Or watch some grass grow.
UK Open (9B), May 17-22, 2022 -- field full already
- Thread starter Bob Jewett
- Start date
One pocket is great. It’s cured my insomnia for years.
would be good for fans, but the days when snooker players could stir the 9-ball pot are gone. unless they dedicate themselves to pool they're dead money.
That's too bad. I'd love to see his BBC televised on BBC!Diamond Dave wanted to play in this, but I didn’t get his entry in on time
Hahahahahahah!!!!! F^%&^%!!!! HAHALOLOL!!!!
Oh Diamond David ...
I’d like to have Ronnie O in the booth for sure. I like the way he talks and he seems like an excitable fellow. Him and a more seasoned 9b talker would make a great mix.
Good commentary is like gold for me. I know some people just mute streams but that makes me fall asleep. I like talking - almost nonstop jaw swinging. 70% About the game at hand, 15-25% about the history of the players at hand, recent wins etc but also updates of other happenings in the tourney - non streamed match scores and the like, and then NPR for the remaining 5-15%. Jokes, stories, amusing anecdotes and these kinds of things.
Only certain people can pull off a 15% NPR successfully.
All percentages are random guesstimates and guidelines. A golden commentator hits the right percentages at the right times and leaves me sad at the end of a match. It’s a rare gift.
Looking forward to see what this tournament is all about. Hopefully it does well and something happens to make matchroom switch away from the black set
I’d like to have Ronnie O in the booth for sure. I like the way he talks and he seems like an excitable fellow. Him and a more seasoned 9b talker would make a great mix.
Good commentary is like gold for me. I know some people just mute streams but that makes me fall asleep. I like talking - almost nonstop jaw swinging. 70% About the game at hand, 15-25% about the history of the players at hand, recent wins etc but also updates of other happenings in the tourney - non streamed match scores and the like, and then NPR for the remaining 5-15%. Jokes, stories, amusing anecdotes and these kinds of things.
Only certain people can pull off a 15% NPR successfully.
All percentages are random guesstimates and guidelines. A golden commentator hits the right percentages at the right times and leaves me sad at the end of a match. It’s a rare gift.
Looking forward to see what this tournament is all about. Hopefully it does well and something happens to make matchroom switch away from the black set
On the recent Loose Pool podcast, Emily mentioned that they have over 400 on the waiting list.
Here is the list of entries so far. Only 7 from the US, it seems. Only Oi and Yapp from Asia? There are 21 blanks which I assume are being held for top players who haven't responded yet. I've marked the names I recognized with XX (that I noticed). Lots from South Africa and some other countries not often represented in the US.
- Kyle Akaloo (za)
- Ramazan Akdag (tur)
- XX Omar Al Shaheen (kuw)
- XX Bader Alawadhi (kuw)
- Jose Alberto Delgado (esp)
- XX David Alcaide (esp)
- Chris Alexander (gbr)
- Abdulla Alfedhala (bhr)
- Ruben Alves (por)
- Abdullah Alyousef (kuw)
- XX Darren Appleton (gbr)
- Simon Ayers (gbr)
- XX Radoslaw Babica (pol)
- Daniel Bakircioglu (swe)
- Jon Ballard (gbr)
- Justinas Bauza (ltu)
