Gujinggong Liquor Haikou World Open Final Discussion!

Who has a better chance of winning the World title this year, Selby or Murphy?

NNear wrote:Like I said, I'm only counting elite opposition, so.. legends of the game, more or less.

I'm sure if I count the elite opposition of the other top players I will find typically much better success rates.

Ding Junhui has won 7 of 10 ranking finals against really elite players , and 10 of 13 overall.

Neil Robertson has won 5 of 7 ranking finals against really elite players and 9 of 13 overall.

Mark Selby has won 3 of 10 ranking finals against elite players and 3 of 11 overall.

Yes congratulations to Mark on his Masters triumphs but I'm sure he sees his record in finals generally as a problem that he wishes to rectify rather than dismissing it as, 'Oh well whatevers my competition is tough.'

Yeah, you have to face the top player at some point when you win a tournament, and if it's in a final then so be it... Ok he may have been unlucky at times, but the Major part is he can't cope with the top players in the majority of his ranking finals. Ironically, has that win over Ronnie at the Welsh Open

He also played well in the Welsh final against Ding and still lost. He does fact good opponents a lot of the time, but the real reason is he normally doesn't play well or starts playing well much too late. Why?

Look at this final. He only won one frame in one visit.

Alex0paul wrote:The winner of the World Open has gone out of the World Championship in the first round every year

Patterns

Obviously who I deem to be elite is subjective—different people will have different quality thresholds—but some names can be more obviously omitted such as for example Xiao Guodong when estimating Ding Junhui's elite opposition in finals.

Skullman wrote:He also played well in the Welsh final against Ding and still lost. He does fact good opponents a lot of the time, but the real reason is he normally doesn't play well or starts playing well much too late. Why?

Look at this final. He only won one frame in one visit.

Selby needs to find his killer breakbuilding game that allows him to spend his mental resources more efficiently. He's an amazing grinder and tactician with unquestionable savvy and guile who does have the talent and ability to score heavily but he has to find those dominating stretches of scoring form more frequently when it comes to the big showdowns, because by the time you reach a final you're going to be up against someone who is really in shape the vast majority of the time.

Snooker Overdrive wrote:Who has a better chance of winning the World title this year, Selby or Murphy?

Both don't stand a chance in my opinion. But Murphy is more likely than Selby. Selby needs to change the way he's been playing, something very wrong with his game.

Skullman wrote:He also played well in the Welsh final against Ding and still lost. He does fact good opponents a lot of the time, but the real reason is he normally doesn't play well or starts playing well much too late. Why?

Look at this final. He only won one frame in one visit.

Don't know why Skull but it must be frustrating as a fan to often see him fall at the last hurdle. He's an amazing player no doubt, but definately needs to improve that strike rate no matter who he faces on ranking finals. He should take a hard look at Ding's example.

You can at least be happy he has that ranking win over Ronnie

Holden Chinaski wrote:

Snooker Overdrive wrote:Who has a better chance of winning the World title this year, Selby or Murphy?

Both don't stand a chance in my opinion. But Murphy is more likely than Selby. Selby needs to change the way he's been playing, something very wrong with his game.

Hard to say, and a lot depends on how the draw pans out.

Think Selby's biggest problem in recent times has been positional play. His long potting's pretty deadly, not Smurph, Robbo or Judd standard but good, his safety is solid and he always plays the right shot. If only he could make more before breaking down. Even making 50s and 60s frequently would be a step up.

Andre147 PGC wrote:

Holden Chinaski wrote:

Snooker Overdrive wrote:Who has a better chance of winning the World title this year, Selby or Murphy?

Both don't stand a chance in my opinion. But Murphy is more likely than Selby. Selby needs to change the way he's been playing, something very wrong with his game.

Hard to say, and a lot depends on how the draw pans out.

At the moment it looks like Murphy will be in Ronnie's quarter along with Fu, Selby in the bottom half with Carter, Higgins and Hawkins in the same quarter. Not easy for either of them.

Snooker Overdrive wrote:

Andre147 PGC wrote:

Holden Chinaski wrote:

Snooker Overdrive wrote:Who has a better chance of winning the World title this year, Selby or Murphy?

Both don't stand a chance in my opinion. But Murphy is more likely than Selby. Selby needs to change the way he's been playing, something very wrong with his game.

Hard to say, and a lot depends on how the draw pans out.

At the moment it looks like Murphy will be in Ronnie's quarter along with Fu, Selby in the bottom half with Carter, Higgins and Hawkins in the same quarter. Not easy for either of them.

Selby v Hawkins at the Worlds

Andre147 PGC wrote:Selby and Hawkins at the Worlds

Higgins could knock him out hopefully.

Although Selby and Higgins at the Worlds...

Selby needs to learn how to be a good front runner, cause if you only start playing good when behind you will not win much big finals.

Against the top players it's important to take a lead and keep your opponent at distance, and punish every misstake. Like ROS does.
Selby should watch the upcoming ROS show on eurosport, might learn something.

Skullman wrote:

Andre147 PGC wrote:Selby and Hawkins at the Worlds

Higgins could knock him out hopefully.

Although Selby and Higgins at the Worlds...

Maybe he's better off withdrawing from the PTC finals and letting Ding overtake him

But well all this talk about Selby and we forget about Murphy's win

His 5th ranker, been a long time since he won one. His new diet and fitness regime has definately played a big part, since the turn of the New Year he has played some good snooker.

Fun fact: Prior to Welsh Open, we hadn't had a British winner of a ranking event this season, now we've had 2 back to back: Ronnie at the Welsh and Murphy here.

Or maybe winning something would give him a boost and help him get past opponents like that.

Andre147 PGC wrote:But well all this talk about Selby and we forget about Murphy's win

His 5th ranker, been a long time since he won one. His new diet and fitness regime has definately played a big part, since the turn of the New Year he has played some good snooker.

