-1 Liam Monk
84. James Loft 0-4 Allan Taylor
85. Antony Parsons 4-3 Bobby Cruickshanks
86. Gary Wilson 4-0 Justin Astley

7pm
87. Brijesh Damani 3-4 Craig Steadman
88. Robin Hull 4-1 Craig Barber
89. Sean O’Sullivan 0-4 Mike Hallett
90. Dean Venables 0-4 Reanne Evans
91. James Welsh 1-4 David Gilbert
92. Martin O’Donnell 4-0 Jeff Cundy