- Benjamin Belhassen (fra)
- Bruno Bernardo (por)
- Rainer Biermann (ger)
- XX Marc Bijsterbosch (ned)
- David Black (gbr)
- Šarac Bojana (srb)
- Tobias Bolt (gbr)
- XX Tobias Bongers (ger)
- Leo Bosher (gbr)
- Pedro Botta (usa)
- Craig Bouwer (za)
- Robert Braga (rom)
- Craig Brown (gbr)
- Allan Brown (gbr)
- Benji Buckley (gbr)
- Lou Callaghan (gbr)
- Francesco Candela (ita)
- Alvaro Canoniga (esp)
- Gianluca Cappella (ita)
- Juan Carlis Exposito Otero (esp)
- Shahram Changezi (pak)
- James Channon (gbr)
- John Chapman (gbr)
- Ioannis Charlaftis (gre)
- Natasha Chethan (ind)
- Chetan Chhabra (ind)
- XX Ruslan Chinakhov (rus)
- Andrea Cianciaruso (ita)
- Dominic Clemens (gbr)
- Ivan Coelho (por)
- Adam Collins (gbr)
- Glenn Cooney (irl)
- Alfredo Correia (prt)
- Daniele Corrieri (ita)
- Massimiliano Corso (ita)
- Chris Cowie (gbr)
- Ben Crawley (can)
- Robin Cripps (gbr)
- Tim Crooks (gbr)
- Arfan Dad (gbr)
- Deividas Daugela (ltu)
- Muhummed Daydat (za)
- Luca De Carolis (ita)
- Davide De Santis (ita)
- Steve Della Pietra (gbr)
- Peter Devlin (gbr)
- Marnitz Dihan Hawkes (za)
- XX Rico Diks (ned)
- Marco Dorenburg (ger)
- XX Tony Drago (mlt)
- Anders Edvardsson (swe)
- XX Nikos Ekonomopoulos (grc)
- Stephen Ellis (gbr)
- Tom Emes (gbr)
- Mark England (gbr)
- Edward Epperson (usa)
- Vettas Evangelos (grc)
- Jj Faul (za)
- Margarita Fefilova (blr)
- XX Niels Feijen (ned)
- XX Joshua Filler (ger)
- XX Pia Filler (ger)
- XX Kelly Fisher (gbr)
- Ryan Fleming (gbr)
- XX Stephen Folan (can)
- XX Mieszko Fortuński (pol)
- Rich Fulwell (gbr)
- Manuel Gama (prt)
- Pablo Garcia-lagar (esp)
- Luke Garland (gbr)
- Georgi Georgiev (bgr)
- Paulius Giedraitis (ltu)
- Ramesh Gokhul (gbr)
- Vincent Gomez (aut)
- XX Fedor Gorst (rus)
- XX Denis Grabe (est)
- Joe Granville (gbr)
- David Grayland (gbr)
- Patrick Griess (ger)
- Joao Grillo (prt)
- Terrence Gulliver (can)
- Richard Halliday (za)
- Yana Halliday (blr)
- Graeme Hamilton (gbr)
- Chun Hao Man (gbr)
- Robert Hart (usa)
- XX Mario He (aut)
- Ali Hirji Kheraj (grc)
- XX Thorsten Hohmann (ger)
- Dave Hopkin (gbr)
- Aleksandrs Horsuns Latvia
- Adam Humphries (gbr)
- XX Roman Hybler (ger)
- Giuseppe Iacobucci (ita)
- Clint Ianson (gbr)
- Anthony Illingworth (gbr)
- XX Mika Immonen (fin)
- Andrei Ionescu (rom)
- James Jack (gbr)
- Jamiel Jacobs (za)
- Radwan Jamil Sorouji (sau)
- Robert Jarvis (gbr)
- Nils Johanning (ger)
- Carl Jones (gbr)
- Tim Jonkman (ned)
- XX Konrad Juszczyszyn (pol)
- Sotiris Karotsakis (cyp)
- XX Alexandros Kazakis (grc)
- Jake Keegan (irl)
- Danny King (gbr)
- Jakub Koniar (svk)
- Mickey Krause (dnk)
- Filip Krawczyk (pol)
- Pijus Labutis (ltu)
- Sergio Lagunas (esp)
- David Larsson (swe)
- Craig Laurie (irl)
- XX Max Lechner (aut)
- James Lee (gbr)
- Adam Lewis (gbr)
- Daniel Lim (gbr)
- Dimitris Loukatos (grc)
- Sergey Lutsker (rus)
- XX Imran Majid (gbr)
- XX Petri Makkonen (fin)
- Neil Margossian (gbr)
- Federico Maria Pellicciotti (ita)
- Jonah Mark Antony (ind)
- Damian Massey (gbr)
- Derek Mayes (gbr)
- Jon Mcallister (gbr)
- Ian Mccormick (irl)
- Babken Melkonyan (rom)
- XX Chris Melling (gbr)
- Audrius Michelkevicius (ltu)
- Stephen Moriarty (gbr)
- XX John Morra (can)
- Adam Mscisz (pol)
- Dino Nair (za)
- Dmitrijs Nalivko (ltv)
- XX Naoyuki Oi (jap)
- Spencer Oliver (gbr)
- Ryan O'neill (irl)
