Agree with this 100%

drastically shortened many tournaments to increase variance (uk championship the best example), changed formats so that everybody started at a very early level regardless of world ranking, increasing numbers of tournaments in ridiculous areas (whole ranking tour in china, ranking events in hotbeds of snooker like bulgaria, latvia, poland and portugal). if anyone thinks that having a major tournament be best of 7 throughout and held in ****ing thailand then they're crazy.

Tend to agree with the above.

Thankfully, the WC appears to be sacrosanct.

Re: Age. Snooker players seem to fall off a cliff way before 40. I think it's purely physical. Technical precision is much more important in snooker than pool so even if there is only a slight deterioration in e.g. eyesight and muscle coordination then performance will decline at the elite level.

I have nothing to back this up. It's just seems to be the prevailing theory and I agree with it. I think it explains why this phenomenon occurs in snooker players and not pool players where technique is less important. It also goes some way to explain why Ronnie can play at such a high level in his late 30s (which is definitely an anomaly) as he is in great physical shape.

not only does ronnie keep himself in good shape, but he doesn't play anywhere near the full tour, even when he's not taking extended periods away from the game. plenty of players other than ronnie has said the tour is ridiculous nowadays, but most of them still play it all and they've got to be burning themselves out quicker

dennis taylor is a legend and my favorite commentator! haters gon'

I agree with this I was more interested in why you think shortening the maximum bonus is so bad

It's something the fans want to see and it's still a very hard thing to do and should be rewarded as such. It's only as high as it is now because it's rolled over several times

I didn't know if it was a Hearn idea, but I liked the idea of Power Snooker. Not as a replacement for the real stuff of course, but maybe an event once or twice a year. Was fun to watch both times

Shame that it didnt catch on

Yeah power snooker was fun too watch! I completely forgot about it though until you brought it up 😂

wait wat judd trump is sponsored by burger king

We play 6 reds for our summer league - 8 frames of singles and 2 doubles matches (all players are individually handicapped) with a minimum of 4 players needed in a team.

I was a bit of a traditionalist but it is actually good fun, taken lightheartedly by most and you can turn up in jeans and a T-Shirt to play when the (English) weather is good enough.

I never got to a level where playing in jeans and t-shirt wasnt standard... only played with friends which is also why when we got to use a real snooker table, we played with 15 reds. Snooker tables aren't that common in germany, 90% of the time we had to use a pool one, where 6 or 10 reds are preferable.

selby shook

my mate robbie qualified again , out in the first round to bingham 10-7. gave a better account of himself compared with the battering he took against robertson last year

Trump-Ronnie semifinal looks tasty

yes that could be a cracker!

I think Judd would win that - I'm not convinced at the moment that Ronnie will get through the quarters.

So far 2 of my bets through to semi's - Murphy and Trump! Just need Ronnie to get through now.

sorry for jinxing everyone

You have not jinxed me , i have Murphy at 10s so it was a good day for me on that front.

I am not surprised Ronnie lost yesterday, he's not really been at the races in this years tournament, he seemed distracted and never seemed to settle at all.

inb4 hawkins vs bingham final

would be something different i guess

hawkins shook

...

This is a good one. You realize I hope that Willie has probably forgotten more about snooker than you'll ever know. If he says a shot is on and you don't think so from where you're sitting, it's going to be your error like 99% of the time.