Snooker

[Jaqen]

Snooker needs to bring back the real prizes..like when Ding won his bodyweight in Pukka Pies for winning the UK Championship. 

 

[gbandit]

Maybe that’s why Ding’s game has dropped off, been necking a diet of only Pukka Pies for the last few years 

[MrRaspberryJam]

 

[Guest neesy111]

On 04/05/2022 at 13:54, ManDoon said:

Let them smoke tabs again imo 

 

Honestly shows how good the hurricane was when he was making century breaks while absolutely pissed.

[Guest neesy111]

Just now, ManDoon said:

Mad story but my mum went on a date with hurricane haha 

 

Wow.  Probably one of many (nothing against your mum of course)

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

 

[Lazarus]

[Guest neesy111]

Obvious reference to him being a hurricane if no one can read the room.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

We can read the room, but still  

[Jaqen]

Probably a bit lost with the WC going on Gary Wilson but the Scottish Open earlier Knocked out Ronnie and won the final 9-2.

[dembabah]

Alleged match fixing.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/snooker/63945840.amp

[gbandit]

Pretty mental the amount of Chinese players banned and under investigation, up to 8 now. Imagine spending your life in dingy rooms with no sunlight clocking up 8 hours + of practice everyday only to throw it away when you go pro 

[Jaqen]

2 hours ago, gbandit said:

Pretty mental the amount of Chinese players banned and under investigation, up to 8 now. Imagine spending your life in dingy rooms with no sunlight clocking up 8 hours + of practice everyday only to throw it away when you go pro 

 

Will need to see what comes out in the investigation but it's a bit of a shame if it's a situation which Trump thinks it is of young Chinese lads coming to this country being targeted and 'forced' into it. 

 

Obviously no sympathy for them if it's a Stephen Lee type thing.

[gbandit]

Finish him Milkins

[Danh1]

Delighted for Milkins. Nice little windfall for him. 

[Jaqen]

Really enjoying Stephen Hendry's YouTube channel. 

[O Neill]

On 24/12/2022 at 15:59, Jaqen said:

 

Will need to see what comes out in the investigation but it's a bit of a shame if it's a situation which Trump thinks it is of young Chinese lads coming to this country being targeted and 'forced' into it. 

 

Obviously no sympathy for them if it's a Stephen Lee type thing.

 

One of my colleagues (Colin Poultney) does a lot of photography on the circuit. He thinks the genuine lack of prize money and decline in sponsors is probably the most significant factor. I'm not hugely invested in what prize money payments are, but from what he tells me, making money that you can live on is not a certainty for players even as high as the top 32. To me that sounds pretty incredible that someone could be a professional, playing every other week, but be struggling to get by, let alone put money in the bank. I can imagine the temptation is there, if someone offers you a big sum of cash to fix a scoreline. For some of these kids, it's probably funding their ability to continue playing. It's not right, but to counter it, they may have to look at ways to restructure the tour.

As I said, I'm not hugely invested in most of the political goings-on, but didn't Hearn at one point try to generate interest in the sport by pitching different ideas that he felt would appeal to the public, along similar lines to darts? The players seemed to be against any proposed changes, and it sounds like money is a real issue that is now impacting on integrity.

 

On 22/02/2023 at 23:55, Jaqen said:

Really enjoying Stephen Hendry's YouTube channel. 

 

I found it surprisingly refreshing as well.

 

 

Edited February 24 by O Neill

[Jaqen]

34 minutes ago, O Neill said:

 

One of my colleagues (Colin Poultney) does a lot of photography on the circuit. He thinks the genuine lack of prize money and decline in sponsors is probably the most significant factor. I'm not hugely invested in what prize money payments are, but from what he tells me, making money that you can live on is not a certainty for players even as high as the top 32. To me that sounds pretty incredible that someone could be a professional, playing every other week, but be struggling to get by, let alone put money in the bank. I can imagine the temptation is there, if someone offers you a big sum of cash to fix a scoreline. For some of these kids, it's probably funding their ability to continue playing. It's not right, but to counter it, they may have to look at ways to restructure the tour.

As I said, I'm not hugely invested in most of the political goings-on, but didn't Hearn at one point try to generate interest in the sport by pitching different ideas that he felt would appeal to the public, along similar lines to darts? The players seemed to be against any proposed changes, and it sounds like money is a real issue that is now impacting on integrity.

 

 

I found it surprisingly refreshing as well.

 

 

 

 

The Matt Selt interview with Hendry on his channel actually covers the prize money issue quite a bit. Outside the top 16 it's basically a huge struggle. Can see how's it's hugely demoralising dedicating your life to something practicising 6/7 hours a day then having to go to random villages around the UK to play qualifiers in empty rooms despite being top 20 in the world at your sport. Then when you do play you have all the added pressure of playing for ranking points. 

 

Ronnie gets stick for saying he wouldn't encourage people into the sport or for semi pros to keep it like that and just view snooker as a bonus when they do well but he's right really. It's an incredibly time consuming sport, you spend the majority of it practicing, travelling and in hotels all over the place alone for very little reward unless you're in the top 16/regularly making deep tournament runs. 

[O Neill]

I actually read something the other day highlighting that tennis has the most matches currently investigation for potential of match fixing. It's not unlike snooker, in that it's a 1 vs 1 sport, where money starts to become tighter once you drop outside the top 50 or so.

 

I'll have a look at the Hendry conversation with Selt this afternoon. It sounds like the sort of transparency within sports that there needs to be more of. I completely understand why Ronnie gets stick for voicing that opinion. To the outsider, who isn't educated on the business side of the game, it probably looks like he's being disrespectful. He's clearly earned good money from the game and it will seem to many that he's trying to frighten people off to protect his own income from the sport. It's sad, but people often don't want to hear what reality is like.

 

I've been through similar things in sports photography. Like Ronnie, I wouldn't advise any kid to look at it as a serious profession. You've more chance of playing in the Premier League these days, than making a liveable wage from sports photography. Yet, I've taken more than my fair share of stick from people, simply because I've tried to do the right thing and warn people of what the reality is like. Over the years I've seen people give up comfortable jobs with good wages, then realise that they can't make more than £100 a month doing something that they had convinced themselves was going to be lucrative.

 

I think with certain sports and professions, people are convinced that behind the curtain that everyone is doing well financially. The reality for sports like snooker is that it's a struggle to put together a tour. It's a long way from the 80s and 90s where the tobacco and alcohol sponsorships kept things afloat.

[Jaqen]

Mark King the latest to be banned due to betting irregularities in this match against Perry. 

 

Hard to prove on bad shots alone but does look like he's genuinely trying to miss quite a few of these 

 

 

[gbandit]

At first I thought some of the shots could be put down to just poor play but one of the cuts isn’t the middle on a red looked really dodgy and another couple looked really odd the way it was cued too. There’ll be experts that will be able to say whether he’s delivering the cue on those shots in a markedly different way but it doesn’t look good. Snooker’s in a complete mess at the moment 

[El Prontonise]

There's a very line between deliberately missing or missing because you've had a very bad night of sleep etc.  Some of those shots look suspicious mind.