The Masters 2022 - A few takeaways from the week

 Neil Robertson last night claimed his second Masters title with a 10-4 victory over Barry Hawkins in front of another packed house at the Alexandra Palace. In truth the final itself was a bit of a damp squib, but that in no way takes away from what was another fabulous week of drama on the green baize. 

So here are some of my takeaways from the week.

1. In the days following Zhao's victory in the UK Championship & then Brecel's victory in the Scottish Open, many were quick to jump on the bandwagon that we were now seeing a changing of the guard. What we saw here was, that for all the talent they undoubtedly possess, these young guns have a bit to go to match the ring craft of the old guard just yet. Both Yan & Zhou were out played & out thought by Williams & Higgins respectively.There is no disgrace in that & they both strike me as the type of people who will learn from the experience.The point is that anyone who thought these great champ would now disappear gently into the good night, were maybe jumping the gun a bit.

2. Judd Trump's quest for another Triple Crown title fell short again with his 6-5 defeat to Barry Hawkins in the semi final. As I said before, I think its inevitable he will top Ronnie's ranking title haul & he should be the first player to reach the 2000 century mark, but unless his record improves in these events, he will never take his place among the real greats of the sport. that said I think there were some real flashes this week of the Judd of the last few seasons emerging again.I have a feeling we wont be waiting too long to see him with another trophy., but its what he does at The Crucible, that will define his season.

3. It was surprising to see us all to see how badly Mark Selby was playing on Friday evening & unfortunately the answer cut more deeply than it being a simple bad night at the office.On Saturday,he revealed on twitter that he is currently struggling with his mental health & is now seeking the help he requires to get him through these troubles. This was an extraordinarily brave thing for him to do & all we can do is wish him the very best.He hopefully takes great encouragement from the outpouring of support he received following the tweet. Thankfully we are now living in a time where peoples understanding of mental health issues are growing all the time.None of us are immune & seeing people like Mark standing up in this way may encourage others to seek the help they need also.

4. We heard endless commentary on the atmosphere at the Ally  Pally this week & for the most part it was excellent, but lets be honest, there were also times when things really threatened to get out of hand. The fact that these incidents mostly happened in the evening session is probably no coincidence. This is where the refs need to be aided by strong stewarding & some chucking out if necessary. I don't know what it was like there, but it certainly made for some uncomfortable viewing.This is not a road we want to see the sport slip down. Maybe in future Rob could tone down the hyping up of the crowd a bit for the evening sessions & this also applies to whoever is in charge of the music that is pumped in between frames. We have a great sport that is built on respect at every level, lets not let that be ruined by a few idiots.

5. I posted a tweet during the week about what a wonderful job John Virgo was doing in the commentary box & the massive positive reaction I got, yet again showed what an unforgivable mistake it would be for the BBC to drop him at the end of the season. "JV"brings something extra to a commentary that just isn't there with anyone else across all snooker broadcasting. Good and all as Stephen Hendry is, its particularly noticeable  how much his standard improves when he is alongside Virgo. This is what the best do in any sphere, they raise the performance of those around them. Hopefully the powers that be reconsider. They got it wrong a number of years ago when they prematurely benched Clive Everton. Hopefully lightening doesn't strike twice.     

6. Finally though lets salute our champion once again. This was Robertson sixth Triple Crown title & that total only really starts to reflect what wonderful player he is.Its probably fair to say he wasn't at his absolute best this week & really should have gone out to Williams in that epic semi final, but yesterday, when the chance came, he powered through the finish line like all great champions do. This win was bridging a 10 year gap since his first Masters title & he'll be hoping it can be the catalyst to him filling in that other great omission on his cv, another world title to go with is  2010 crown. For now though lets all rise for one of sports greatest ambassadors.

UK Championship A Round Up

Zhao Xintong last night announced himself as one of the stars of our sport, with a superb 10-5 victory over Luca Brecel to claim the 2021 UK Championship title.

Zhao has been on the radar of those in the game for a long time & long flagged as one of the most talented players we've ever seen, but his career has not been plain sailing to this point. Just three years ago he fell off the tour, but bounced straight back on through Q School. Since then he's done ok ,but to this week, hadn't really been pulling up any trees.That all changed here though, as he produced a series of stunning performances on his way to the title.

