Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Come To Milton Keynes: Snooker 2020-21

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Originally posted by longeared View Post
    Selby bent the game to his will in last night's session, just outplaying Murphy tactically, leaving him really tricky escapes or half chances that a frazzled Murphy missed and Selby would then ruthlessly clear up. It's the sort of snooker that probably doesn't appeal so much to the broader audience who would prefer to see Ronnie or Judd flamboyantly making big breaks. I thought it was absolutely terrific and would far rather watch that than the one way traffic of last year's final.
    I don't think it's only casual fans who'd 'prefer' to see that, but variety is the spice of life and it was a good final. Not great, because in spite of Murphy's late rally he never actually got close enough to make it squeaky bum time, but good. I will say, though, that in years when one of the faster players reaches the final I go to extra lengths to track down full-length versions of at least the last couple of sessions and normally the whole thing, rather than the short-form ones I watch the rest of the tournament on. No chance I was going to do that for this one, though; I'd still have been watching it in snatches of spare time into next week. (Or rather, I suspect I would have; only seeing the shots and nothing in between means I don't actually have an idea of when a player is playing slowly, I just know which ones tend to do so. I wasn't aware of the fuss around Selby's semi-final until I read about it the next day.)

    Comment


      In a move that's definitely got nothing to do with Matchroom currently promoting a large number of major American-style pool tournaments and being desperate to try and make it a big thing in the UK, Judd Trump (and according to some reports, Mark Selby) will be playing in the US Open 9-ball championship which runs from 13 to 18 September.

      Comment


        I've just watched Matchroom's highlights of day 1, including Trump's match. As one of the seeds, he had an easy draw for this round, but there were a few things I wanted to see to work out how seriously he's taking the switch from snooker to pool. One was promising right from the preview picture on the YouTube video: he's using proper pool cues, rather than trying to play with his snooker cue as all the snooker players did back when they'd play the Mosconi Cup. Thing two is apparent right from the start of the highlight video: he's been studying and practising how to break a rack of 9-ball. He mentioned in an interview a week or two ago that he was interested to see how he'd get on on that aspect – when he gets further into the tournament he's going to have to be making balls off the break (and to be planning to make certain balls off the break) more often than not if he's going to keep up, and he was breaking very impressively. The third thing I was curious about was whether he can play jump shots. It would seem he's not comfortable with those yet, as the highlights included one shot where he was stuck behind another ball to get to the 2, which was almost straight in. Any of the top pool pros would have got their jump cue out and banged it in (or gone close) but he had a look at a couple of angles and then kicked it in (i.e. cue ball off the rail and onto the object ball) at high speed. Not being able to jump will probably cost him later on, but in the mean time if it means he's going to be playing kick shots to get out of tricky situations I'm all for it. One of the reasons I love watching old Efren Reyes videos is that he'd almost never jump if there was a three- or four-rail kick available instead.

        Ronnie O'Sullivan once said he loves playing American pool but often feels 'lost' on the table because the lack of a nap on the cloth means he can't tell how the balls (especially the cue ball) are going to roll. Judging from a couple of the safety shots, Trump is adapting to that quite well too. In short, he's obviously taking it a lot more seriously than the Mosconi Cup snooker players ever did, and I like him all the more for it. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on once he comes up against players who aren't intimidated by who he is (because rest assured, while the US guy he beat today might or might not be a big snooker watcher, there's a lot of respect for snooker in the US pool world so he'll have been fully aware that a snooker world champion, even in a game he's not familiar with, was going to be a near impossible scalp to claim).

        It looks like the Matchroom Pool YouTube channel is going to show the whole match on Tuesday from 1pm UK time (i.e. the match whose highlights I've just watched; it was live on Sky in the UK from the sound of the commentary, which must be why they didn't put it up live on YouTube). Shame they're unlikely to do the same for any of the more established pool stars.

        Comment


          If he has learned to sink balls off the break, he can learn jumps.

          Especially as he doesn't need to worry about getting thrown out for marring the cloth.

          I never realised that the cues nor the cloth were different, but then I've never played snooker.

          Comment


            If you had played billiards you could be accused of having a misspent youth:

            https://wordhistories.net/2020/01/07...isspent-youth/

            Comment


              American "9 ball pool" balls are much more akin in weight and size to those employed in croquet, for an English audience. My unfettered disdain for the fact that their pockets are about 9 inches wide, is somewhat tempered by that understanding. I trust Mr Trump will adjust accordingly, rather like a chess grandmaster being required to play 'chequers' with giant pieces on a child's bouncy castle, and shall return with the trophy.

