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Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby AC or LT?

I think this is something that snookers missing at the moment. A proper round robin tournament where every player plays each other over a couple of weeks.

Does anyone else think we should lobby World Snooker for one?

Best of 7s for the first round robin round and then seed the Top 16 into a finals event of Best of 11, Best of 11, Best of 15, Best of 17??

Anyone else want this?

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Wildey

Smart im warning you any more reference to cheating by players thats not been banned will result in your ban is that clear

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Smart

Wildey wrote:Smart im warning you any more reference to cheating by players thats not been banned will result in your ban is that clear


Round robin events are littered with accusations of cheating. Malta ? Please do not be so pig headed to think that snooker is whiter than white. It is clearly not and suggesting a round robin format is asking for trouble considering what we know and what we have seen on our TV screens and what has been exposed by our newspaper investigators. Open your eyes and stop trying to police peoples thoughts. :wave:

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Wildey

Smart wrote:
Wildey wrote:Smart im warning you any more reference to cheating by players thats not been banned will result in your ban is that clear


Round robin events are littered with accusations of cheating. Malta ? Please do not be so pig headed to think that snooker is whiter than white. It is clearly not and suggesting a round robin format is asking for trouble considering what we know and what we have seen on our TV screens and what has been exposed by our newspaper investigators. Open your eyes and stop trying to police peoples thoughts. :wave:

to start with there's only 2 or 3 players that's been caught cheating and dealt with and none are scottish so stick to facts not your biased opinions in future.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Smart

Wildey wrote:
Smart wrote:
Wildey wrote:Smart im warning you any more reference to cheating by players thats not been banned will result in your ban is that clear


Round robin events are littered with accusations of cheating. Malta ? Please do not be so pig headed to think that snooker is whiter than white. It is clearly not and suggesting a round robin format is asking for trouble considering what we know and what we have seen on our TV screens and what has been exposed by our newspaper investigators. Open your eyes and stop trying to police peoples thoughts. :wave:

to start with there's only 2 or 3 players that's been caught cheating and dealt with and none are scottish so stick to facts not your biased opinions in future.


you mixing up cheating and bringing game into disrepute - answer to this thread is simple NO.....very bad idea as its open to cheating and bringing game (heavily reliant on cash from betting sponsors) into disrepute.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby roy142857

For sure can't have every player play every player, so have to be in groups with the group winners (say) advancing to a new group in the next round (sorry if I'm stating the obvious).

The risk tends to be that you can have meaningless matches or frames (depending on the format), or indeed if two players can advance, a player already qualified giving away a frame a friend needs to qualify.

Best way round this is to have money at stake for every frame.

That said, the idea of a Round Robin appeals to me. If done via a series of groups, it doesn't even have to be all in the same location.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Smart

AC or LT? wrote:Take the cheating talk elsewhere. This thread is about the potential of a round robin format as a watcher and player event.

I think it would work quite well.


the thread asks a question, I provide an answer and a rationale for my answer - don't tell me where to post :clap: :wave:

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby AC or LT?

roy142857 wrote:For sure can't have every player play every player, so have to be in groups with the group winners (say) advancing to a new group in the next round (sorry if I'm stating the obvious).


Yes you could. You'd just need a decent sized venue and a block of 2-3 weeks. Could hold it in the Olympic park with a bit of seating rejigging??

The risk tends to be that you can have meaningless matches or frames (depending on the format), or indeed if two players can advance, a player already qualified giving away a frame a friend needs to qualify.


I trust snooker players understand the consequence of giving away frames so you probably wouldn't see that and if you did you just make sure action is taken. You make each match worth a certain amount to the player (£50 a win or something) which would mean they'd have the motivation to win the match, if they won 40 matches and lost the 88-95 depending on the number of tour players then they'd go home with £2000 for a week or twos work. Pretty good if you ask me.

That said, the idea of a Round Robin appeals to me. If done via a series of groups, it doesn't even have to be all in the same location.


