Stephen Lee arrested for match fixing allegations

Wasn’t that match very close to the break – up of his marriage? I think it was well known he hadn’t practised much and also he arrived in China late?

case_master wc wrote:Wasn’t that match very close to the break – up of his marriage? I think it was well known he hadn’t practised much and also he arrived in China late?

It was but still. The way he lost the last frame was very bizarre according to some witnesses. It wouldn't mean anything had there not been unusual betting patterrns. But there were.

it was a surprising scoreline in the sense the Wenbo all out attack should be playing right in to Ebdon's hands and yet he lost it 5-0.

but it was early season and Ebdon recently has played very poor early on and pulled it round at the end of the season.

ebdon being provisional 18 having won a tournament just shows how poor he has played last 2 years overall.

wildJONESEYE wrote:it was a surprising scoreline in the sense the Wenbo all out attack should be playing right in to Ebdon's hands and yet he lost it 5-0.

but it was early season and Ebdon recently has played very poor early on and pulled it round at the end of the season.

ebdon being provisional 18 having won a tournament just shows how poor he has played last 2 years overall.

The problem Wild is not about Ebdon's form or even the scoreline per se. It's about the scoreline AND the bettings on exactly that scoreline. The Maguire vs Burnett match was on telly and Burnett had still to win 3 frames. It's FAR easier to fix a match that is not on telly and losing with a nil score - that at least is entirely in your hands... Yet the investigation is still going on on the Maguire vs Burnett match while it has been dropped "satisfactorily" on the Ebdon match...
We can't do anything but to accept it and accept Ebdon was innocent but I can't help to wonder.

Wenbo is capable of whitewashing anyone in a best of 9 if they're slightly off colour and Ebdon doesn't exactly have a stonking record in best of 9 events. I believe it was a genuine result. I'd really like to have known what was going on in Burnett's mind during that 12th frame of the suspect match though. I can't believe he'd be stupid enough to fix the scores when both players knew of the patterns before the match. He did play some strange shots though didn't he?

Does anyone remember the Crucible match last year between Burnett and Maguire? Was it 8-3 or 9-3 and Maguire was way in front in the next frame? Burnett played one of the best frames of the whole fortnight just to get off that 3 scoreline!

The Cueist wrote:Burnett is dodgier than red deisel imo and should be banned from the game pronto,Lee is innocent in my humble oponion.

i agree, i think stephen lee is an honest kind and sensible man, the way he comes over is real nice, ok he is having problems and out of the top 16 but i dont think for 1 min he would fix a match. face it there is a big character difference between stephen lee and quinten hann

I'm not sure seems a bit fishy to me because it is being looked on over a period of 2 years.

N_Castle07 wrote:I'm not sure seems a bit fishy to me because it is being looked on over a period of 2 years.

I just really hope stephen is innocent in all this, i would be a sad day if he is found guilty

Sonny wrote:Wenbo is capable of whitewashing anyone in a best of 9 if they're slightly off colour and Ebdon doesn't exactly have a stonking record in best of 9 events. I believe it was a genuine result. I'd really like to have known what was going on in Burnett's mind during that 12th frame of the suspect match though. I can't believe he'd be stupid enough to fix the scores when both players knew of the patterns before the match. He did play some strange shots though didn't he?

Does anyone remember the Crucible match last year between Burnett and Maguire? Was it 8-3 or 9-3 and Maguire was way in front in the next frame? Burnett played one of the best frames of the whole fortnight just to get off that 3 scoreline!

regarding the Burnett match i remember John Parrott being very critical of that missed black to win a frame however anyone who watched Parrott playing michael White in a qualifier at prestatyn this season Parrott lost 5-0 and he missed about 10 far easier balls than burnett missed it was appalling so any ball can be missed if your head isn't right at any given time.

yes wenbo is capable however if i was a player id look forward to playing him because you get plenty of chances and Ebdon did get plenty of chances you would have thought with Ebdon's experience he would have managed to close up shop for 1 or 2 frames to nick them.

personally nothing ive actually seen suggests match fixing if im honest its just bookies being not wanting to pay out as they do.

Very good point about Parrott and the fact that any ball can be missed if you're head's not right.

But your head's not right if you think you'd fancy playing Wenbo because you get chances. You still underestimate him wild despite his performances in Shanghai and the UK

He's actually capable of winning the Worlds this year. Unlikely but he's capable.

any player that plays like wenbo is open book if you close up shop you frustrate them i dont underestimate him thats how it is.

regarding his head i now concede he is well capable of taking his chances and take them well but surely a player of Ebdon quality and we know how he plays tactically should have at minimum won a frame against him.

What 'irks' me most about this, is that apart from this type of news damaging our game, again, the muck has stuck & none of us are any the wiser if this is real or not????

I understand due process needs to be carried out, but why can't this be done before anyone is arrested & have the facts presented to the alleged conspirator?

