snooker world championship final

Murphy's quite personable, to be fair

reminds me a bit of Adrian Chiles

Still, my dream of Higgins' being beaten by Bizarro Higgins is in shatters :-(

xp

I expect the final is going to be great but boring.

"I know Michaela Tabb is going to referee the final tomorrow & Monday, but where's Hazel? :-("

She's had a kid. Hazel look ok but she never asks v interesting questions really.

Was just wondering whether Michaela would referee the final...

Well done Murphy - fair play to both Robertson and Allen for pushing them all the way. That red that started Murphy's break in the penultimate frame was classic semi-final stuff. xxp = there is not going to be a lot of contrast in the final, true.

Murphy's quite personable, to be fair

Oh no I hate all that I'm just an ordinary blokey snooker fan who got lucky faux humility bullshit.

He also uses that strange inversion thing, does John Virgo.

― StanM, Saturday, May 2, 2009 8:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

But not as much as Dennis Taylor. :-/

no chat on tonights session?

Can't see someone as solid as Higgins losing this, he wasn't even at his best tonight and still won the session 7 - 1 and got a couple of centuries.

It was watchable, but then snooker is always watchable - both looked shattered tho', it might have easily slided into Dott-Ebdon levels. As it didn't go to that extreme there wasn't a great deal to talk about. No final has been lost from 11-5 but Murphy could mount the ultimate comeback...the comebacks are what makes for a really great snooker final.

Michaela has been the star! :-)

Michaela has been the star! :-)

― xyzzzz__, Monday, May 4, 2009 10:19 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

I'm not so sure about today's miniskirt...

I really wish Dennis Taylor would stop going on about how "professional" Shaun Murphy is.

OTM. Anyone who doesn't completely surrender and concede the match is "courageous" and "professional" , I guess.

"I'm not so sure about today's miniskirt..."

Oh no I missed this afternoon's session - went to see a film instead!

worst world championship ever

This is just like the finals the last couple of finals involving Ronnie where he walked it...

I actually didn't watch as much of this tournament as I wanted to (no 8 hour session for me unfortunately) but it has had the most centuries ever (80-something, obliterating the prev records of 68) plus Michaela in the final so I can't complain too much.

does louis like snooker or just ronnie?

well done Higgins for his 3rd world title.

at 34 he's the oldest world champion ever.

Totally, yeah - thing is, two of his three titles actually came when he arguably wasn't playing at his very (late 90s) best (in terms of sheer break building). A couple of his wins this year came down to the wire. Total strength of mind to get stronger at the very end of those matches.

Also, in the most centuries ever championship, the player who does show the best tactical play won.

2009: STAT-ATTACK - Higgins has a 92% success rate for his potting for the whole tournament.

When did they get rid of those blown-up fake prize-money cardboards? Whoever's behind that deserves the Nobel prize.

Miniskirt was just a joke, sorry. :-)

Murphy never played like he did in earlier matches, but still, you have to admire Higgins for the way he mercilessly punished him for every mistake.

Also, a ridiculous amount of commentator jinxing all through the match: "so this is it, the first shot of his thousandth frame at the Cruci-and he misses!" / "He's improved so much over the last couple of - and he misses!" :-)

:-) A comeback of Murphy would've been great alone because of the commentary.

"Could this be his final time at the table?"
"Is this miss his last bid in this final?"

I must say though that I've been without a tv set for three years, and finally was able to catch up this year on the BBC snooker coverage. I think Doherty is a valuable addition to the commentary team. My only hope now is that Virgo quits the bizz, can't stand the guy.

bbc changed it

But he had done more than enough and is now the oldest Crucible champion since Dennis Taylor triumphed at the age of 36 in 1985 against Steve Davis, with Higgins turning 34 on 18 May.

i once walked by Higgins on Sauchiehall street outside Greggs.

Better than Paddy McGuinness I suppose

Good Celtic fan, the Higgins

so the bbc stats guy kept reminding everyone.

do you think Paddy McGuinness might like Celtic?

Hazel's on maternity leave, btw.

IN-CRUCIBLE
ILX mole bHigs up live snooker experience
not using capitals in email for some reason

1. it was an excellent experience. i loved it. it was amazing to see people doing something they are really good at up close. one gets a great view of the table from the front 3 rows. the last frame i attended on friday night i went up the back before sneaking out to get my train and the view was fine from there too/ id say the front was better though. id definitely be up for going back next year - this time for the final

2. i had headphones with bbc commentary. that's the reason why the commentators always say that "the crowd here at the crucible are so knowledgeable" when they are clapping as they are all following the same expert commentary the crowd at home are!

3. the only time i was distracted was in the afternoon and evening sessions on the friday when an absolute beauty of a girl was in my line of vision. it must have been very distracting for allen - that's probably why he crumbled as the girl was also in his line of vision.

ah, that's nice reporting there - its actually the one sporting venue (apart from Wimbledon, which I went to a couple of years ago) that I would really really love to visit. Must try to do it next year.

As to point 2. - actually having watched loads of snooker pre-headphone era the crowd would applaud and recognize 95% of what the commentary did recognize as great tactical shots. What has changed is that now, if the commentators say something funny the crowd will laugh and this can provoke the ref to tell the crowd to 'settle down'.

3. So that's how Higgins did it! That's also one of the delights of watching snooker, the same cute girl coming up again and again in a particular line of vision/angle.

World Series Of Snooker (Portugal) :

Jimmy White just lost to Luca Brecel (14 years old)

http://www.theworldseriesofsnooker.com/default.asp

Jimmy White 3 Luca Brecel 4

waht

White'll still win his "Group 2" probably, next round he's playing Ken Doherty (I think. Don't quite understand this tournament yet)

One of the BBC pundits had Brecel in his "who'll be in the top 10 in 5 years" prediction too, IIRC

(it's on Eurosport, but I can't bear to watch it, their main camera position has the table looking like a perfect square instead of a snooker table)

o_O

He'll be disappointed about that, Louis. I just looked up the lad, and google rewarded me with the magnificent sentence: 'Belgisch forum voor snookerfreaks'

He's the current under 19 European champion, but that's not on his Wikipedia page yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Brecel

LOL @ link to "Belgian Snooker Players" - but he's not on that list of 2

obvious choker imo

Yeah, this is just until he discovers girls. :-)

Alain Robidoux slid rapidly down the rankings in subsequent years, partly as a result of losing his favourite cue, which he referred to as the "Eel"; he returned it to its maker - an elderly craftsman in Canada - for repairs, but the craftsman smashed the cue into pieces and sent the remains back to Robidoux, reportedly taking offence because both the cue and the cue-case had a logo for 'Riley', a leading UK cue manufacturer

looooooooooool thats some kill bill shit

also, the fukin sauce of it:

Luca Brecel just beat Ken Doherty, to play against Graeme Dott next

"just" = yesterday (don't know where to get real time info about this, only found out from a Belgian news site)

http://www.hbvl.be/imgpath/assets_img_gvl/2009/05/09/458301/luca-brecel-te-sterk-voor-legende-jimmy-white-en-ex-wereldkampioen-ken-doherty_5_460x0.jpg