For all the long potting, which was unbelievable by the way, it was also his style of play around the table that got people excited.He hits the ball so crisply, seeming to get maximum cueball control from little effort. It was said many times last week & I agree with it, that to watch him is reminiscent of watching a young Jimmy White. Perhaps though the most impressive thing of the lot was his ability to power through the finish line in his matches showing no fear of success. This above all else may be the thing that elevates him to the very top of the game.

This may also prove to be a big week in the career of Luca Brecel. His performance to beat Kyren Wilson in the semi final was snooker as well as it can be played. Luca has been around a while now and everyone knows how good he is, but if he's had one fault over the years , it has been in the shot selection department. The old adage that 90% of the game is playing the right shot is as true at the top of the game as it is down the club for a league match on a Tuesday night. It was good to hear him say in interviews this week that he is making a conscious effort this season to address this failing. That can only stand him in good stead for the future.

The joy and excitement we saw over the weekend was a far cry from the controversial early days of the tournament.The whole  "amateurgate" controversy after Shaun Murphys comments overshadowed the early days & without getting in to it, I think Murphy will be the first to accept it was not the time to bring it all up. Worse still was Neil Robertson, who created the ultimate rod for his own back ,by weighing in to the debate before his match up with the "amateur" John Astley. Whether this has any bearing on the match we'll never know, but I'd say if he had his time again , he'd have kept his mouth shut.

The other great online debate of the early days came following the failure once again of Judd Trump to make a showing in a Triple Crown event. Its now 10 years since he won his only UK title & his record in the big ones is in sharp contrast to the other events on tour that he regularly hoovers up.The question is can he be considered a true great if his record doesn't improve in these events? Well of course the first thing to say is, it still can improve, he still has many years to go before we're assessing his ultimate place on the all time list, but for me ,even if as I expect, he becomes the first player to top 50 ranking titles , unless his Triple crown record improves, he wont be challenging the sports "Mt Rushmore".

The old "class of '92" all failed to reach the weekend ,with Willaims , still suffering the after effects of Covid, going out to Hamilton, Higgins falling in a decider to Zhao & Ronnie losing out in another decider to Kyren Wilson in the last 8.  World champion Mark Selby also failed to make an impact, losing out to another young star in Hossein Vafaei.

On the back of all this ,there will be those who will suggest that we have now seen a changing of the guard in the sport, but such talk is certainly a bit premature. The current big names haven't gone away & they will be chomping at the bit to get back in ring, starting at this weeks Scottish Open. The one thing we did see yesterday & it was particularly apparent on social media, was a genuine excitement about the final. There is a feeling watching the triumph of Zhao Xintong, that we are getting in on the ground floor of what could be a glittering career. The future all of a sudden looks very bright.

Damned Lies & Snooker Statistics

 A number of years ago The Racing Post published a table that showed the win/loss percentages of the top jockeys in photo finishes,where the margin was a short head. At this time Tony McCoy was the biggest name in the sport, "the punters pal" who,when it came to the small margins, could be relied upon above all others to galvanise every last effort from his mount. However in this study his record was a distant second to Mick Fitzgerald.This provoked a lot of discussion in racing circles at the time,as a indisputable truth held by many,had now been proven to be wrong or had it? Taken in isolation the figures don't lie,but what a percentage written on a page couldn't quantify is the number of times that the genius of McCoy got a horse to within a short head of victory, when others would have trailed in way behind.In actual fact he was  being a victim of his own success.

A love of stats has been a growing phenomenon in most sports in recent times with the easy access we all have to information at our fingertips,to a large degree this is a good thing,but we need to be careful what we gleam from them. 