              Comment


                So that means that croquet is completely different here as well (balls much larger and heavier)

                Of course, if you think the pockets are six inches wide, it.may well be your eyes.

                Comment


                  The pockets used in this tournament, similarly to those used in recent editions of the World Pool Masters and this year's World Championship, are 4.25 inches across the face of the corner pockets. The side pockets will be about a quarter of an inch wider, but the jaws being square rather than open as on an English pool or snooker table means you have to be a bit more precise if you're trying to pot into them with any sort of angle, as Trump has found (I watched the full match from yesterday earlier; thoughts in a bit after I've seen the highlights of his match today). The balls are 2.25 inches, so the corner pockets are a little less than two ball widths wide.

                  Ursus, I'd say getting balls regularly on the break is easier than learning to jump. I can fairly reliably sink the head ball in an 8-, 9- or 10-ball rack (with a decent rack, which isn't always a given when you're playing in a bar and your opponent is racking for you to break, of course), but I can't jump. Admittedly some of this is because my regular haunt doesn't allow jump shots, so I've not really had a chance to practise them*. The break is the most important shot in high-level pool competition (because this is a winner-breaks format and the top players can sink balls on the break, run out (British English: clear the table) and leave you sitting in your seat for numerous racks (BrE: frames) on end), so given that his fundamentals in terms of mechanics and shot-making are obviously right up there with the very best players in the draw, it would make sense to me that he's spent his limited preparation time perfecting his break, and that if when this is over he decides he's had fun and that he'd like to carry on with pool in future snooker off seasons, he might bring jump shots into his repertoire. He's apparently playing with a cue given to him by Karl Boyes, who's now mostly retired from playing** but is a coach of the European Mosconi Cup team these days, so he's obviously been asking the right people for advice.

                  *My regular haunt has a roughly 7-foot 'bar box' style table with, obviously, looser pockets than these guys are shooting into. If I ever make it up to your neck of the woods a pilgrimage to Steinway Billiards is most certainly on the bucket list, even though I'll be comfortably the shittest player in there.

                  **Boyes and fellow retiree Darren Appleton came out of retirement a few months ago to take part in the World Cup of Pool, a doubles tournament, as Great Britain C after one of the other teams (I forget who) had to drop out due to travel restrictions (the event was in Milton Keynes). They played brilliantly and ended up losing in the final to Germany, whose team included probably the best player in the world over the last couple of years (but I wouldn't let him hear me saying that if I was ever within earshot of him), Joshua Filler.

                  Comment


                    In the second round (in a match which will again go up on YouTube in its entirety during the UK day on Wednesday, so spoilers follow immediately) Trump won again, this time against an Indian guy I've not heard of and whom I think the commentators said is an amateur (the highlights Matchroom put up are just cut-and-shut from the live coverage, so following what the commentators are talking about exactly isn't always possible). The co-commentators for that match were two of the favourites to win the tournament: the Austrian reigning world champion, Albin Ouschan and the Scot who won the US Open in 2017, Jayson Shaw. Shaw said he'd had a joke with Trump after his match on Monday, telling him the other players had all been watching him and hoping he'd take a jump shot on (he has apparently got a jump cue with him), and Trump replied that he's not yet mastered getting the cue ball to come back down quickly enough to take on a jump shot that's not the length of the table.

                    Matchroom's highlights are very incomplete – they condense two or three matches of five- or six-hour-long sessions into a twenty-minute video – so watching a whole match gives quite a lot of extra context. From what I've seen so far, Trump clearly hasn't quite got the measure of the tables and in particular the faster cloth and American pool-style rails (BrE: cushions), which are much more reactive than snooker/English pool cushions. He's gone for a few kick (BrE: cushion-first) shots that haven't gone right, and is generally putting a bit (and often a lot) too much pace on some of his shots. His eye for a bank shot (BrE: double) does seem good, though, and his break was strong again on Tuesday.

