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Williams not past his Sel-by date: Snooker 2018-19

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    Absolutely superb from Trump (sorry Ursus). 7-1 at session end. Now we can look forward to seeing tonight what imaginative way he finds to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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      9-3 at the interval, even by Judd's standards this would take a spectacular choke to lose it from here.

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        How many centuries does he have now?

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          Yeah, Trump rules! Make Snooker Great Again!

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            Well, there we go, Judd finally wins his second major some seven years after his first. Well deserved, came out of the tougher half of the draw and played really well all week. Murphy and Allen both had career revivals after winning this in recent years, be interesting to see if Judd does too. Though as much as I love the Masters it's disappointing to have a fourth blowout final in six editions, and the other pair were hardly matches for the memory bank.

            Kev - he's got five this week - 2 v Bingham, 1 v Day, 0 v Ding, 2 v Trump - so think that's 991 now.

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              Yep, 991 now (you can follow the count on the YouTube channel Snooker Planet, which uploads them with a running count as he makes them).

              I've been keeping up with the tournament via highlights videos and 'short form' stuff on YouTube. The latter are a few channels who cut out all the preparation, consideration, umming and ahhing, sizing up options etc. between shots, and just show every shot from a match, thus condensing a whole match down to twenty to forty minutes; it makes for a slighlty jumpy, sometimes discombobulating experience, but it's very useful if you can't watch live and don't have seven or eight hours to spare to catch up on a day's play! I'm watching the whole final, though (albeit whilst knowing how it ended) – first session just finished so I'm off to bed now, but my word Trump played well, didn't he? There was a period of several frames in the middle of the session where he barely even looked like he was thinking, just getting down and whacking balls in like Ronnie in his pomp.

              Meanwhile Ronnie couldn't get any momentum and when he did hit a good shot which should have made him feel settled at last, it was swiftly followed by a crap or unlucky one. On Friday night, the pool room at my local was packed with idiots standing far too close to the table and watching their mates play incredibly slowly, and by the time I got to the table (two hours after putting my name down, having watched all of six games take place in that time – and this eight ball, not snooker! A game ought to take five minutes) I was so driven to distraction by it all that I played absolutely dreadfully. Won the first two games because I was playing really awful players, and then lost with all seven balls on the table to the first decent player I had to play. So, given the very similar circumstances and importance, like my tale on the previous page about potting both balls in one shot, I know exactly how Ronnie probably felt.

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                Not to rub it in or anything, Sam, but you reminded me of a thing from the past:

                To beat someone with out them scoring once. Often used in pool when the loser hasn't potted a single ball. Or in table football when the loser hasn't scored any goals.

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                  The 147th 147 has been made today - by David Gilbert in the rather unglamorous surroundings of the Championship League in Coventry. Presume it was versus Maguire.

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                    Yes.
                    https://twitter.com/WorldSnooker/status/1087757328219279360?s=19

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                      It was a pretty good one, too – a decent shot on the final red, which had looked tricky from quite early on.

                      Can't make YouTube tags work, so here's a link to it.

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                        Gilbert's on a roll: he plays Kyren Wilson in the best of 17 German Masters final today having taken the scalps of Selby and Williams on the way.

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                          If Gilbert were to win it'd be both a maiden ranking title and his first ever entry into the top 16. Big if though, he was 9-5 up on Williams in the final of the World Open back in August before losing in a decider.

                          There's an ITV tournament this coming week, the World Grand Prix from Cheltenham racecourse. They did the obligatory press launch and had local boy Jack Lisowki dressed up in silks. Ronnie's participating and it's not impossible he'll reach the thousandth century this week - last year he won the tournament with ten centuries along the way. He's got a tough draw though, Marco Fu should be straightforward enough first up but then after that it's Hawkins or Day, then potentially one of this week's finalists, then possible opponents in the semis include Selby, Higgins and Trump. The full bracket is still to be fully fleshed out as it's structured by ranking the top 32 players of the season, and today's final counts towards this.

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                            7-5 to Gilbert, two away.

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                              7-6...

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                                Er, 7-8...

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                                  Wilson wins 9-7 (well, he will in a minute or two)

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                                    And Wilson completes the comeback!

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                                      So, about the three centuries Ronnie has deliberately sabotaged for himself in the last couple of days, then ...

                                      He's up to 994 now. I told you all he was going to deliberately never make it to 1,000.

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                                        He hasn't seemed especially arsed in general this week, but I think he's trying to hold back the 1000th for an occasion with a big crowd, presumably at the Crucible. Between now and then he's not entered the Indian Open, Shootout or China Open and most top players tend to swerve the Gibraltar Open which is essentially a pro-am. So that leaves the Players Championship and Tour Championship. Both ITV tournaments with participation based on season performance so he's done enough to qualify for both. Maybe do the Players, get close, bypass the latter tournament and assume he'll be playing reasonably enough at the Worlds.

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                                          The Shootout is on TV. Seems mainly an opportunity for the comedians in the crowd to call out "take your time" as the shot clock runs down. I wouldn't call myself a fan of the format.

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                                            Ronnie up to 999 centuries now. He needs three more frames this evening against Robertson to wrap up the Players Championship, so be interesting to see what happens if the opportunity to make a ton arises.

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                                              And he's made it. To win the tournament.

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                                                Just watched it. What a surreal last few shots! That was absolute liquid snooker, as well. Even after the century was confirmed with the crowd roaring every shot after it.

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                                                  Ronnie won the Tour Championship a couple of weeks back which took him to the top of the world rankings ahead of Selby - the first time there's been a change at the top for four years. Selby's weird season continued when he contrived to lose in the first round of the China Open to Craig Steadman. It was a bit of an odd tournament in general as a lot of the big names went out early, but Neil Robertson stayed in and smashed Lisowski 11-4 in the final. He's the form man of the moment, reaching three finals in the last month and his victory usefully rebalanced the draw for the Crucible as it looked as if all the form players were going to end up in the bottom half.

                                                  So now we move on to the climax of the season with the World Championships. The qualifying draw was made today and there was the usual sprinkling of interesting ties. The top two ladies were given entry and both ended up in the same draw section. Ng On Yee got Alan McManus who's been in decent form lately, whereas Reanne Evans got Zhang Yong which is an emminently winnable tie. She'd be unlikely to get any further though as her likely opponent at the next stage is Joe Perry. There's the usual old-timers match up in the shape of Anthony Hamilton v James Wattana, other matches of interest include Mark Davis v Rod Lawler and Scott Donaldson (a semi finalist in China) v Steadman. Qualifying starts on Wednesday and runs through to the following Wednesday with the Crucible stuff starting on Easter Saturday.

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                                                    First round of qualifying ended on Saturday and the main headline was defeat for Marco Fu against the promising Lu Honghao. That puts Fu down to astonishing 55th in the world rankings now. Ng gave McManus a game but ultimately lost, Evans had a disappointing 10-2 to Zhang. Noppon Saengkam made a 146 which is something that doesn't happen very often.

                                                    The second round is currently taking place - last night's story is that there will be an amateur at the Crucible after Michael Judge and James Cahill both won their matches and will now face each other in final qualifying. Neither is a complete unknown, Judge has played at the Crucible before and even beat Parrott in 2001 whereas Cahill is the fellow who beat Selby in the UK in December. Judge has had quite a week, he only got into the tournament last Monday because Zhang Jiankang withdrew with visa problems. The round concludes today, matches including Ali Carter v Jimmy White.

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