For a recent example ,take John Higgins. At the weekend he lost his third final in the space of the last five weeks. If this was another pro with no titles to his name & he kept losing finals, you could probably point to his lack of bottle & question if he really was the top player, but with John,as when he lost those three world finals in a row in recent years,instead of looking at these as negatives ,these defeats can be looked at as proof of just how good Higgins still is.In each of these events, there were numerous times when lesser players would have gone out, but the fighting spirit that John has shown throughout his career kept coming to the fore  & although he ultimately ran out of steam in each of the finals, his efforts in getting their should only enhance his reputation instead of diminishing it. The lesson here is that life is more complicated than the final score.

The same can be said for the century break. These are another bunch of numbers loved by the stats boys who obsess over the amount made by individuals in  their careers or the amount made in a particular tournament or indeed season. Last week we saw Neil Robertson reach the milestone of 800 career centuries,while Mark Selby recorded his 700th. Laudable personal achievements these may be, should these modern records been used as sticks with which to beat those of previous generations? Yes the modern game produces a lot more century breaks than we saw 20/30 years ago,but to say this is purely down to a higher standard is over simplifying things & again speaks of a failure to look behind the numbers.

 The game I started watching in the 80's is very different to what we see today, with heavier clothes & snooker balls making a lot of the shots we see as standard today impossible to play back then. Hendry is credited with pioneering the shot off the blue to break open the pack in 90's, but the fact is that this shot was not possible before then, or to put it a better way, it was not a percentage play with the force needed to achieve it on slower tables. 

Percentage snooker was the approach of  the vast majority back then ,with a century break only something to be pursued if the opportunity arose once the frame was safely in the bag .At the other end of that spectrum you had the likes of Alex Higgins, who went in to full exhibition mode once the frame was secured. Does anyone who saw Alex at his best really think 87 official career centuries is any barometer of his status in the game compared to the monster totals we see now? or for that matter, is it any measure of  Ray Reardon with his  total of 53?

OK you may shout, if centuries are not the infallible way to judge greatness,surely there is no disputing total ranking titles as the ultimate measure of success? Well yes and no. A look at the current leaderboard of ranking titles certainly  seems to back up that thesis ,with the top four places occupied by O'Sullivan 37, Hendry 36, Higgins 31 & Davis 28. The problems start yet again when you start to delve deeper. Yes Steve Davis has 28,but he had far fewer ranking tournaments to play in in his prime than the others have had & indeed his first two UK Championship finals weren't even ranking events.Even when we get to the Hendry era, though the number did increase, it was nowhere near where it has been in over the past decade.

So if century breaks & ranking titles won aren't reliable, then what is?Well now we get to the real problem,because the answer is no statistic taken in isolation is. I was a life long Steve Davis supporter so in the above paragraph I stated some facts about numbers that supported my argument for his place at the top table. if I was a Hendry fan, I'd point to his 7 world titles as the ultimate accolade in the game, a Ronnie fan, will say look  his Triple Crown record and longevity in the sport, in the next decade when Trump inevitably breaks the ranking title & century records ,his fans will no doubt hail him as well.Likewise many will read my above comparisons with the century breaks & see my argument to be me just looking at the past through rose tinted glasses.

The trick for us all is to enjoy what we are watching, remember the special nights& milestones we witness & to try not fall too far down the stats rabbit hole.As Homer Simpson said "People can come up with statistics to prove anything, 40% of all people know that"

 

    

A Storm in a T-Shirt

 One of the great myths in sport is the story of the great wave of new fans who are only waiting to start watching, if only we change X,Y,Z. Maybe its a case with all minority sports, but the two I follow most closely, namely snooker & horse racing, both seem to be becoming ever more obsessed with  subscribing to this falsehood. Watching British racing from afar, this has lead to a situation where the sport has actually started to slowly eat itself from the inside. Thankfully in snooker we haven't quite reached that level of self-flagellation yet,but after reading some of the comments surrounding the sport in recent times, we can't get too complacent. 

Over the last few months it seems everyone in the sport is coming forward with idea's as to what we need to do to open the floodgates to these vast numbers of new fans who are only waiting to come aboard. These have varied from shorter matches, to newer commentators, to shorter matches at the world championship,to a different venue for the world championship & most persistently a change to the dress code, which brings us to this weeks Champion of Champions event in ITV4.

