Chinese 8Ball World Champs 2015 (inc top snooker players)

With a top prize of £64,000 no surprise there's a strong entry list for this. A number of snooker players have been given 'wild cards' into the finals - Mark Selby, Neal Robertson, Barry Hawkins, Shaun Murphy, Joe Perry, John Higgins, Graeme Dott, Mark Williams and Cáo Yǔpéng.

Also straight to the finals are (amongst others) Darren Appleton, Yáng Fān, Zhèng Yǔbó, Thorsten Hohmann, Albin Ouschan, Nick Ekonomopoulos, Radoslaw Babica and Lǐ Hèwén.

A handful of snooker pros are also having a crack at this via the qualifying competition - Tom Ford, Chris Melling, Mark King, Luca Brecel and Vinnie Calabrese. And Iranian amateur Soheil Vahedi too. Another familiar name is Robbie Foldvari of Australia.

Others in qualifying include Corey Duell, Daryl Peach, Craig Hauck, Max Eberle, Naoyuki Oi, Karl Boyes and Oscar Dominguez.

(EDIT to title 27 Jan)

Any idea if this will be streamed? Or where the results will be posted? It'll be interesting to see how the snooker boys do! Selby at least should acquit himself well.

Just saw on twitter than Melling, Peach and Boyes have qualified. Mark King's won one and lost one.

info from the pool and cuesports site azbilliards.com

For the mens qualifying, 4 players qualify each day over 4 days, with a new draw taking place before each. Similar for the women, except 2 players qualify each day. So all players still 'in' at the moment.

4th qualifier from day 1 was Mohammadali Pordel from Iran.

Two names a lot of you will recognise are the day 1 qualifiers from the womens, Allison Fisher and Anastasia Nechaeva.

shankly wrote:Any idea if this will be streamed? Or where the results will be posted? It'll be interesting to see how the snooker boys do! Selby at least should acquit himself well.

Just saw on twitter than Melling, Peach and Boyes have qualified. Mark King's won one and lost one.

Well, a step in the right direction, I've found local broadcast times for this for CCTV, a bit puzzled at a lack of times for 31st January and 1st February ... looks like video streams as well unless I'm misunderstanding the page - http://www.cbsa.org.cn/gnnews/2015-02-02/463403.html if someone else wants to check what it says

28 Jan 22:14-23:55
29 Jan 08:35-10:30, 14:35-16:30, 22:15-23:55
30 Jan 15:00-16:30
2 Feb 08:33-10:28, 13:32-15:27

I think 8 hours off these times for UK time

OK, having a crack at working out the day 2 qualifiers from the Chinese (!)

For certain one is Tom Ford as I have a note of the Chinese characters used for him. Looks like Muhammad Lababi and Soheil Vahedi of Iran, Zhang QiYao of Taiwan are the others. In the national qualifying competition one of the qualifiers is Liú Chuǎng (although I think there are two players called Liú Chuǎng - the website refers to Liú Chuǎng (small)!). A qualifier familiar from Asian Tour snooker is Wáng Péng

In the womens looks like Angeline Magdalena of Indonesia and Kamila Khodjaeva of Belgium

For anyone interested, found the full list of players on the CBSA website

http://www.cbsa.org.cn/annoucement/2015 ... 62488.html

I was looking at this site http://alison-chang.com/2015-china-pool ... mpionship/
The Chinese certainly don't want us to know much about this

Some further successful qualifiers

National Men - 'large' Liú Chuǎng, Shí Hànqīng (who was on the snooker Pro Tour) and Yú Hăitāo (who was at one of the Asian Tour events in 2013/14)

International Men - Mark King, Joseph Tourangeau (Canada), Phone Myint Kyayy (Myanmar), Corey Deuel (USA), Waleed Majid Kareem (Qatar), Young Hwa Jeong (South Korea)

International Women - Yuan-Chin Lin (Taiwan), Katarzyna Wesolowska (Poland), Yun Mi Lim (South Korea)

So in the first stages International and Chinese players are kept apart as they play down to 16 via double elimination. My best guess (and that's all it is) is that first round winners play each other in a winners second round, with the winners going straight through to the next stage. First round losers play each other in a 'losers' second round, with the winners of those matches playing the losers from the 'winners' second round for the remaining second stage places. Note there are 5 Chinese players on the 'International' side of the draw.