                    I haven't looked at the draw, which is double elimination in at least the early rounds so winners keep progressing but if you lose once you move to the other side of the draw. If things to go seed, I'd expect him to be involved in the last 32 (I think there are around 256 entrants), and that ought to be roughly when things start getting interesting. At that level he might run into one of the older guys whose best years are behind them but whose pool knowledge will be a real obstacle for him. A match against 60-year-old five-time champion Earl Strickland would be fascinating (and given the speed they both play at, would last about five minutes). If the draw puts him up against Kelly Fisher, who's a fellow English world snooker champion (and has been world billiards champion too) and is in the conversation for GOAT of women's American pool, that would also be a great one to watch. She beat young Russian Kristina Tkach earlier today in quite an error-strewn match.

                    Based on what I've seen so far (one match plus short highlights of a second, so I reserve the right to revise this forecast!) I reckon he'll be in the last 16 unless he gets unlucky with the draw. If he gets the run of the green he can perhaps make the quarters, but the semis won't happen. I'd love to see him against one of the really big boys, though.
                    Last edited by Sam; 15-09-2021, 06:54.

                    Comment


                      Thanks for these updates Sam , I for one find them really interesting and informative.

                      Comment


                        Glad to hear it! I did wonder about the thread derail, but thought it harmless enough given the snooker season's over and there's a current snooker player involved.

                        Comment


                          WhenI was a kid, pool was on television fairly frequently (it was how Mosconi and Minnesota Fats became household names), but there is no sign at all of this being broadcast over here (and I can't think of the last tournament that was).

                          Comment


                            Oh, here's his first round match, in case anyone's curious. The rules are dead simple: break hard (a certain number of balls must go in a pocket or pass the head string (BrE: baulk line)), then the ball on for each shot is the lowest-numbered ball on the table. Combination (BrE: plant) shots are allowed, and you win by potting the 9. The 1 is always racked at the top of the rhomboid; the 9 always in the middle. So theoretically you could pot the 1 on the break and, if you get lucky, hit the 2 into the 9 into the pocket to win the rack, but in practice it rarely pans out like that, of course. If you don't pot a ball, something (the cue ball or any object ball) must contact a rail (BrE: cushion) after cue ball–object ball contact.

                            There is something called a push shot which can be played only immediately after the break, but it's bed time so I'll explain that tomorrow. Don't think it comes up in this match.

                            Comment


                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                              WhenI was a kid, pool was on television fairly frequently (it was how Mosconi and Minnesota Fats became household names), but there is no sign at all of this being broadcast over here (and I can't think of the last tournament that was).
                              That makes sense, as a lot of it is streamed live on YouTube and the stuff that isn't (table 1 of Matchroom events) always appears in highlight form with UK Sky Sports graphics and commentators, as you can see in the above video. Very odd, as while the balance of power has certainly shifted to a less US-dominated sport these days, it's still very much the spiritual home of the game, and provides a good number of the world's top players.

                              Comment


                                The US sports networks (primarily, but not exclusively, ESPN) have become so invested in university sports* and talk radio style "debate" shows that there is little interest in sports like pool (or bandwidth to show it). A similar thing has happened to bowling, which was always much more popular than pool and used to be a constant presence on weekend network television, but is now largely absent from our screens.

                                * the real money being in gridiron and men's basketball, but the broadcast contracts for those sports also ensuring that ESPN will stream half a dozen women's volleyball or softball games and a similar number of men's soccer, baseball or lacrosse games on any given weekday evening outside of basketball season.

                                Comment


                                  Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                  In a move that's definitely got nothing to do with Matchroom currently promoting a large number of major American-style pool tournaments and being desperate to try and make it a big thing in the UK, Judd Trump (and according to some reports, Mark Selby) will be playing in the US Open 9-ball championship which runs from 13 to 18 September.
                                  Of course, Selby was a World Pool Champion long before he accomplished the feat in snooker.

                                  Comment


                                    Enjoying these updates Sam , it's nice to learn about the big brash cousin that is the world of pool. Coincidentally or otherwise the ref in that Magee match is Marcel Eckardt who is one of the top snooker refs, he did the World final the other year.

                                    Trump will have had plenty of time and space to familarise himself with pool over the summer as the new snooker season has been pretty limited so far. The entire summer / autumn Chinese swing got cancelled again so World Snooker have had to improvise and create replacements, so there's only been two tournaments since the Worlds and Judd's interaction with these was all condensed into a couple of weeks in the middle of last month. Don't know how long this pool tournament is taking to wade through but he won't need to be back on the snooker circuit for a while, the next event for him on the calendar is the Northern Ireland Open in mid-October.