Do I not like the way these type of issues are handled.

JohnFromLondonTown wrote:What 'irks' me most about this, is that apart from this type of news damaging our game, again, the muck has stuck & none of us are any the wiser if this is real or not????

I understand due process needs to be carried out, but why can't this be done before anyone is arrested & have the facts presented to the alleged conspirator?

Do I not like the way these type of issues are handled.

This is what I don't understand, are betting patterns evidence of wrong doing or not, this basic fact needs to be clarified. Until it is, these anomalys will keep getting flagged up, and accusations made with absolutely no action being taken!!! How many players are going to have clouds over them before something is done? The silence from the players involved is deafening. If your good name and sportsmanship was being brought into question, both by the fans and more importantly your fellow professionals and you know that you're completely innocent.......surely you'd be fighting your corner a lot stronger than what appears to be the case?

yes with respect why has it taken 2 years to reach ummmmmmm nowhere.

The Cueist wrote:Rocketron

Thing is,It all smacks of reluctant bookies apart from Burnett.

why then "apart from Burnett"? care to explain?

unusual betting patterns are not "evidence" that there is wrongdoing. they are indications that there might be wrongdoing and as such they need to be investigated.
I'm certain there is a lot of investigations done BEFORE any player is arrested and that this is an indication that there is serious suspicions. Suspicions however are no evidence that they are guilty and as long as they are no proved guilty, we must consider them innocent.
If we were the person under suspicion we wouldn't want the investigations to be rushed or conducted without the most carefull caution. We also wouldn't be exposed to the media and the public opinion. Those things take time and to be fair must be done with discretion.
What I don't understand is why so many "target" on Burnett, unless you have knowledge I don't.
From the 3 cases at hand this is the one that is in my eyes the most unlikely to be actual cheating. If you want to lose on purpose you can ALWAYS make sure you will be beaten 0-something. Winning 3 frames against Maguire was never a certainty unless they were both in it. Given Maguire's profile that match was also a certainty to be on telly, hence a much higher risk for the cheating to be "visible". Also the bettings had been frozen days before the match and the whole affair (if there is an affair) had been exposed ... so why carry on with it?

The Cueist wrote:He looks sheepish and ill at ease,A bit like his shot selections.

Well that isn't evidence is it? Of course he was nervous under the circumstances: everyone knew about the suspicion of cheating BEFORE the match and everyone knew the match would be monitored.

Exactly. It makes no sense to fix the scores when you know that everyone knows you're being watched and knows what the score is meant to be.

Did he have a choice? If a load of people he knew had lumped money on he might not have been able to back out.

Now to the scoreline, 10-0 is far to obvious imo, you would fancy winning 3 frames in a best of 19. It was done before at the crucible and 10-3 was the scoreline then also. If the investigation is still going I think that also says a lot, there must be other evidence keeping it going

case_master wc wrote:Did he have a choice? If a load of people he knew had lumped money on he might not have been able to back out.

Now to the scoreline, 10-0 is far to obvious imo, you would fancy winning 3 frames in a best of 19. It was done before at the crucible and 10-3 was the scoreline then also. If the investigation is still going I think that also says a lot, there must be other evidence keeping it going

That may well be the case indeed. But then Maguire has not been "cleared" neither...

Monique wrote:

case_master wc wrote:Did he have a choice? If a load of people he knew had lumped money on he might not have been able to back out.

Now to the scoreline, 10-0 is far to obvious imo, you would fancy winning 3 frames in a best of 19. It was done before at the crucible and 10-3 was the scoreline then also. If the investigation is still going I think that also says a lot, there must be other evidence keeping it going

That may well be the case indeed. But then Maguire has not been "cleared" neither...

Yes very true Monique, aren't they good friends?

case_master wc wrote:

Monique wrote:

case_master wc wrote:Did he have a choice? If a load of people he knew had lumped money on he might not have been able to back out.

Now to the scoreline, 10-0 is far to obvious imo, you would fancy winning 3 frames in a best of 19. It was done before at the crucible and 10-3 was the scoreline then also. If the investigation is still going I think that also says a lot, there must be other evidence keeping it going

That may well be the case indeed. But then Maguire has not been "cleared" neither...

Yes very true Monique, aren't they good friends?

It can be construed as that because if you think about it, most city's will have one main Snooker Club that a lot of Pro's use to practice against each other, to test thier game against the strongest opponent available. Whether that makes them friends or not is another thing. I shouldn't think they've had their photo's taken much with each other since though.

The problem with the Maguire vs Burnett match, is that Maguire would've had to have been in on it, as it was betting on a score-game, rather then betting on a white-wash. With the Liang Wenbo game, Ebdon could've lost it, without Liang knowing anything about it.

For Stephen, world number 2 at the time, to agree to something like that and going through with it, once they knew the match was under investigation (which they did by the time of the break-off shot), then he'd have to be proper, proper stupid.