Guessing at the second stage the International and Chinese players are mixed in together.

The Mens International and National draws seem to have players in groups of 8 players, with the first matches in the International Mens being:

Neil Robertson v Barry Hawkins
Darren Appleton v John Higgins
Mohammad Ali Pordel v Wang Can
Shaun Murphy v Joe Perry

Mark Selby v Phone Myint Kyayy
Mohammad Lababi v Graeme Dott
Mark King v Karl Boyes
Nick Ekonomopoulos v Thorsten Hohmann

Jeong Young Hwa v Waleed Majid Kareem
Albin Ouschan v Dang Jinhu
Liu Haitao v Soheil Vahedi
Radoslaw Babica v Corey Deuel

Cao Pengyu v Daryl Peach
Joseph Tourangeau v Zhang Chi Yao
Mark Williams v Lǐ Hèwén
Tom Ford v Chris Melling

International Women

Yuan Chun-Lin v Liu Shasha
Kamila Khodjaeva v Katarzyna Wesolowska
Ga Young Kim v Allison Fisher
Anastasia Nechaeva v Han Yu

Jeanette Lee v Fu Xaiofang
Angelina Magdalena Ticoalu v Chen Siming
Akiko Kitayama v Kelly Fisher
Jasmin Ouschan v Lim Yun Mi

This link will give you latest draw. http://news.top147.com/2015/01/00021049.shtml
Graeme lost his first match 9-7 but won twice yesterday to go through beating Karl boyes who was one of the favorites for the title apparently. He plays Daryl Peach next. Selby, Robertson and Tom ford amongst the rest still involved.

Not managed to follow much of this as lack of time, but Quarter finals were on today

Mark Selby won his 13-10, beating one of the Liú Chuǎng 's ! Selby's last 16 was very close, edged Chris Melling 13-12.
Chǔ Bǐngjié beat Chén Hǔqìng 13-7 in their quarter final, and also through to the semis is Liú Hǎitāo (EDIT beat Wú Zhènyǔ 13-7)

Darren Appleton and Neal Robertson were locked in a close battle but I've not found the result yet, Robertson has edged his earlier match, beating Yang Fan 13-12.

Womens quarter finals

Bái Gē 11 - 4 Kelly Fisher
Hán Yǔ 11 - 8 Yáng Fān
Allison Fisher 11 - 10 Yáng Xié
Zhāng Xiǎotóng 11 - 10 Fù Xiǎofāng

Darren Appleton 13 - 12 Neal Robertson

Sad. Neil was a hope for the snooker world. Anyone else remaining?

Selby still in it, ahead in the semis right now.

Anyone has the livestream?

EDIT: I found one on wasu.cn.

Selby 13-12 Liu

BTW, when Selbs was still a journeyman, he won the 2006 8 ball thingie.

Selby 15-13 Liu

Semis

Mark Selby 15 – 13 Liú Hǎitāo
Darren Appleton15 - 13 Chǔ Bǐngjié

Well done Selby.

Rematch of the 2006 8-ball final.

Womens semis

Zhāng Xiǎotóng 13 - 11 Allison Fisher
Bái Gē 13 - 12 Hán Yǔ

Looks like Selby will win it.

Darren Appleton is not to be underestimated, remember?

Womens Final

Zhāng Xiǎotóng 17 - 13 Bái Gē

Mens final - latest score

Darren Appleton 11 - 9 Mark Selby

resumes 19:30 local time, think that's 11:30 UK time

re the Women's result, Asian Q Sport have the result the other way round. I think what I've posted is right as that's what's showing on the drawsheet at Top 147 ...

I heard on Twitter that Darren had won, well done Selbs for getting to the final though! Now he just has to get back from China and over to Germany for the German Masters in time for his first round match!

It was close -

Darren Appleton 21 - 19 Mark Selby

Gutted Selby lost but from what I saw I really enjoyed Chinese pool so will be tuning in in future especially if there are big names I know well taking part like this one.