                                    Comment


                                      A bunch of the top referees cover both sports as it happens, longeared. Michaela Tabb shows up quite often and I only learnt last month that she was actually refereeing on the international pool circuit for a few years before she started doing snooker.

                                      Ursus, something that only occurred to me after I switched off last night: I think a lot of the focus has switched to paid streaming as well. DAZN have their logo around the TV table at this event, and it's probably a format that suits the very international appeal of the game these days. I've considered looking into what's available here myself actually, but there are so many free live matches on YouTube I've not bothered yet. Just not the Matchroom events, maddeningly.

                                      Oh, and a correction to something I said in passing yesterday: tonight I watched the full video of Trump v Dhruvalkumar Patel (the Indian guy he beat on Tuesday) and in the commentary Albin Ouschan said the recent World Pool Masters was played with 4-inch pockets rather than 4.25-inch ones.

                                      Anyway, remember what I said about reserving the right to revise my forecast of last 16 if the draw put Trump up against a tough player earlier than I expected? Well, yeah. He played twice on Wednesday, winning in the third round against a Saudi chap who shanked a few complete howlers to set up a fourth round clash with Jayson Shaw, the Scot I mentioned upthread as one of the contenders for this title. Shaw won 11–1. Trump's not out yet due to the double elimination format, but he moves to the losers' side of the draw, which also has some big hitters in it already, including (much to my amusement because he's a complete tosser) defending champion Joshua Filler. Eklent Kaci, who become world 10-ball champion just last week, is also on that side of the draw, having been beaten by English veteran Darren Appleton (see my footnote ten posts above this one) ten years after Appleton last won this title. Biggest news of the day is that former winner Alex Pagulayan got steamrollered 11–0 by Jeffrey De Luna, who is both one of the most entertaining and one of the most infuriating players to watch: capable of unspeakable brilliance in one shot and then totally shitting the bed with his next. That didn't happen here, as he potted all 99 balls in the match, including five of them in a single monstrous break. Highlights of the evening session, which consist of Shaw v Trump and De Luna v Pagulayan:



                                      The De Luna break I mentioned is 25:30 in on that video, if anyone just wants to see that and isn't bothered about the rest. Watch all the balls, and then rewind and play it again and just watch De Luna himself. When he makes contact with the cue ball he's got his back foot already off the floor and is launching his front foot off as well. He breaks like this all the time and it's always fun to watch (if not always this effective). His opponent today, Pagulayan, once sunk five balls on the break himself and then missed his next shot to let his opponent in, and lost the rack as a result.

                                      Originally posted by Discordant Resonance View Post

                                      Of course, Selby was a World Pool Champion long before he accomplished the feat in snooker.
                                      In English 8-ball, yes. This is a different game. It's one reason he's often mentioned as a potential crossover player though, I think.
                                      Last edited by Sam; 16-09-2021, 07:20.

                                      Comment


                                        The fact that jump shots are legal and encouraged feels really... gauche

                                        Comment


                                          You're not alone in thinking so! Plenty of (unsurprisingly, and I don't say this disparagingly) the older generations of players and fans feel similarly. I've come to not mind them so much, because once you see the accuracy with which these guys can hit them – right up to judging the length of their jump so as to get a different reaction from the cue ball depending on whether it comes down right onto the object ball or hits the cloth and is more or less rolling by the time it makes contact – it's really something else. Not as beautiful as a good kick or massé shot though, of course.

                                          Trump is now out, having lost 11–10 to South Africa's Jason Theron (whom I've never heard of). But since a couple of people have said they're enjoying my updates, I'll carry on: so is his conqueror the other day Jayson Shaw, who lost his next match to Estonian Denis Grabe and then got thumped by Carlo Biado of the Philippines. And much to my delight, 2019 winner (and therefore defending champion) Joshua Filler went out to Poland's Mieszko Fortuński in the latter's biggest (individual) win as a 9-ball player (he's been European 10-ball champion and twice a 9-ball teams champion, though). It's been torrid for the host nation: only one player is left flying the flag for the USA. Lucky for them it's Shane Van Boening, who as the commentators on tonight's highlight reel put it is probably the fairest nomination for the accolade of third greatest pool player ever (behind Earl Strickland and Efren Reyes). He went from 5–0 up to lose 11–6 in an amazing match against Spaniard Francisco Sánchez Ruíz but later beat world champion Albin Ouschan 11–2 to advance.

