PLtheRef wrote:From a rankings perspective, I think the OOM system works well enough, though I do feel on principle prize money for different events should be on some sort of comparative scale with the Crucible - i.e. if the World Championship prize is £500,000 for winning 71 frames, then there shouldn't be an event of the same prize money with short-format matches. - As well as this, the Shootout, shouldn't be a ranking event.
Disagree with the first part. I think that the ranking system is choking the game, because it seriously constrains the formats for so-called 'ranking tournaments', which practically have to be 'flat-draw'. For example, Stuart Bingham and Ali Carter get
nothing for their Masters' performance, and Mark Allen nearly dropped out of the top-16 the year he won, which would have meant Sheffield qualifying. The upcoming tournaments in Dornbirn and Berlin are missing many top players who didn't qualify in Barnsley, and their isn't room for any local players. This badly affects growth in Europe. You are right that they will have to make allowances for the tariffs of some events, most notably next year's in Saudi Arabia. They should take the opportunity to rethink this stupid outdated system, which dates back to the 1970's.
The rest of your comments are great though!