snooker world championship final

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

Lost to Dott 5-4

The Crusher of Dreams

i bet his voice is lower-pitched than dott's

watching the nugget hold on.

robertson will win this whole thing. i hope.

pourquoi?

i like the way he plays! plus to have beaten gould the way he did...the winner of that match needs to win, to placate me

o'sullivan-selby is a great match, by the looks of it. two other players i wouldn't begrudge this year's title.

yeah idk why i'm watching steve davis tbh. well other than it will probably end soon and i can change over.

robertson used to be fat

ronnie doing a bit of referee-bullying

nagl but still <3 him

I quite want Mark "the Jester" Selby to win, because he's the only snooker player with anything approaching O'Sullivan's charisma levels.

Ronnie - Mark: 11 - 13

selby-carter final would be nice.

Selby got stronger and stronger. Ronnie's shot selection was non-existent at the end. Sometimes it amazes me as to how he has managed to win a hat-trick of world titles.

I think Dott might provide a tougher test but I reckon it'll be Robertson - Selby in the final.

^^^^^yes please

I want dott to win

not again! cmon let a flashy first-timer win it

Wouldn't mind if Dott won -- great to see him back, and I reckon he is playing better than he has ever done.

given the quality of this second semi so far, robertson is gonna walk this