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Half Time Discussion

Postby PLtheRef

With the exception of course of the Last 128 matches for the German Masters and the Haikou World Open the end of the UK Championships essentially marks the half way point in the 2013/14 season

With that in mind, here are some questions


Which player (or players) have impressed you most?

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most?

Which player (or players) have surprised you most?

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked?

What do you predict for the remainder of the season?

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Andre147

Some interesting questions there PL and a good time to reflect on the first half of the season since the year is almost done.

Which player (or players) have impressed you most?

I'll go for the obvious choices here and say, firstly, Robbo and Ding. Robbo for the sheer amount of tons he's already had this season, his amazing consistency in all tournaments and by winning the Triple Crown of Snooker. Then Ding because he did something not been done since Hendry in 1990 which was of course win 3 rankers in a row. Ronnie too deserves a mention here, for the reason he won the CoC and the will he had there for the battle, so great to see when his heart and head is 100% focused on winning. Lastly, Bingham for reaching the Final of the CoC, and the way he performed at the UK Champs, knocking Ronnie out and coming back from 8-3 down in his semi, only to lose the decider. Forgot to mention Fu who in this 2013 year is having the year of his life, has reached 3 ranking finals, winning one of them.

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most?

I'll have to say Higgins first here, because I thought at the beggining of the season when the reached the final of the Wuxi and won a PTC he would have a great season, but no since then I don't think I've ever seen him play so badly, and his cue change is no excuse whatsoever for that. Trump too has disappointed, although I see some good signs from him in the upcoming 2nd half. Lisoswki, Michael White and Brecel for instance too have disappointed me, particularly Luca because he had a great chance of beating Mags at the UK Champs but some rash shots cost him the match.

Which player (or players) have surprised you most?

To start, Mehta for reaching the Indian Open final and making that home tourney a great one. Joel Walker too for his recent consistency, Kyren Wilson, and surprise surprise Ju Reti for winning the Asian PTC.

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked?

I must admit I wasn't a big fan when all the fuss started at this UK Champs, but over a long term I do think it will work, its definately a fairer system providing equal opportunities for all the players, plus I think this venue in York shouldn't change because if we want a tourney like this and with this format to establish itself, constant venue changes won't help matters. A few things need to be reconsidered yes, but no system is perfect and this 128 flat draw is definately the way forward I think, like Tennis.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season?

I think Robbo and Ding may win another ranker, possibly 2, I'd like Ronnie to win the Masters and I think he has a great chance to do so, has to have a similar mindset to the one he had at the CoC and I see no reason for him not to win that one. Trump I think will rediscover his form and at least reach the semis of a ranker. The big ? is Higgins, I'm not sure he'll have that same form he had at the beggining of the season, but something tells me when we least expect it he may have another purple patch and possibly win a tournament. Selby too can win a ranker, but it remains to be seen how much that UK Final affected him. My guess is it didn't affect him that much, but may be on the back of his mind if he for instance reaches a ranker final and can't deal when the real pressure comes. You never know how a Final loss like that can have repercussions for a player.

:phew: Very long post, but it was worth to have an overall view of the 1st half of the season.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby simplysnooker

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most? Rory, should have won a title by now

Which player (or players) have surprised you most? The players who have beaten Rory along the way

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked? Yes

What do you predict for the remainder of the season? Rory to win the Worlds

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Wildey

Which player (or players) have impressed you most? Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most? Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy

Which player (or players) have surprised you most? Stuart Bingham (pushing Ronnie hard for the CoC and Beating him in the UK)

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked? yes the changes has Worked i even liked how they did it for the UK however the BBC Coverage was Pathetic and needs addressing.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season? unpredictability

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby roy142857

Which player (or players) have impressed you most?
Dīng Jùnhuī , Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham, Xiāo Guódòng, Gary Wilson

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most?
Martin Gould, Jack Lisowski, Chén Zhé, Martin O'Donnell, Judd Trump

Which player (or players) have surprised you most?
Marco Fu, Jū Rètí, David Morris, Fergal O'Brien (thought he was due to sink down the rankings, may be headed the other way), Scott Donaldson

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked?
Partially, resisting the temptation to go on about this too much again, but I don't believe it works as it should if top 64 against bottom 64 in all ranking events, really want to see variations such as only top 24, 32 or 48 seeded.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season?

