So...when is Ronnie O'sullivan playing again ?

Dan now Ronnie is saying on his Facebook page "I dont want fans buying tickets for Coventry thinking Im playing. I said I hadnt entered eeeks ago. Nothings changed."

Then World Snooker is making a HUGE mistake in advertising him in the Group Stage if he hasnt actually confirmed he'll be there.

Andre147 wrote:Dan now Ronnie is saying on his Facebook page "I dont want fans buying tickets for Coventry thinking Im playing. I said I hadnt entered eeeks ago. Nothings changed."

Then World Snooker is making a HUGE mistake in advertising him in the Group Stage if he hasnt actually confirmed he'll be there.

rubbish - that is underhand. And I am really surprised he means it. You were right after all Andre

The title "Champion of Champions" is laughable if the main champion isn't playing.

Reminds me of a very old Peter Cook sketch, the shop owner shouts out, "This is the place to get your grit! Come on, get your grit, get your grit here, 'cause we've got lots of it!"

Someone then asks if he can buy some grit and the shop owner replies, "err...sorry sold out".

Andre147 wrote:Dan now Ronnie is saying on his Facebook page "I dont want fans buying tickets for Coventry thinking Im playing. I said I hadnt entered eeeks ago. Nothings changed."

Then World Snooker is making a HUGE mistake in advertising him in the Group Stage if he hasnt actually confirmed he'll be there.

Maybe World Snooker thought they could 'force' him to enter by using him in their promotions and announcing his match. Probably thought they could get his fans all excited and Ronnie wouldn't want to let them down.

pasunegirafe wrote:Maybe World Snooker thought they could 'force' him to enter by using him in their promotions and announcing his match. Probably thought they could get his fans all excited and Ronnie wouldn't want to let them down.

Good point - defo sounds like a Bazza-style tactic!

World snooker has removed all reference to Ronnie playing, big change from yesterday where they had him playing in the same group as joe perry

LC wrote:World snooker has removed all reference to Ronnie playing, big change from yesterday where they had him playing in the same group as joe perry

So basically WS relies on Ronnie reafirming on his Facebook page he won't be there playing I wonder if Ronnie hadn't said anything...

Anyway, with or without Ronnie, it should be a great tournament, one of the tournaments I love watching during the season. Just a shame the 2 time defending champ can't be bothered to be there.

We'll see him at UK I guess...

Andy Spark wrote:The title "Champion of Champions" is laughable if the main champion isn't playing.

Reminds me of a very old Peter Cook sketch, the shop owner shouts out, "This is the place to get your grit! Come on, get your grit, get your grit here, 'cause we've got lots of it!"

Someone then asks if he can buy some grit and the shop owner replies, "err...sorry sold out".

How the buck is it laughable?

They organize a tournament and invite Champions including defending champion if a player doesn't enter theres buck all organizers can do about that

Andre147 wrote:

LC wrote:World snooker has removed all reference to Ronnie playing, big change from yesterday where they had him playing in the same group as joe perry

So basically WS relies on Ronnie reafirming on his Facebook page he won't be there playing I wonder if Ronnie hadn't said anything...

Anyway, with or without Ronnie, it should be a great tournament, one of the tournaments I love watching during the season. Just a shame the 2 time defending champ can't be bothered to be there.

We'll see him at UK I guess...

so unprofessional of world snooker to release the draw without confirmation god we been talking about Ronnie not playing in CoC for weeks World Snooker been caught napping.

Dan-cat wrote:

pasunegirafe wrote:Maybe World Snooker thought they could 'force' him to enter by using him in their promotions and announcing his match. Probably thought they could get his fans all excited and Ronnie wouldn't want to let them down.

Good point - defo sounds like a Bazza-style tactic!

Barry Hearn knows Ronnie too well to even think about that.


theres even less chance of Ronnie playing now than there was last week.

