There's more than one Barnsley - the 2019-20 snooker thread

[longeared]

As bizarre as it all was, it was also completely the wrong shot to play. Though Robertson is struggling to finish this match off, Maguire has won the last two frames and it's now 5-3.

[longeared]

Incredible comeback from Maguire to win 6-5. Deserved it for that brave shot on the green in the decider, but Robertson chucked that away really. Another big name gone and Robbo's relatively indifferent season continues.

[Kevin S]

Stirring stuff.

I think 'assured' is the mot juste for Gilbert at the moment. On the red button or iPlayer, 5-1 up.

[longeared]

Some players look completely overawed on their Masters debut. Gilbert didn't - that was real top drawer snooker and now Mark Allen's gone too. So that means we'll have Maguire, Gilbert, Wilson, Lisowski, Williams or Bingham there on Sunday - between them they've reached one Masters final since 2003 (Wilson in 2018).

[Kevin S]

So yesterday I was going to post to say that either this was turning into one of the most surprising and open Masters in some time OR just that Trump would coast to the final and then hammer someone.

Shaun Murphy obviously preferred option 1.

QFs
Shaun Murphy v Joe Perry
Ali Carter v John Higgins
_____________________
Stephen Maguire v David Gilbert
Kyren Wilson/Jack Lisowski v Mark Williams/Stuart Bingham

Don't know about others but I'd like to see Gilbert get over his big-tournament jitters and win it.

[longeared]

Trump was right in his post match interview when he said 6-3 was a slightly flattering scoreline, he made three tons but then was too loose in all the other frames, kept letting his opponent in and Murphy too full advantage. Higgins did what he had to against a completely out-of-sorts Hawkins. Lisowski has started well today, taken the first couple of frames and that's a tremendous long pot as I type.

Gilbert is second favourite with a lot of bookies which is quite something when you remember he's never actually won a tournament. He's improved considerably in the last couple of years which he ascribes to an unspecified technical change, but he still has a habit of getting close to the winning line in big matches and then choking.

[Kevin S]

Away from the baize, Willie Thorne is in court today, accused of borrowing money without disclosing that he was bankrupt. He's had a really rough last few years by the sounds of it, including suffering from a gambling addiction.

Note to editors: the Triple Crown tournaments are sponsored by Betway, Dafabet and Betfred. Be Gamble Aware Dot Co Dot UK.

[longeared]

Every tournament in the UK for the last decade has been sponsored by a betting company. It used to be tobacco money until that was banned, then there was lots of life insurance types, then it's been bookies all the way since Hearn took over. Snooker is never going to be a sport that attracts the likes of Rolex or Louis Vuitton to major sponsorships, but it'd be nice to see something sponsored by a non-gambling outlet. Although I do remember the time Ding won his own weight in pies when the UK Championship was sponsored by Pukka Pies.

2-2 at the interval in this match, a very Lisowski last frame when there were some fabulous pots and some equally fabulous unforced errors, including missing a frame ball pink.

[Kevin S]

Yeah, and it's a bigger problem than just snooker as well. Everything in football is either betting or middle east blood money.

[Kevin S]

Ooof, Kyren takes six on the spin to go through.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Are there enough young players getting through the ranks in snooker? Looking at the Masters, only Lisowski is an unfamiliar name to me, and more than half the field seems to be in their tenth appearance or higher. It's beginning to feel like the old days where the top 16 was pretty much a self-perpetuating club; has the current ranking and invite set up created a new systemic problem or is it genuinely that there isn't a new generation?

[Kevin S]

Not sure. The invitational tournaments are non-ranking in order to mitigate that a bit but the rankings themselves are a two-year prize money list so it would take a while for a player to get good enough to break into it.

Lisowski turned pro at the same time as Kyren Wilson, incidentally.

The three brightest young stars are Chinese. Of these, I think the next new name at the Masters will be Yan Bingtao, the first professional snooker player born after 1/1/2000. He has been in and around the top 20 for a couple of seasons and should crack the top 16 soon enough. Hopefully he'll have a good Worlds. Zhou Yuelong is only a couple of years older but has fluctuated around the 20s and 30s in the rankings list. He could still do it, mind. And there's also Lyu Haotian, who started competing in pro tournaments at age 14. His ranking has been similar to Zhou - tending to win one or two rounds in smaller ranking tournaments but he needs to go deeper to move up the list and despite only being 22 it kind of feels like he hasn't quite lived up to expectations from a younger age.

