the rolling towards the pocket snooker championship thread

Selby versus the vague lookalike of a certain Beardsleyesque ILXor is turning into something of a humdinger

comment by supersubag (U7126766)
posted 3 Hours Ago
There is a simple way of bringing snooker popularity to the masses: BRING BACK BIG BREAK!

Q to someone who actually saw Big Break: was it actually any good?

POT AS MANY BALLS AS YOU CAN

And no, it was shit.

comment by Meazza (U7140124)
posted 2 Hours Ago

It's about time World Snooker had a long hard introspective and asked themselves what they've actually done to help snooker over the last 10 years. If they wrote it all down they'd be lucky to get half a side of A4; and that's including a heading in size 18 font. World Snooker strikes me as an organisation lacking in ideas or direction and their rudderless approach has steered snooker on to the rocks.

An easy win would be to drop the dress code restrictions; especially the bow tie. I mean who wears bow ties these days apart from Chubby Brown? There should still be guidelines as you couldn't have a player wearing a dayglo Agassi circa '92 effort and putting other players off. But within reason why not?

The other thing they could do is expand the number of ranking tournaments. If you had a situation like tennis where there are dozens of events, but the ranking points differ drastically for each. It would mean more interest throughout the year, more lower ranked players getting the chance to play in front of an audience instead of the grind of qualifying school all the time and the rankings would be less of a closed shop. As I understand it there are non-ranking tournaments taking place in Europe currently, there are probably quite a few in Asia and maybe even some in Canada. Wherever there’s a tournament allocate some ranking points. More tournaments in more locations would help expand snooker. Of course the bigger tournaments would have the higher ratings and all the big names would be there for them. Obviously tennis is a much bigger sport globally and perhaps the format wouldn’t transfer favourably to snooker, but I think something has to be done about a season that consists of a mere 8 ranking tournaments.

Maybe these ideas would be the death of snooker, maybe not, but something needs done and the tubes in charge at World Snooker don’t look like the ones to do it.

^^^this is pretty much dead on

I suspected as much (re: Big Break)

And yeah, OTM. I think they should also relax the smoking ban for snooker venues, bring the audience closer to the table, and permit heckling.

ALSO, wherever there's a snooker tournament, there should also (in a separate room at the same arena) be a parallel three-cushion billiards tournament (or some other under-exposed cue sport other than trickshot competition), which could briefly capture the TV audience's imagination when flicking onto it via interactive, much like the doubles at Wimbledon, and introduce them to bona fide sports geniuses such as Torbjorn Blomdahl.

Day/Night Snooker games with Floodlights & Pyjamas.

btw i am a stated non-believer in "would smash" but in 2009 i will relax that principle just the once, for Michaela Tabb

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/tabb5.jpghttp://www.virginmedia.com/images/tabb2.jpg

Why does Hendry go on? Why? The man is a shell and has been for about three or four years now.

This really is a heroically, compellingly bad game, with 100% long pot success on both sides O_o

Also unsure about Michaela's ponytail

Glad your would smash policy has been clarified.

And yes, Hendry should give up, he always looks so miserable doesn't he?

His youthful vigour has truly departed now.

Big Break was no worse than any early Saturday night game show nonsense. probably not as good as Bullseye tho.

Epically scrappy, often awful snooker, the right winner but christ Hendry has lost it

lol peter ebdon

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Friday, 17 October 2008 00:22 (2 months ago) Bookmark

I HATE JOHN HIGGINS

SO MUCH

2009 "NO-HATING" POLICY DISCARDED FOR BORING FUCKING LUCKY SCOTTISH TOSSBAG WHO STEALS FRAMES LIKE INEVITABLE CANDY FROM MORE CHARISMATIC PLAYERS

FUCK YOU HIGGINS

HAHA FUCK YOU HIGGINS!!

OH I HATE THAT FUCKING GUY

God, why did you create a second Higgins, but make him the most *boring* player ever? I hate you, God.

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Sunday, 19 October 2008 15:22 (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

If he's not careful he's getting a capital-letter-filled swear thread of his own. Christ.

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Sunday, 19 October 2008 22:28 (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

boring fucking tosser

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Sunday, 19 October 2008 22:59 (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That frame was Day's to win you cunt. At least we deserved a decider

― 100 tons of hardrofl beyond zings (Just got offed), Sunday, 19 October 2008 22:59 (2 months ago) Bookmark

Replace "Day" with "Ding" and it's history repeating

No other sportsman fills me with such utter loathing

real talk: all scottish players should be permanently banned from competition

there must be a law stating that all scots snooker players are exceptionally boring, dour machines with the flair of a peanut, who always somehow get lucky breaks against more attractive opponents

It must hurt when there's one tiny wee fucking game that some Scottish people can beat some English people at.