Trump ceasing to disappoint at some stage, Gould, Chén Zhé and O'Donnell continuing to.

A sudden increase in European players in the last Asian Tour event as they realise they may not have many other chances to get back on Tour, and they only just noticed their places were at risk because of 2 or 3 of this years new pros getting into the top 64.

Ryan Day having a deep run at a ranking tournament (just feel like he's due one!)

Hawkins and Bingham performing well at the World championship.

Lots of enjoyable snooker!

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Casey

Which player (or players) have impressed you most? Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most? John Higgins & Judd Trump

Which player (or players) have surprised you most? Marco Fu (winning a ranking event) Bingham (pushing Ronnie to the wire in a TV final and beating him in a major.

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked? No. I want to see the best players play their games, not stuck in an non televised hall like happened with the World Open and German Masters. This would not happen in any other sport.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season? Robbo and Ding to be World Champion.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Wildey

Casey

i dont want to see the best players play all the time i want to see new players come to the fore front a flat 128 gives thoes players a better chance to do that quicker. Going back to the 80s and early 90s Tournaments was starting as last 64 but top players had to win 2 matches to get on the TV.

TV Coverage only started at the last 16 stage of ranking events.

if top players cant get to a venue then they don't deserve to be on TV.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Simone

Wildey wrote:Which player (or players) have impressed you most? Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most? Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy

Which player (or players) have surprised you most? Stuart Bingham (pushing Ronnie hard for the CoC and Beating him in the UK)

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked? yes the changes has Worked i even liked how they did it for the UK however the BBC Coverage was Pathetic and needs addressing.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season? unpredictability


Yeah.. Guys looks they are not winding up for the big shots, but they are.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Wildey

yup that's exactly what i said <ok>

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Casey

Wildey wrote:Casey

i dont want to see the best players play all the time i want to see new players come to the fore front a flat 128 gives thoes players a better chance to do that quicker. Going back to the 80s and early 90s Tournaments was starting as last 64 but top players had to win 2 matches to get on the TV.

TV Coverage only started at the last 16 stage of ranking events.

if top players cant get to a venue then they don't deserve to be on TV.


Same could be said for the younger players - Ronnie and Higgins had to come through about 12 matches to get on TV back in the day.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Wildey

Casey wrote:
Wildey wrote:Casey

i dont want to see the best players play all the time i want to see new players come to the fore front a flat 128 gives thoes players a better chance to do that quicker. Going back to the 80s and early 90s Tournaments was starting as last 64 but top players had to win 2 matches to get on the TV.

TV Coverage only started at the last 16 stage of ranking events.

if top players cant get to a venue then they don't deserve to be on TV.


Same could be said for the younger players - Ronnie and Higgins had to come through about 12 matches to get on TV back in the day.

that is in fact a good point so maybe the younger players of today aren't that good and changing format could be seen as catering to mediocrity.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Casey

Wildey wrote:
Casey wrote:
Wildey wrote:Casey

i dont want to see the best players play all the time i want to see new players come to the fore front a flat 128 gives thoes players a better chance to do that quicker. Going back to the 80s and early 90s Tournaments was starting as last 64 but top players had to win 2 matches to get on the TV.

TV Coverage only started at the last 16 stage of ranking events.

if top players cant get to a venue then they don't deserve to be on TV.


Same could be said for the younger players - Ronnie and Higgins had to come through about 12 matches to get on TV back in the day.

that is in fact a good point so maybe the younger players of today aren't that good and changing format could be seen as catering to mediocrity.


For whatever reason, no generation has been as good since 1992. With the exception of Ding. Robbo and Selby were a little bit older when they really made the breakthrough. So far you would have to say that Robbo is the best player post 1992..?

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby PLtheRef

No intake will be as good as the 1992 intake, even if you have a standard of snooker continually rising. Still, needs to be considered that even from that intake - which obviously benefitted from the game going open saw a number of the better pros from the intake taking a considerable amount of time to get going in their career. Williams among them.

The standard like I said will remain great, and may even be better than the standard of 1992 but as people have said, other than 1992, there are no clumps of reaching the pro ranks at the same time

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Andre147

Casey wrote:
Wildey wrote:
Casey wrote:
Wildey wrote:Casey

i dont want to see the best players play all the time i want to see new players come to the fore front a flat 128 gives thoes players a better chance to do that quicker. Going back to the 80s and early 90s Tournaments was starting as last 64 but top players had to win 2 matches to get on the TV.