The top young British players are seemingly a fair way off and I'd need to know something about Q School to be able to say much about who is where. Also, last year there was a World Cup and a few young Europeans took part in that, one of whom, a Belgian called Ben Mertens, is only 15. So he is probably worth keeping an eye out for.

[Kevin S]

Williams' loss to Bingham means that six out of eight first round matches went to the lower seed. Only Higgins and Wilson got through of the top 8.

[longeared]

Rogin - in short, no. I was looking at the 2010 Masters the other day and ten of the field are back this year. Go back to 2000, it was a slightly different format in those days but Williams, Higgins and Carter played in both, a whopping ten further competitors are still on the regular tour and there's only five who have gone - Parrott, Hendry and Davis have all retired, Stephen Lee midway through a hefty ban for match fixing, Paul Hunter died of cancer. There's still loads of old players who are well past their best knocking around the tour and filling up draw spaces but rarely come to regular attention - the likes of McManus, Ebdon, Stevens, Doherty, O'Brien, Jimmy White. Hearn keeps giving James Wattana a wild card to play on the tour based on "career achievements" even though he can barely win a frame these days.

It can take years for a player to get up the rankings - we talk about Kyren Wilson as the future of snooker but he's already 28, Hendry had won six world titles by the same age. The flat draws are an obstacle. Back in the days of structured draws a young player would enter a tournament at the first round when he'd play the other players towards the bottom of the rankings, i.e. those of a similar ability. Then they could work their way through the tournament up to a point where a better player would beat them, so they'd generally identify their level. Now they go in at the first phase and could be drawn against anyone from Judd Trump to Amine Amiri. Playing top players occasionally helps a young player develop. Playing them regularly means they will likely lose a lot, confidence goes down and they stop learning. There's also the issue of them not earning money if they're not winning, or maybe winning £3k for a qualifier which then ends up being entirely swallowed up by the fact it's a Chinese tournament with all the attendant expenses.

Riley Parsons was quite highly thought of when he got on tour this year. His draws have included Murphy, Wilson, Donaldson and McGill and as a consequence he's not won a match. Jackson Page, the 18 year old Welshman is another new highly rated player, he's won a few matches including beating Lisowski and he's gradually improving but he's still only 88th on the season rankings and it feels a big ask to see him keeping his tour card at the end of next season. The other great British hopes are Tyler Rees and Sean Maddocks - you may remember the latter, he's the lad who made the maximum aged 15 the other year. Both of them are playing in Malta this week in what is essentially the world amateur championships which also include familar names such as Tony Drago (yes, another old timer still going), Rory McLeod and Jamie Jones. Maddocks went out at the group stage, Rees lost in the round of 64 (as did Ben Mertens).

Yan Bingtao did actually get into the top 16 briefly last autumn but then had a load of points come off his slate and slid back out again - he had a bit of a slump in 2018. He's had a good year though and with a fair wind he should be lining up at Ally Pally next January. Though I think I've said that about him before.

[Kevin S]

Murphy leads 5-2 in QF1 so it's a long way back for Joe Perry from here. Frame 8 is quite a tight, tactical one.

[Kevin S]

VAR in snooker, anyone? Carter is through in *ahem*controversial circs.

[Kevin S]

https://twitter.com/Nick_Metcalfe/status/1217949668203814912?s=19

[Kevin S]

Wow, just seen Carter's Twitter feed, it's all Farage, Brexit, Piers Morgan - the full works. No wonder he can just tell the referee a bare faced lie like that.

[Kevin S]

Gilbert safely through 6-2 against Maguire earlier. Wilson v Bingham just started on BBC2.

[Kevin S]

Now that is how to set your stall out. A fifteen red clearance from Wilson in the first frame.

[Kevin S]

Going to be a long night, this one. It's 4-4 and still live here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/snooker/50253002

[Kevin S]

Bingham leads! He's on a roll and maybe will finish the job now.

[longeared]

Bingham won 6-4 sometime around midnight which means that the youngest player in the semi finals is the whippersnapper Murphy at the tender age of 37.

[Kevin S]

Carter v Bingham. The Masters final I don't think anyone was expecting a week ago.

[longeared]

BBC have just shown Doherty missing the final black for a maximum and the respot final. Tick!

Carter has settled much better this evening, he's won all four frames up to the interval and leads 7-5.