Fun fact: Prior to Welsh Open, we hadn't had a British winner of a ranking event this season, now we've had 2 back to back: Ronnie at the Welsh and Murphy here.

Let's see how this affects him for the last bit of the season. I thought Mags's Welsh win would spur him onto greater things, but it hasn't. Let's see if Murphy's any different.

And one thing about Smurph, his safety game has been as good as I've seen it (except maybe escaping from snookers).

Holden Chinaski wrote:Selby needs to learn how to be a good front runner, cause if you only start playing good when behind you will not win much big finals.

Against the top players it's important to take a lead and keep your opponent at distance, and punish every misstake. Like ROS does.
Selby should watch the upcoming ROS show on eurosport, might learn something.

LOL... But yeah against top players like those he has faced in ranking finals it's important to start well and stam your authority on the match, like Ronnie does as you said. Selby though had a 5-1 lead at the UK champs Final this season and let it slip.

Like Skull says, his positional play needs to be a lot better so that he deoesn't break down early in a break. 2009-2011 his breakbuilding was pretty good, but since then hasn't produced that sort of standard in that department.

It was a good win for Murphy, but also a bit alarming the way he struggled to get over the winning line. He bottled a couple of easy long pots. He didn't look very happy to me.

Skullman wrote:

Andre147 PGC wrote:But well all this talk about Selby and we forget about Murphy's win

His 5th ranker, been a long time since he won one. His new diet and fitness regime has definately played a big part, since the turn of the New Year he has played some good snooker.

Fun fact: Prior to Welsh Open, we hadn't had a British winner of a ranking event this season, now we've had 2 back to back: Ronnie at the Welsh and Murphy here.

Let's see how this affects him for the last bit of the season. I thought Mags's Welsh win would spur him onto greater things, but it hasn't. Let's see if Murphy's any different.

And one thing about Smurph, his safety game has been as good as I've seen it (except maybe escaping from snookers).

Agree, Murphy's safety improved, noticed he doesn't go for many of those outrageous long ones he sometimes used to in the past when under pressure. May go for the odd one here and there, but not like it was back then.

HOLDEN, I have to agree to an extent but when I thought about it more, it's easy to forget that this was his first time of sniffing a ranking event win for three whole years. I guess that added a lot of additional pressure.

Andre147 PGC wrote:

Skullman wrote:Yeah but he was teenager who had barely done anything then. He was the Swail/Burnett in that situation.

Like Higgins wasn't a teenager too

in his first season on tour Higgins won 11 matches to reach the Quarter final of a ranking event and also a ranking event Last 16.

so John Higgins was a better teenager than Selby was. Selby had to even learn how to play with a different cue action to reach the top of the game.

Skullman wrote:He also played well in the Welsh final against Ding and still lost. He does fact good opponents a lot of the time, but the real reason is he normally doesn't play well or starts playing well much too late. Why?

Look at this final. He only won one frame in one visit.

I haven't watched this tournament basicially, except 1 or 2 matches and also not the final today but IMO this is the main problem of Selby for more than 2 years now. I still give him credit for still winning these matches and reaching finals but he's never gonna win the world by playing like this.

It's so much harder in these longer matches to grind. Your head and your body would feel exhausted.

TheRocket wrote:

Skullman wrote:He also played well in the Welsh final against Ding and still lost. He does fact good opponents a lot of the time, but the real reason is he normally doesn't play well or starts playing well much too late. Why?

Look at this final. He only won one frame in one visit.

I haven't watched this tournament basicially, except 1 or 2 matches and also not the final today but IMO this is the main problem of Selby for more than 2 years now. I still give him credit for still winning these matches and reaching finals but he's never gonna win the world by playing like this.

It's so much harder in these longer matches to grind. Your head and your body would feel exhausted.

Precisely TR, he needs to be winning a lot more frames in 1 visit, and like you say in a tournament like the Worlds, a marathon of the mind as Clive Everton would say, too many drawn out frames and safety stuff will exhaust Selby, and yeah playing like that would be almost impossible to win the Worlds. Well Dotty won his in 2006 and he wasn't exactly hitting big break after big break when he won it, but it would definately be a lot harder for Selby to do so.

His best period in breakbuilding was 2009-2011, and in 2010 when he reached the Worlds semi he was playing very well and in a way I would give him more of a chance of winning the Worlds that year than when he reached the Final in 2007, because I think had he beat Dotty he would then have beaten Robbo in the Final. All speculation of course, but I agree with you, credit for him to win many matches playing his B, C, D game, but you can't win them all the time playing like that, especially against the top players in a ranking final.

Who is this Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan, everbody is talking about? Is he any good?

Well, little pudsy Smurphie rock solid, credit to that, Selby rubbish in the first session, played decent snooker in the 2nd. Put in other words: Not good enough to lift the title.
Hopefully, he improves style, gameplay, breakbuilding, tactical play, foresight and astuteness.
Honestly too many things before the WSC.

Jester82 wrote:Who is this Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan, everbody is talking about? Is he any good?

Definately better than Mark Anthony Selby

Murphy too much for Selby .

More of a natural player then Selby.

Great win smurph.

Always liked murphys manners and
His honesty .

He is a little bit misunderstood sometimes.
He is a good feel really, You can tell he has a
Sense of decency.

And a conscience , look at how that newspaper
Article about him made him feel inhibited in his
World final against higgins .

Look at the bitter irony 12 months later for the latter
Mentioned pkayer.

It is a funny old world if you see what I mean.

Sorry that I wasn't on to give my expert opinion yesterday, I was having internet problems. As a means of apology, here is a picture of Super Smurph.

Out of interest, has anybody ever tried Gujinggong licquour?