Hinted at in recent weeks & unveiled over the weekend, this matchroom promoted event will see the player don black shiny polo shirts, with their name on the back as well as their nicknames.In a word, these look awful. Since its revival in in 2013 ,The Champion of Champions has quickly established itself as one of the games most prestigious events, but these changes make it look almost tacky.

This is not to say I'm against everything that isn't a waistcoat & bow-tie , I think the open neck black shirts the use for Home Nations events are casual without looking scruffy & the named polo shirts they wear in the shoot out suit that event,

 My real question here is to what purpose are these been changes made? If its it to give the event its own separate identity, then it might achieve that (,but not in the way they hope).it could also be designed to catch the eye of the casual punter flicking through the channels by looking less formal . or it may even be a marketing ploy that hopes to see young snooker fans going online to buy replicas of their favourite players.Whatever the thinking behind it, for me it misses the mark.

Apparently Judd Trump was part of the consultation process on this, Judd has been one of the most vocal of the sport participants when it had come to airing his views on things in the sport over the last year & whereas I would disagree with him in almost everything he has suggested, I do accept its all coming from a good place & a genuine desire to to see the sport grow.As far as I'm concerned though ,both he & the governing body are barking up the wrong tree with this. 

The irony is, for all we hear about the stuffy old formal wear turning people away from the sport, I have seen in my own club on many occasions the excitement & pride on the faces of the junior members when they are fitted for their club waistcoats for the first time.They see it as snooker uniform & something to work towards. I don't think a shiny club polo shirt would carry the same gravitas.

Ultimately of course this week will be judged & remembered by what we see on the table ,not by what the players are wearing, but we can't get complacent about what makes our sport so special. If we go too far down the road of dumbing it down, we not only run the risk of not attracting new fans,but also alienating the ones we already have.

 

Northern Irish Open - Talking Points

After a 6 week break since the British Open, the first of the seasons Home Nations events in Belfast ,was much anticipated in the snooker community & as a spectacle it certainly lived up to expectations.

Mark Allen

There really is only one place to start with a review of the week & that is with our champion. Since this tournament came back on to the calendar 6 years ago Allen's record in it had been patchy at  best, but with the home crowd getting ever more excited as the week went on & the pressure increasing on him,he continuously rose to the occasion.Just how much winning this title meant to him was obvious as he potted match ball in the final. Allen has for years been one of the top players in the game & should really have more titles to his name.Hopefully he can now get his off table issues sorted to everyone's satisfaction & start pushing again for the big ones.

John Higgins

When Higgins moved two up with three to play the other night, it seemed yet another ranking title was heading its way back to Scotland, but he just couldn't land the final blow. That shouldn't take away from another great week for the "The Wizard of Wishaw". At the end of last season John seems to have made the decision that if he is to last in this game he needed to make some lifestyle changes. Over the summer he adopted a serious fitness regime & the results were there to see last week. In so far any of these things can predicted,I would be shocked if we don't see him lift a few trophies this season. 

The men in form

The old Championship Leagues over the last two seasons have been much derided by snooker fans, but victory for David Gilbert in its most recent incarnation, not only removed the "best player to not win a ranking title" from his cv ,but has also given him the confidence in himself to mix it with the best. Once again here he played really well all week before going down to Higgins in the last 8. On this form he'll certainly be going deep in plenty of tournaments this season.

Also in this category I'd put two players at opposite ends of their careers. Ricky Walden has been plagued by injury the last few years, but with those issues seemingly behind him he looked like his old self here again here & at the other end of the age spectrum, Yan Bingtao, continues to impress with his all round matchplay. Its hard to believe he is still only 21 & he continues to look the natural successor to Ding Junhui as the standard bearer from China.

Tetchy Ronnie

One again last week Ronnie O'Sullivan made the headlines & not for what he did on the table. Over the few days he was in the tournament he made a series of statements that, as ever with him, bore a fair bit of truth,  but could have been expressed more diplomatically. For example I don't think anyone would argue that a Home Nations win is equal to a Triple Crown victory,but to look back at some of the victors in these events they have provided their career highlight & that should not be minimised.Also his comments about the lack of atmosphere were fair enough,but do we expect much else in the early rounds,  especially in a multi table set up? Anyway no matter what we do in life, we have times where we're just not feeling it & last week seemed to be that for Ronnie.Hopefully the next event see's him in better humour.