Wildey wrote:

Andy Spark wrote:The title "Champion of Champions" is laughable if the main champion isn't playing.

Reminds me of a very old Peter Cook sketch, the shop owner shouts out, "This is the place to get your grit! Come on, get your grit, get your grit here, 'cause we've got lots of it!"

Someone then asks if he can buy some grit and the shop owner replies, "err...sorry sold out".

How the buck is it laughable?

They organize a tournament and invite Champions including defending champion if a player doesn't enter theres buck all organizers can do about that

The title "Champion of Champions", like "King of Kings" or "Best of the Best" elevates (at least literally) the eventual champion to a status above other champions. The repetition of "champion" is a linguistic conceit, an ostentatious intensifier that needs to be justified.


Now that exalted CoC status may be meaningless in the long run, but the title forcefully implies the winner has championed the best. If the best player in the world has not entered then the winner clearly hasn't championed the best and the title is silly and laughable...IMO

Andy Spark wrote:The title "Champion of Champions", like "King of Kings" or "Best of the Best" elevates (at least literally) the eventual champion to a status above other champions. The repetition of "champion" is a linguistic conceit, an ostentatious intensifier that needs to be justified.


Now that exalted CoC status may be meaningless in the long run, but the title forcefully implies the winner has championed the best. If the best player in the world has not entered then the winner clearly hasn't championed the best and the title is silly and laughable...IMO

You could argue that the title was misleading anyway, considering that last year they didn't have enough different champions to enter it, and were letting people in due to their place in the rankings. If the tournament is now pointless, that isn't World Snooker's fault. Ronnie was the one who chose not to enter the tournament.

What's silly and laughable is that World Snooker advertised Ronnie as playing, knowing full well he wasn't entering. That seems to me a lot more worthy of ridicule than what the name of the bloody tournament is.

yeah fully agree with you SF.

It's a shame the two time defending champ of this event and current UK Champ isn't playing, but still the current name of the event is pretty accurate because we'll still have the WN1, German and China Open Champ, the World Champion and the Masters Champion battling it out for the title just to name a few.

I know I'll be watching every match of this like I did the past 2 years.

Andy Spark wrote:

Wildey wrote:

Andy Spark wrote:The title "Champion of Champions" is laughable if the main champion isn't playing.

Reminds me of a very old Peter Cook sketch, the shop owner shouts out, "This is the place to get your grit! Come on, get your grit, get your grit here, 'cause we've got lots of it!"

Someone then asks if he can buy some grit and the shop owner replies, "err...sorry sold out".

How the buck is it laughable?

They organize a tournament and invite Champions including defending champion if a player doesn't enter theres buck all organizers can do about that

The title "Champion of Champions", like "King of Kings" or "Best of the Best" elevates (at least literally) the eventual champion to a status above other champions. The repetition of "champion" is a linguistic conceit, an ostentatious intensifier that needs to be justified.


Now that exalted CoC status may be meaningless in the long run, but the title forcefully implies the winner has championed the best. If the best player in the world has not entered then the winner clearly hasn't championed the best and the title is silly and laughable...IMO

what planet are you on?


if Ronnie doesent enter thats his problem it takes sod all away from the event just crap from some of the usual suspect ie you.

I don't care if they call it The runt Cup, I still think it's a great tournament.

SnookerFan wrote:You could argue that the title was misleading anyway, considering that last year they didn't have enough different champions to enter it, and were letting people in due to their place in the rankings. If the tournament is now pointless, that isn't World Snooker's fault. Ronnie was the one who chose not to enter the tournament.

What's silly and laughable is that World Snooker advertised Ronnie as playing, knowing full well he wasn't entering. That seems to me a lot more worthy of ridicule than what the name of the bloody tournament is.

Yes, it could well be argued that the title was silly and misleading anyway. I take issue with a few of World Snooker's chosen titles.

It seems unlikely that WS would advertise Ronnie as playing if he had not given an indication he would at some point, but they should have only made an announcement once the contract had been made between WS and Ronnie.