                                          The last sixteen looks like this:
                                          1. Aloysius Yapp (SNG) v Shane Van Boening (USA)
                                          2. Denis Grabe (EST) v Rodrigo Geronimo (PHI)
                                          3. Max Lechner (AUT) v Mieszko Fortuński (POL)
                                          4. Dennis Orcollo (PHI) v Mario He (AUT)
                                          5. Johann Gonzales Chua (PHI) v John Morra (CAN)
                                          6. David Alcaíde (SPA) v Carlo Biado (PHI)
                                          7. Fedor Gorst (RUS) v Marco Teutscher (NED)
                                          8. Francisco Sánchez Ruíz (SPA) v Naoyuki Oi (JPN)

                                          The winner of match 1 plays the winner of match 2 in the quarters and so on.

                                          Strong Philippine representation, and you'd have got fair odds pre-tournament on two Austrians reaching the last sixteen and neither of them being Ouschan; this is Lechner's US Open debut. Marco Teutscher is a name that has slipped by me until now, but he apparently won what seems to be the most recent edition of the US Open 10-ball, two years ago – I've not seen it pop up on this year's calendar and it might have been superseded by Predator's World 10-Ball event. Van Boening is the man to beat, and if no one manages to he'll become the most successful player in US Open history; he's currently tied with Strickland on five wins. Yapp has played really well so far, though, and by all accounts so has Geronimo, though I've not seen any of him. I'm not familiar with Sánchez Ruíz but he's got to be dangerous from the highlights of his win over SVB; winning eleven racks out of twelve against SVB, especially after going 5–0 down, is pretty much unheard of. Looking at the halves of the draw I reckon SVB v He and Alcaíde v Gorst look like tasty semi-finals, but it's hard to call. I'd like He or Gorst to win the title most of all, but I think SVB probably will.

                                          I'll keep updating this thread as it progresses and then maybe start a fresh one for the Mosconi Cup, if people are still interested. Having a rolling 'other cue sports' thread next year might push me to keep up to date with things in a slightly more real way, too.

                                          And I'll be able to enjoy the last sixteen live, by the look of it, because ursus' questions the other day prompted me to look up streaming options and it turns out that Matchroom stream their events to countries where they don't have a third-party broadcast deal (including Argentina) for the cost of nothing more than free registration on their website. Rather wonderfully this also gives me access to their snooker events (and a bunch of other sports I couldn't care less about), so no more dodgy streams and cut-and-shut YouTube highlights that are swiftly taken down for me come World Championship time! So thanks, ursus.

                                          Comment


                                            Thanks Sam . Out of interest how much (if anything) did Trump win in prize money from this event? What does the winner earn?

                                            Comment


                                              Originally posted by longeared View Post
                                              Thanks Sam . Out of interest how much (if anything) did Trump win in prize money from this event? What does the winner earn?
                                              Winner gets $50,000. Runner up $25,000. Semi finallists $12,000, Quarters $6,750. Last 16 $3750.

                                              Total prizepot is $300,000
                                              Last edited by Vicarious Thrillseeker; 17-09-2021, 18:01.

                                              Comment


                                                Last 8 is:

                                                Aloysius Yapp (SNG) v Rodrigo Geronimo (PHI)
                                                ​​​​​​Max Lechner (AUT) v Dennis Orcollo (PHI)
                                                ​​​​​​Johann Gonzales Chua (PHI) v Carlo Biado (PHI)
                                                ​​​​​​Fedor Gorst (RUS) v Naoyuki Oi (JPN)

                                                Comment


                                                  I'm not trying to steal Sam's thunder here - it's being shown on DsTV and it's available in Tanzania. I just watched the match between Alcaide and Biado, which Biado won 11-10. Good stuff. Three Filipinos in the quarters - strong representation.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Yeah Trump will have got $1,500 I think. The prize money is listed on the US Open website but rather than saying 'positions X–Y get this much' it just says 'Position X gets ...'

                                                    Have just discovered that registering for Matchroom's site for free doesn't in fact give live event access, but giving them $45 a year does. And they've got a split screen function allowing you to watch up to four events at the same time. So now settling down for the quarters while also watching table 1 of the English Open snooker qualifiers. Forty-five dollars a year! I wish I'd known about this ages ago.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X