Return of the crowds

Finally much was made again during the week of the return of the viewing public & how much more we appreciate them after all the closed door tournaments last season. The crowd certainly got more involved as the week went on & by Sunday night, with the home favourite in the final, they were in full voice. The scenes here were reminiscent of the old Wembley Conference centre & although they did at times threaten to stray over the line of what is acceptable , there is no doubting the part they played in the dramatic finale.It was great to see.

So there we have it, A couple more weeks of qualifiers now to keep us entertained before the English Open begins on November 1st & from then on to Christmas its go,go,go.

Talk to ye again next week.

The "147" Still Magical After All These Years

 This was the only time in all the years I'd known Joe that he revealed nerves.When the cheering had died down an we began to move from the table to my office he gasped; Ted! For Gods sake pour me a large brandy". After sinking it even faster than the last black in his 147, he phoned his wife June, who knew how much that maximum break meant to him and told her the good news. Understandably enough, she burst into tears.- Ted Lowe on the Joe Davis's first 147.

There was a moment the other day, when Mark Allen rolled in that length of the table yellow to keep his break alive, that the camera flicked to the audience & people were literally hopping up and down from their seats with excitement. If anything shows just what a hold moments like these have over the snooker world, it was this. After all, can you think of any other sporting achievement that still means so much after it has been done for the 170th time?

This coming January 11th, we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first official televised 147, when Steve Davis took 11 minutes & 53 seconds to create that bit of snooker magic at The Oldham Civic Centre, famously winning a Lada Car for his trouble ( the tournament was the Lada Classic after all )

By irony his opponent on the night was John Spencer, who a couple of years previously had been denied this honour when the tv cameras were not rolling for his "maxi" & the break itself was then confined to history because the pockets were not templated properly.

Over the years of course we have seen the number of players achieving the break continuously increase,but still in 40 years, when you look at the amount of frames played, 170 is still a small enough number to make being a member of the club feel pretty exclusive.

This is understandable when you think of all the things that have to fall in to place to make it possible.Firstly you have to pot the opening red and finish on the black. Ideally this would be early in the frame,before any safety has pushed reds to safe positions.Then, if you've started with three or four reds & blacks, you might start to think  "this is on" ,but the state of the match comes in to play. The first priority in every frame is to win it, so invariably at some stage a player will have to make a conscious decision to commit to it, often turning down easier position on another colour to stay on the black. If a match is still in the balance this is a brave choice to make. Once the tenth red has gone down the frame is safe,but now nerves come in to it. At this stage the crowd are all fully aware of whats happening and are willing every ball in. As their excitement builds you need to keep your own in check. If you are playing in a multi table arena, play will have stopped on those tables as you start to clear the colours.All eyes are on you now & everyone expects you to do it. You have cleared the colours hundreds of thousands of times, but this is different. Palms getting sweaty you try to stay calm. Eventually you get to the final black, ideally just off straight with your hand on the table, you roll it in & the place erupts.

Sadly at times, after completing all the hard work, that final black at times can prove at step too far. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh ,twice missed the final black in the same season, but the most famous final black miss was from poor old  Ken Doherty. Playing Matthew Stevens in the 2000 Masters final, with the 147 prize of a Honda Sportscar waiting to be claimed, Ken missed the easiest of blacks.The crowd still rose to give a standing ovation as Ken departed the table, but this was more the clap of sympathy you get at football matches when a player is stretchered off. Thankfully Ken did get to join the "147 club" later in his career, but after his World championship win in 1997, it is that missed black he will be most remembered for.

In the 40 yrs since Steve created that piece of snooker history, we have witnessed  so many great maximum moments, so whether your favourite is Bill Werbernuik peaking around the curtain at his friend Cliff Thorburn, Kirk Stevens leaping in the air, Ronnie whizzing around in 5 minutes or one you were in the audience to witness yourself ( for me it was standing backstage in the arena as Ding Junhui cleared the colours in the PTC Garnd Finals in Galway) Long may the 147 be something that thrills the snooker world.

