2018 Champion of Champions

Frank O. Pinion

Starts tomorrow on ITV4, and finishes next Sunday, 11th November. I feel this is one of the bigger events, after the Triple Crown, and not a "minor event". Non-ranking tournament, winner's prize is £100,000.

Round 1, Best-of-7s:

Shaun Murphy (defending champion) v Jimmy Robertson
Ding Junhui v Michael Georgiou
John Higgins v Ryan Day
Ronnie O'Sullivan (last year's runner-up) v Stuart Bingham
Mark Williams v Kyren Wilson
Judd Trump v Luca Brecel
Barry Hawkins v Mark Allen
Mark Selby v Neil Robertson

These are the 12 men who have won all the tournaments over the last 12 months, plus Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, Barry Hawkins, and Luca Brecel filling the remaining four spots as the highest ranked players who haven't won something over the past year.

Frank O. Pinion

Shaun Murphy and Ding both won their opening matches 4-2 today, and will meet tonight at 7pm for a semi-final place.

Arthur Daley

The start of the UK snooker season really now. Loads of free to air snooker on BBC, ITV4 and Quest between now and early May.

Shaun Murphy looks fairly ropey so far this season. He and Higgins might be starting to drop back a bit unless they can kick start their motivation

Frank O. Pinion

Arthur Daley wrote: »

The start of the UK snooker season really now. Loads of free to air snooker on BBC, ITV4 and Quest between now and early May.

Yup, Northern Ireland Open starts the day after this ends.

Murphy won 6-3 tonight, in a pretty good match. Hopefully Ronnie wins his group tomorrow and we get a rematch of last year's final on Friday.

El_Duderino 09

Surprised to see Ding hasn’t won anything in the last year. He was on a bit of a roll the year before.

Good match between Ronnie and Higgins tonight. Both were very attacking and a very quick match. Neither were interested in a strategic safety game.

Nothing wrong with safety play but this was all out attack.

Inviere

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Surprised to see Ding hasn’t won anything in the last year. He was on a bit of a roll the year before.

Good match between Ronnie and Higgins tonight. Both were very attacking and a very quick match. Neither were interested in a strategic safety game.

Nothing wrong with safety play but this was all out attack.

Ronnie was sublime last night

Frank O. Pinion

Kyren and Judd won their matches yesterday, then in the evening, Kyren smashed Trump 6-1.

Selby made a 147 today, but lost 4-3 to Robertson.

Inviere

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Kyren and Judd won their matches yesterday, then in the evening, Kyren smashed Trump 6-1.

Selby made a 147 today, but lost 4-3 to Robertson.

Who is Robertson playing this evening?

Frank O. Pinion

Inviere wrote: »

Who is Robertson playing this evening?

Mark Allen. He beat Barry Hawkins 4-2.

Inviere

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Mark Allen. He beat Barry Hawkins 4-2.

Come on the Thunder so!

El_Duderino 09

Inviere wrote: »

Come on the Thunder so!

I was wondering about that. I support Mark Allen because he’s from NI and the closest thing we have to an Irish player at the sharp end of snooker.

Do others support him for that reason or just me?

CFlat

Mark Allen is playing out of his skin in this tournament. He has to be a hot favourite to win.

Poor old Robertson couldn't get a kick in a stampede this evening.

Inviere

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I was wondering about that. I support Mark Allen because he’s from NI and the closest thing we have to an Irish player at the sharp end of snooker.

Do others support him for that reason or just me?

I'm just not a fan, at all. The whole "angry man" persona he has really bothers me...always whinging and moaning. That said, he was imperious tonight.

El_Duderino 09

Inviere wrote: »

I'm just not a fan, at all. The whole "angry man" persona he has really bothers me...always whinging and moaning. That said, he was imperious tonight.

Fair enough. I always cheers him on but he's rarely in finals so I don't often have to choose between him and another player at that stage.

He's usually a quick player which makes him easy to watch.

Frank O. Pinion

CFlat wrote: »

Mark Allen is playing out of his skin in this tournament. He has to be a hot favourite to win.

So far for the 2018/2019 season he's the #1 ranked player. He's earned £208,000/ranking points.

Ronnie's only ranked #51, on £20,000/ranking points.

Joe_ Public

Ah I think Mark has definitely mellowed a bit this year, possibly finally maturing into the consistently top player he always threatened to be. Seems to have cut out those silly lack of concentration errors he was always very prone to. Love to see him keep this run going to the uk at least, the game needs a few new names to challenge the veterans 40 something year olds at the top.

Frank O. Pinion

Kyren Wilson just beat Mark Allen in a tense semi-final, 6-5.

He faces Ronnie in the final tomorrow. I like Kyren, but after being runner-up the last two years, Ronnie seems destined to be "Champion of Champions" for the first time since 2014.