It doesn't necessarily need to be in the same location if it's not done in groups, you just arrange sets of players to play one another in a certain venue.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Smart

Wildey wrote:
Smart wrote:see any Scots on this list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sn ... tch-fixing

Back to 2011 none was proved

Move on its getting boring your boring the whole subject is boring and all said Scots not been found guilty


IYO. Forums are about opinions. I gave mine, you acted that policeman as usual. Well done. <doh>

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby roy142857

Just a further thought, would this work from Last 64 stage of a competition that had the (dreaded) wild cards in it? Then they could be accommodated without one player having to play them and not play their expected opponent, and on the other side of the coin, they get more experience as play a range of players. Wonder if Chinese event organisers would go for it?

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby The Cueist

Dont see what difference , Whats the odds , Low prize money.

That will encourage top money earners will it.

Did we not see one of these efforts 2012 season.

Sorry but I dont see the advantage of thatbkind of tourney.

Only that a few players will meet a few bogey players on the way.

That is the only odds.

If there arebplayers who eill parakeet then all you can hope is that they will be caughtand banned from pto snooker for life.

I think it is pretty much eradicated now, Barry Hearn has dealt with this.

And it is time we moved on and enjoyed the snooker.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby SnookerFan

Not sure if snooker works much as a round robin format. Part of the appeal is that tension can increase with every shot. The closer you are to the end of a frame/match, the more each shot means.

If it's a round robin, and losing a match doesn't matter as much because you could win your next one and still qualify, then somehow the tension is lacking a bit more for me personally. I don't think it works as well for snooker as it does for some sports. (Like football.)

Saying that, I wouldn't argue too much against it if one was set up. As long as it wasn't treated as one of the important tournaments of the year. In answer to the question; "Does anyone else think we should lobby World Snooker for one?", I'd say "Not particularly." If the question was; "Would you try watching such a tournament for something a bit different?", I'd say "Yeah probably."

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby PLtheRef

With the right format, Round robins can work. Problem is that poor formats have been used which has done damage to the idea. E.g playing matches over six frames rather than best of Six frames. Look at Darts Premier League for how an even frame format should be run.

Always said double elimination works best as every match counts. No dead matches.

A round robin format should return. But with the right format.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby NNear

Of the opinion that there definitely should be. Preferably an elite extra event for those ranked high enough. It guarantees a greater number of the best match-ups and would be exciting for the viewer, and makes frames won become an important statistic depending on the details of the RR format.

Some potential formats:

8 players, 2 RR groups with 3 Bo7 matches in each group with qualifiers for Bo11 semi-finals leading to a Bo19 final - winners from the group play second place from the other group.

8 players, all play each other in Bo5 frame matches (7 matches). Top two make final and play a best of 19.

16 players are in two groups of 8 who play in Bo5 frame matches. Top from the groups play second place from the other group in Bo11 semi-finals leading to a Bo19 final.

Double elimination/upper and lower bracket formats are used a lot in Dota tournaments and just generally in Esports/games tournaments and could work in snooker, as indeed there would be no dead matches.

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby Cannonball

Yeah, round robin tourney with all 128 players. What a larf that would be, all twenty weeks of it!

Re: Should there be a round robin tournament?

Postby NNear

Alternative idea is that points are based on frames won throughout the matches during the RR group stages and that matches from a single group of say 4 players in an 8-player tournament are played concurrently -- imagine the drama as all competitors have to play at the same time and every frame won or lost can be a big deal, players would be sorely tempted to check the scoreboard from the other ongoing match. I dunno, could be interesting...

Perhaps matches could be best of 6 or 8 and if you do happen to win the match outright it can be beneficial for count-back later on but essentially points accrued only come from frames won.

Eventually 2 players would qualify from each group of 4 either to a KO stage of semis to finals played under a standard format OR a final RR group of the 4 qualified players ensuring they all play each other and he who wins the most frames wins the event. The final two matches would be played concurrently!

Radical I know, but it came to mind and had to get it out there.