TV Coverage only started at the last 16 stage of ranking events.

if top players cant get to a venue then they don't deserve to be on TV.


Same could be said for the younger players - Ronnie and Higgins had to come through about 12 matches to get on TV back in the day.

that is in fact a good point so maybe the younger players of today aren't that good and changing format could be seen as catering to mediocrity.


For whatever reason, no generation has been as good since 1992. With the exception of Ding. Robbo and Selby were a little bit older when they really made the breakthrough. So far you would have to say that Robbo is the best player post 1992..?


Yeah I would agree with that, since that golden 1992 generation of mostly Ronnie, Higgins and Williams there haven't been since then players who could reach that sort of level in the game. For me too Robbo and Ding are the 2 best players since then, their number of titles confirms that. Ding may well end his career with more titles than Robbo because he's younger, but still has the most important one missing, the Worlds, whereas Robbo very recently completed the Triple Crown.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Skullman

Bit late with this, but I had a bit of a break from here for the quiet period. Anyway:

Which players have impressed you most?

Well obviously Ding and Robbo have been the most successful players so far this season, but I’ll have to say Ding because consistency has never been his forte with an honourable mention going to Marco Fu for winning another ranker and reaching the final of the IC and taking Ding to a decider.

Which player (or players) have disappointed you most?

Shaun Murphy.
Jack Lisowski.
Cao Yupeng.
John Higgins.

Which player (or players) have surprised you most?

Adi Mehta and Xiao Guodong for reaching their maiden ranking events finals. Adi especially for beating the likes of Mags and MJW to get there. Stuart Bingham for improving even further than he did after winning the Australian Open. Got to the final CoC, reached the semis of the UKs and played very well to force a decider against Robbo (and beat Ronnie who he has an awful H2H against).

On a lesser scale, Scott Donaldson and Joel Walker, both new(ish) pros on their second season on tour and finally finding their feet and getting some decent results.

Also, not a player, but the fact none of this season’s rankers have been won by a British player.

Have the changes to 128 flat draws worked?

Too early to tell. We’ve only had four tournaments with the flat system. Of those, I think Wuxi is hard to get meaningful information from because I think the majority of the tour was still dusting the cobwebs off and the first tournament of the season.

So looking at the three other events, we’ve had two Ding victories and a Robbo win. So the flat 128 doesn’t prevent the best players of the old format from winning. On the side for the format allowing new faces through, we’ve had Adi Mehta reaching his first ranking final, but we also had Xiao Guodong do the same under the old tiered qualifying system. Plus the recent UK Championships had 14 top 16 seeds reach the last 16 (and one of the two exceptions was Joe Perry who was provisionally in the 16 at the time), although that was probably due to the more rigid seeding structure.

From the perspective of the viewer, the first bits of the tournaments aren’t great and it feels a bit too crammed together and PTCish. It’s probably better if you’re there personally but not great for TV viewers.

Plus it could be argued that the new system restricts the number of new faces. In the old tiered qualifying system, you could see a large range of different players (although there was a preference for Chinese players and Steve Davis and Jimmy White) while in the flat system, there’s always a couple of top 16 players in each streaming session who invariably get chosen. In the flat system the only chance players like Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Dave Gilbert, Adi Mehta etc get seen is if they play against a top 16 player. Although for a casual viewer who doesn’t watch streams they’ll more variety in non-top 16 players rather than the same old 35+ year old journeymen who made it through the old system.

What do you predict for the remainder of the season?

1. Winner of the Worlds will either be a first time winner or Robbo.
2. Smurph to win an event (not necessary a ranker)
3. Higgins will end the season out of the top 8.
4. Someone will win their first ranker next season.
5. Judd Trump having a deep run in an event but not winning it, losing in the semis or final.
6. Selby will win the Masters.
7. The pattern of non-British players winning the season’s rankers will end at the German Masters.

Re: Half Time Discussion

Postby Wildey

I don't feel disappointed by higgins he is now at the tail end of his career so its natural that he throws in bad events and performances at a more consistent level.

However the likes of Judd should be on a crest of a wave at this stage of his career and hes not delivering.


   

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