El_Duderino 09

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Kyren Wilson just beat Mark Allen in a tense semi-final, 6-5.

He faces Ronnie in the final tomorrow. I like Kyren, but after being runner-up the last two years, Ronnie seems destined to be "Champion of Champions" for the first time since 2014.

I couldn’t watch it but fair play to Wilson. I like him. Would be happy to see him beat Ronnie.

He comes across as a good lad.the thing that always stands out to me was when someone’s phone kept going off and eventually they kicked the person out. Wilson was annoyed at first then he saw it was an old boy who might not have known how to silence his phone quickly enough. So he argued with the staff to turn off the guys phone and let him stay. Then he asked them to let the old boy back in at the interval.

He came across as a decent bloke.

Joe_ Public

Bad start for Wilson, 1-3 at midsession interval. Long way to go but not a position you want to be in against a guy who can accelerate away in a heartbeat. I like Kyren but he still seems to be a bit overawed against the likes of Ronnie, Higgins and Selby. Gonna have to overcome that, hopefully he can still make a go of this match.

Inviere

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Bad start for Wilson, 1-3 at midsession interval. Long way to go but not a position you want to be in against a guy who can accelerate away in a heartbeat. I like Kyren but he still seems to be a bit overawed against the likes of Ronnie, Higgins and Selby. Gonna have to overcome that, hopefully he can still make a go of this match.

Kyren is a great player, I don't know if he's elite yet though. He absolutely nails the fundamentals of the game, is a stunning long potter, and has a bright future in the game. What I don't or haven't seen in him yet, is that extra 10% that turns a great player, into a player that has a certain killer instinct like Ronnie, Selby, Allen, etc.

Joe_ Public

Inviere wrote: »

Kyren is a great player, I don't know if he's elite yet though. He absolutely nails the fundamentals of the game, is a stunning long potter, and has a bright future in the game. What I don't or haven't seen in him yet, is that extra 10% that turns a great player, into a player that has a certain killer instinct like Ronnie, Selby, Allen, etc.

I don’t personally believe he is as talented as the likes of Trump, Allen or Ding but you always know you’ll get 100% commitment with him. As he said after beating trump the other day, “maybe I just wanted it more than him”. I’d always back him to beat those kind of players.

However the reality is there is a big 4 and then a considerable gap to the next level including those named above. I’d love if someone like wilson was able to step up and push a couple of those old guard aside but I’m not seeing evidence of it happening so far. Bit like men’s tennis at the moment, feels like we’ll have to wait for the old guys to expire before we get a changing of the guard.

El_Duderino 09

I’m watching the second session on catchup so please hold off on the spoilers.

Great safety play in the first frame. I think Ronnie threw down the gauntlet and Wilson really responded.

On a separate note, what’s the story with the table?

The tables are usually sponsored by Strachan but this time it’s Rasson. So I presumed that meant it was a Rasson table. But if you look to the right of the Rasson sign on the table, you can see the shadow of the Strachan sigh. So what’s the story?

Is it the same table which just gets signed up with whatever sponsor pays for the event or what?

Joe_ Public

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I’m watching the second session on catchup so please hold off on the spoilers.

Great safety play in the first frame. I think Ronnie threw down the gauntlet and Wilson really responded.

On a separate note, what’s the story with the table?

The tables are usually sponsored by Strachan but this time it’s Rasson. So I presumed that meant it was a Rasson table. But if you look to the right of the Rasson sign on the table, you can see the shadow of the Strachan sigh. So what’s the story?

Is it the same table which just gets signed up with whatever sponsor pays for the event or what?

Not 100% but this is a matchroom promoted event so ties in with that. They spoke in commentary the other day about some apparent new innovations but didn’t pick up what they were. Slick cushions, fast cloths, generous pockets - seem pretty much standard to me anyway!

zuutroy

Crazy frame. God I love snooker. Feel a bit for Wilson though.

CFlat

Both feeling the pressure.

zuutroy

Amazing stuff. How has he won that match?

Joe_ Public

He was gone there more than once. Combination of bad luck and lack of killer instinct from kyren. Feel bad for him, this one will hurt very badly.

zuutroy

He's alone as the best young player around though. Be amazed if he doesn't win a WC or two.

tanko

zuutroy wrote: »

Amazing stuff. How has he won that match?

He's the best player ever, thats how.
He can pull off shots no one else can.

Wilson will be sick after that tho.

Joe_ Public

I’d say he won that 70% down to luck. That fluke snooker off that ridiculous attempted double at which point ronnies head was gone. Kyren knocking the black in after potting the red.

Overall though not enough single visit frame wins from Wilson, made hard work of winning too many of them, not closing out match at 10-8.

El_Duderino 09

Good final. Maybe not the greatest snooker at all times but great final.

Fair play to both. I can’t begrudge Ronnie his win but I would have preferred if Kyren won it.