How many top players of any nationality aren't boring dour machines with the flair of a peanut?

I'll give you Ronnie "no really I'm fucking chucking it this time I'm telling you seriously I'm a fucking enigma me ok maybe one more tournament and that's me. I'm mad though, seriously!" O'Sullivan purely for his game as when it's good it's godlike. After that the top 16/32 is littered with boring twats.

Higgins lacks charisma but he's a colossus on the table when he's on his game. Pure fucking bottle.

Ronnie loses points for invoking Simon Cowell as someone who can breathe new life into snooker.

Maybe he just wants to play shite but get kept in tournaments with the public vote.

so many games smell terribly of fixing

lol someone bit

there's no danger of ronnie needing a public vote to remain in the world rankings, i'm afraid. he is that good.

i was more thinking of how higgins j, dott, maguire and the archdaddy of them all hendry have relentlessly battled their way to robotic success after success with nary a smile. maguire is probably the least offensive but he's also the least successful.

it's matthew stevens i feel for

what you talking about, dott is great!!

his style of play isn't

and you accuse others of being boring.

ok maguire's pretty good

I'm all for fat snoooker players, keeping up with the darts players.

Maguire could be brilliant if he could be arsed more often. He's like a lazy Ronnie who can't even be bothered lying about chucking it.

I still can't believe snooker got so bad that Dott managed to win a world championship.

One thing I really hate about Higgins - "The Wizard of Wishaw" wtf

Almost as bad as "The Robin Hood of Snooker"

the sheriff of pottingham

Modesty Baize

Look at these two old gunslingers race to see who can totally lose it first! Hendry's winning btw, dude needs to retire asap

Body language on both sides is pretty miserable.

lollll there's a player called Higginson

SON OF HIGGINS

well done barry pinches! good entertainment.

lol hendry and williams playing some of the *worst* snooker i have ever seen

was at o'sullivan v burnett on tuesday, and it was pretty poor. there seems to be a lot of wild inconsistency in playing at this year's grand prix. o'sullivan v higgins was pretty epic tho, and i'm gutted i had a ticket but couldn't go.

also otm re: hendry v williams

Higgins vs Robertson is a great match. Higgins had 100% pot success in the first four frames yet went in 2-2 at the interval. Robertson hit three centuries and led 5-3. Higgins did the old Mr Resilient and took it to a decider.

Higgins was clearing up to take it and knocks in a quality last red but accidentally hit the pink in. 7 points in it, on the yellow, nerves jangling everywhere.

wow, that was hella drama. hoping for Ding v Robertson in the final.

Bingham seems to self destruct atm. 4-4 after him being 4-1 up.

Beautiful match.

The next frame after 4-1 Bingham gave him a few opportunities but then its 3x60 breaks, a century and the 87 at the end, and that pot on the red (when he could've put Stuart back) was top stuff!

Yes that pot was magnificent. Ronnie v composed and 'with it' in the post match interview too.

He's been v with it for a long time now.

Can I say how much I enjoy Hendry's commentary, especially during Ronnie's matches. Never talks too much, just enough and there is nothing too obvious.

Absolutely agree on the latter, he's surprised me in a positive way.

That's good to hear about Ronnie, I've not been following snooker for a while so didn't know.

Its been a boring final - almost the only way to beat Ronnie is to play tactically and get his timing off (sounds cynical but it isn't), then score heavy when he makes mistakes. In the past Higgins was great at this and Selby beat him at the WC like this.

Ding and the likes of Trump aren't. 8-4 right now.

Not so boring now.

mad, mad stuff: 9-9 from 9-4! It was lightning too.

Incredible last hour - Ronnie pulls out a good safety and then took the points well.

Yeah that was good stuff. It was scrappy from both before Trump started getting into gear.

Loved the shots right after the end: Ronnie looked like he'd lost, like he couldn't believe it, whereas Trump was all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ after a couple of minutes.

cuddly ken, you cunt! she was supposed to win

needed a snooker on pink and black to prevent epicke final frame, got it

you want one loveable ambassador of the game to lose to a woman, proving her right to be in the men's game in the popular opinion, you choose ken, and he fucks it

lol anyway, she played ok and women should be allowed to attempt to qualify always now, should have always been allowed

Women should be allowed to qualify/play in all tournaments really. Might take a few years but all that should flow through to the World championships.

selby with the eeyore celebration again lol

Anyone here bothering with the Crucible this year?

RIP Ronnie, heaven needed an intensely bored and uninterested snooker player

ronnie and ding on the 13th!

lol RIP Shaun Murphy's actually-he's-a-decent-guy rep

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/24/its-not-fair-shaun-murphy-rails-at-amateurs-in-pro-snooker-after-uk-championship-defeat-by-amateur
lmao