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Re: Provisional 2015 calendar

Postby Andy Spark

Interestingly, Wuxi ranker replaced by World Cup at same venue. Otherwise things like...

Pro Snooker Blog wrote:Interesting, the Ruhr Open and Bulgarian Open European Tour events have switched places on the calendar this year...

Well, even as a snooker geek myself I'm not sure that "interesting" is quite the correct word here, maybe "notable". There are a few other "notable" things.

Re: Provisional 2015 calendar

Postby Dannyboy

The second half of the calendar has been released (in secret almost) on the World Snooker website.

The 2nd Asian Tour event will take place in Singapore. No event listed in India at the moment, however I wonder if this will change.

Meanwhile, prize funds for Wuxi and Melbourne have been released - $800,000 for the World Cup ($200,000 for the winning pair!) and just short of £300,000 for the Australian Open. Still think £1,200 for getting to the final round of qualifying for that tournament is pretty pathetic.

Re: Provisional 2015 calendar

Postby Alex0paul

£35.50 High Break prize for the Aussie Open qualifiers

Re: Provisional 2015 calendar

Postby fridge46

Whats going on with China?! A few years ago they were all set to take over the calendar, now they are losing events quicker than... well, something that that loses things quickly!

Two years ago they had 5 rankings events. Now 3! World Open is gone, Wuxi now essentially an invitational, Shanghai has 2 events left in its contract and wont be renewed unless it changes format!

Also, there were 4 PTCs. Now they have 1 (AT4 has gone, AT1 likely wont be rescheduled and AT2 moved to Singapore!)

Re: Provisional 2015 calendar

Postby Andy Spark

My own view is that the Chinese need two things to make snooker thrive there, two things that aren't happening...

1/ They need to produce Chinese players that are top 16 standard.

2/ They need a pro snooker table technical design that doesn't allow so many frames to be won in one or two scoring visits at the very highest level.

The last point is a technical maths point. if the average number of scoring visits it takes to win a frame decreases (as it has done for many years) then the average amount of luck involved in the outcome increases. Now, too much luck is a bad thing, it leaves a feeling of being "hard done by" that detracts from snooker enjoyment.