He said he will only play if he's prepared, clearly he's not, so he's not playing, end of.

Pink Ball wrote:I don't care if they call it The runt Cup, I still think it's a great tournament.

I mean, are we really so offended that the tournament is called Champion Of Champions? If you are, you need to get a life.

Some people just like to make out that a tournament is shoddy, all because Ronnie doesn't grace us with his presence. I bet the same people wouldn't be complaining if Stuart Bingham didn't enter. And he's the World Champion. By their logic, the most prestigious tournament of the season has been Snooker Legends.

After his maxi at a Legends event last week, Ronnie has made another yesterday.

Makes me even angrier that he's not playing... but for these past 3 or 4 years I got used to his reduced playing schedulle, we just got to accept he won't be around forever...

But as I said makes me angry that he's doing all these maxis on the Legends events and not on main tour...

Andre147 wrote:After his maxi at a Legends event last week, Ronnie has made another yesterday.

Makes me even angrier that he's not playing... but for these past 3 or 4 years I got used to his reduced playing schedulle, we just got to accept he won't be around forever...

But as I said makes me angry that he's doing all these maxis on the Legends events and not on main tour...

I wonder how many 147's Ronnie's made in his life if you count the ones he makes in practice and at unoficial tournaments. Must be over a hundred.

Holden Chinaski wrote:I wonder how many 147's Ronnie's made in his life if you count the ones he makes in practice and at unoficial tournaments. Must be over a hundred.

I don't suppose he's been counting.

Holden Chinaski wrote:I wonder how many 147's Ronnie's made in his life if you count the ones he makes in practice and at unoficial tournaments. Must be over a hundred.

Way, way more than that. Hendry said he stopped counting at 300 in practice, and I remember Ronnie saying that he made 9 in one day once in practice.

Dan-cat wrote:

Holden Chinaski wrote:I wonder how many 147's Ronnie's made in his life if you count the ones he makes in practice and at unoficial tournaments. Must be over a hundred.

Way, way more than that. Hendry said he stopped counting at 300 in practice, and I remember Ronnie saying that he made 9 in one day once in practice.

9 in one day!? That's mental!

HE's just had two in the last week in Legends!

Rory McLeod takes ronnies place at CoC.

LC wrote:Rory McLeod takes ronnies place at CoC.

And well deserved I might add.

If the defending champ can't be fussed to be there, then give his place to another winner, it doesn't matter if it's just a PTC, because almost all the best players in the world were competing in it and McLeod was the better player those 3 days, simple as that.

Slight contrast of styles.

Ronnie or Rory.

I saw the first two frames of the Ruhr final, and Rory looked to be playing great, tho was surprised to see his highest break over the 3 days was 55!

Andre147 wrote:After his maxi at a Legends event last week, Ronnie has made another yesterday.

Makes me even angrier that he's not playing... but for these past 3 or 4 years I got used to his reduced playing schedulle, we just got to accept he won't be around forever...

But as I said makes me angry that he's doing all these maxis on the Legends events and not on main tour...

its not reduced its just he was apparently happy with what Rodney Walker offered before Barry Hearn.

Wildey wrote:

Andre147 wrote:After his maxi at a Legends event last week, Ronnie has made another yesterday.

Makes me even angrier that he's not playing... but for these past 3 or 4 years I got used to his reduced playing schedulle, we just got to accept he won't be around forever...

But as I said makes me angry that he's doing all these maxis on the Legends events and not on main tour...

its not reduced its just he was apparently happy with what Rodney Walker offered before Barry Hearn.

Yes he has even admited that on various interviews.

so basically nowadays he only plays 6/7 tournaments per season, the same as Walker's era. It suited Ronnie of course, but the whole Sport was dying.

Hearn may certainly not be the best when it cencerns to listen to the player's complaints, but what he has done for the Sport is remarkable.