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

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    Trump is well known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but even by his standards this would take a spectacular choke to lose from here. There is a whole different atmosphere and pressure to the final session though and he's got to make sure he doesn't start panicking if Higgins wins the first couple of frames.

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      94 for Judd in the opening frame of the evening. Get the Coast repeats ready BBC...

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        And Judd wins the second frame of the evening to complete his demolition and win the championship. All over by half seven!

        Been waiting a while for him to fulfil his potential, he really should have won the 2011 final against Higgins but at the time he was a player who just tried to pot absolutely everything - there was a description of him somewhere as "a glorified pool player". Don't think he really knew his own game at the time, but now he's gradually gained experience, improved his all round safety play, stopped trying to hit the cue ball halfway to Chesterfield and back after every shot and this season he finally has his reward what with this and the Masters. If only he hadn't ballsed up against Perry in the UK he might have a season triple crown instead of "just" a career one. He's up to second in the world rankings now and could take number one in the autumn - he's only 30k behind O'Sullivan and Ronnie has considerably more to defend before the year's out.

        Anyway, back to the 1979 election and to see if we've been promised hope where there is despair yet.

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          The standard set was simply phenomenal - eleven centuries, and even when on the brink of defeat, Higgins still had a pot success rate of 92%, it was, bar some extremely brief scrappy spells, simply a case of no-miss snooker.

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            Missed the conclusion as my daughter was being a bit of a madam last night - the early finish not helping me out at all! Ah well. But what a level Trump is setting at the moment, blowing away probably the most dogged 'battler' in Crucible history and, as you say, now showing a deadly mixture of experience with his unquestionable talent. World Snooker are proudly announcing that he is the first player ever to win £1 million in a single season.

            The 2019-20 season starts with a 'World Cup' to be held in Wuxi in June... Just had a look back at the 2017 one and you play in pairs - matches of five frames where you do the four possible singles combinations plus a doubles match. China get to enter two teams as hosts and last time Ding and Liang beat England (Trump, Hawkins) in the final.
            Last edited by Kevin S; 07-05-2019, 09:50.

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              There's a change to the 147 pot coming in as well. If there are 20 maximums in the season then a £1 million prize pot will be shared out to the players (i.e. if it happens, you would get £50k for each 147). I make it that there were 12 this season.

              Other stuff:
              Jimmy White gets another two year tour wildcard.
              Change to the Worlds qualification - rather than all non-top-16 players having to play all the qualifying rounds, next year there'll be more rounds with higher seeded players coming in a bit later.
              Last edited by Kevin S; 07-05-2019, 09:56.

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                Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                Horrible luck for Un-Nooh in that final frame against Trump. I bet Barry Hearn was secretly hoping the Thai would win, too, with his desire for expanding markets for the game.

                I reckon Trump, after that scare, will be a good bet for this now.
                Seems I was right.

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                  Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                  There's a change to the 147 pot coming in as well. If there are 20 maximums in the season then a £1 million prize pot will be shared out to the players (i.e. if it happens, you would get £50k for each 147). I make it that there were 12 this season.

                  Other stuff:
                  Jimmy White gets another two year tour wildcard.
                  Change to the Worlds qualification - rather than all non-top-16 players having to play all the qualifying rounds, next year there'll be more rounds with higher seeded players coming in a bit later.
                  The 147 thing is the barrow boy in Barry coming out. If there are 20, you get £50k per maximum. If there are 19, nobody gets anything. The record is 13.

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                    Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post

                    Seems I was right.
                    You were definitely wrong about Thailand. Hearn won’t go near the place. Lots of allegations about Thai players being threatened by the Thai mafia to throw games, and the house where two Thai players was firebombed a few years back.

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                      Cracking final. Second final I’ve seen. Two of the beet finals ever in terms of quality. The second session by Trump was pathetic best I’ve ever seen anyone play, and the silence to roar when Higgins potted the fifteenth red was the quietest and loudest moments I’ve ever experienced, individually, let alone back to back.

                      Seriously, if you like snooker, and you’ve never been -go. Put it at the very top of your bucket list because it’s the best venue in the world.

                      And if you ever get chance to crash the after party... *winks*

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                        "Pathetic best" autocorrect for "by far the best"?

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                          Yes.

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                            Just finished watching the final. Fucking hell. The standard – of the second and third sessions especially – was just insane. That 147 attempt from Trump in the final frame of the third session, the shot where he plays the red into the top-right (on the TV) pocket, cannons the other red off the cushion and comes back down the table for the black ... wow.

                            As soon as Ronnie went out, based on the other first- and second-round matches I was able to watch significant bits of I thought Trump looked a likely winner. Although he got a bit fortunate against Un-Nooh, as Rogin said, I thought throughout he just looked far more in the zone, for much longer periods of time, than I've seen him before. And that performance in the final might be the best performance I've seen any sportsperson put in in the world championship (or equivalent) final of their sport. From the moment the second session started it was just liquid snooker. Higgins is one of the best ever (and crucially for this assessment, one of the best ever at living with this sort of opponent), and he got totally obliterated.

                            All that being said, I think my pick for 'frame of the championship', at least from the ones I've been able to watch, has to be the final frame of Higgins' semi-final. I watched the semis on one of the YouTube channels which posts short-form versions of the matches, but as soon as I realised that one was going to a decider I changed channels to another that uploaded the matches in full. Fantastic drama.

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