The Ranking Problems Solved- A Proposal

 Well after a bit of a false start in August,the season gets going again in earnest this weekend with the Northern Ireland Open kicking off in the wonderful Waterfront theatre in Belfast. With this in mind I figured it was high time I revved up the old blog again, but now in the guise of a weekly column covering some of the hot topics in the sport. 

The question then was where to start? I decided I might as well go all in with a new proposal designed to solve the problems with our current ranking system.

One of the early changes made during the "Hearn revolution" was to address the problems with the old ranking system.The system, as it was,was stagnant & served only to protect those at the top of the game.The changes made introduced a 2 year rolling ranking system based solely on money earned.This on the face of it seemed much fairer, as players were rewarded on current form, but problems also emerged.Chief among these was the discrepancy in prize money between the world championship and every other event.

For the most obvious example we have to look back at the 2015/16 season.In the May of 2015, Stuart Bingham had sprung one of sports biggest surprises when he beat Shaun Murphy in the final to claim the world title. This undoubtedly is the pinnacle for any snooker player,but it comes with its own baggage. For the following year, you are introduced wherever you go as "The world champion".This can weigh heavy on your shoulders & especially as a first time winner. That was certainly the case with Stuart, as he struggled with the new level of expectation on him & he arrived at the Crucible the following year with just one final appearance & a string of early defeats to his name.Despite this however & because of the enormous level of prizemoney available at the Crucible, he was still only a victory or two there form ending the season as world no.1. Not even Stuart's biggest fans could have suggested at the time that such a ranking was a fair reflection of current form

This again reared its head last month,when by virtue of his most recent world championship victory Mark Selby ascended to the top of the ranking again, much to the disgust of his predecessor Judd Trump. Now this one was slightly different, the last two seasons have seen the calendar chop & change,so prizemoney form the pre covid world can be lost without a like for like chance to stop the damage, but even allowing for that, can anyone really argue that considering the way he has dominated the last two seasons, that Trump isn't the worlds best player?

These are only a couple of examples & the world championship is at the extreme,but when things get back to normal & we have some of those big money tournaments in China again, there is a real danger things get tilted too far towards a certain events.

So whats the answer? 

Well for me I've always liked to idea of a more structured points system. So my proposal is we set the events in to four tiers. Now despite with I've said above I do believe that nothing should rival the world championship, so that would be the sole Tier One event, but the rest ,based on prestige would be divided up between the other three tiers.

Tier One -World Championship

Tier Two - eg. UK Championship, International Championship, China Open 

Tier Three -eg Home Nations events, British Open 

Tier Four -eg. Gibraltar Open, Shoot Out

The points would the be distributed as follows

                                      Tier One    Tier Two      Tier Three    Tier Four

Winner                           1500             1000                  750              600

Runner Up                     1000              750                   600              450

Semi Final                       750               600                   450              300

Last 8                               600               450                   300              150

Last 16                             450               300                   150              100

Last 32                             300               150                   100                50

Last 64                             150               100                     50                25

Last 128                              0                  0                        0                  0

*Two quick notes here,the points for the world championship qualifiers would have to be decided on which qualifying system is in use & places in the Cazoo series would still decided as now on prize money. Which tier each event in this series would hall in to would also have to be decided upon.

 The post covid landscape allows the opportunity to redraw the calendar & if its done properly with this system, it allows players a better opportunity to structure their seasons around the events they want to play in,with a view to peaking at the right times. A new calendar may be something I visit again in coming weeks.  

One potential drawback with this is where is the incentive for places to put on new events with bigger prize money? This is however where I see a real chance to shake things up,with events not coming up to scratch facing demotion. By this I mean an event must be held to a certain standard regardless of prizemoney om offer ,that is playing conditions, venue ,atmosphere. fans. The incentive is that events that meet these standards can be promoted up a tier. As years go by maybe a 5th tier could be introduced to accommodate more events based on this template.

So there you have it. My proposal to solve the ranking crisis. Please let me know what you think.