- Danny Orme (gbr)
- XX Albin Ouschan (aut)
- Gj Oyangoren (gbr)
- XX Alex Pagulayan (can)
- Aleksa Pecelj (srb)
- Sanjin Pehlivanovic (bsh)
- Kristian Phillips (gbr)
- Ryan Pisani (mlt)
- Marcel Price (gbr)
- Bharat Ramakrishna (ind)
- Pranit Ramchandani (ind)
- Kinga Rauk (pol)
- Abhishek Ravindranath (ind)
- XX Christian Reimering (ger)
- Jan Rempe (ned)
- Matthew Rigley (gbr)
- Chris Robson (gbr)
- Luke Rollison (gbr)
- Eero Romppanen (fin)
- Riku Romppanen (fin)
- Panos Roulias (grc)
- Justin Sajich (usa)
- Angelo Salzano (ita)
- XX Francisco Sanchez-ruiz (esp)
- Elliott Sanderson (gbr)
- Rattapol Sassmann (ger)
- Rich Saunders (gbr)
- Tashunka Schultz (esp)
- Chris Seville (gbr)
- Hasan Shahid (gbr)
- So Shaw (gbr)
- Dimitrios Siampanis (grc)
- Ivaylo Simeonov (bgr)
- Kevin Simpson (gbr)
- Jaspal Singh Bamotra (gbr)
- Mariusz Skoneczny (pol)
- Karol Skowerski (pol)
- Adam Smith (gbr)
- XX Ralf Souquet (ger)
- Besar Spahiu (alb)
- Adam Stankiewicz (pol)
- Tom Staveley (gbr)
- Adam Stevens (gbr)
- Sam Storey (gbr)
- XX Tyler Styer (usa)
- XX Olivér Szolnoki (hun)
- Faris Taleb (gbr)
- Martyn Taylor (gbr)
- Paul Taylor (gbr)
- Ben Taylor-fuente (gbr)
- Tayfun Teber (ger)
- Jim Telfer (gbr)
- Dmitrijus Teriajevas (ltu)
- XX Marco Teustcher (ned)
- Jason Theron (za)
- Russell Thomas (gbr)
- Kieran Tunney (gbr)
- Petr Urban (cze)
- Tamas Vagvolgyi (hun)
- Saulius Vaitukaitis (ltu)
- XX Shane Van Boening (usa)
- XX Nick Van Den Berg (ned)
- Richard Van Velthoven (ned)
- Gijs Van Westenbrugge (ned)
- Gabriel Vasilache (rom)
- Marco Vignola (ita)
- Liam Waterworth (gbr)
- Kurtis Weaver (gbr)
- James Welch (gbr)
- Phillip Wildman (gbr)
- Marc Wolff (ger)
- XX Skyler Woodward (usa)
- Muhsin Yagli (ned)
- XX Aloysius Yapp (sgp)
- David Žalman (cze)
- XX Wiktor Zielinski (pol)
MR needs to work on the asian representation, because this is becoming problematic. not dissing the field but if this continues and we'll have a world championship without raga, biado, JL chang, orcullo, ko x2, wu, zheng, kevin cheng.. will it really be the worlds best pool player being crowned?
It's not Matchroom's fault that there is a global pandemic preventing these players from traveling.
As the great one Nature Boy Ric Flair says "To be the man, you gotta beat the man". In order to beat the man, you gotta enter the tourneys.
i know, but on the other hand europeans are making it to beijing to compete in the olympics right now
Europeans don't have 3 week quarantines in government hotels/prisons when they return home.
all good points. doesn't japan have quarantines? maybe MR could facilitate in some way for these players, or with the situation in mind put tournaments closer together
In that same Loose Pool Podcast Emily said something to the effect of that as soon as they realized they were going to sell out all the spots within minutes, that they made the call to hold back some of the spots for Americans because they had gone on sale at a less than ideal time of the day for the Americans and with the implication being that nobody was expecting that they would be selling out quickly like that. She did not say how they would determine who the remaining spots would go to, nor did it seem that they knew yet, they just held some back as soon as they realized they were going to book all up in minutes at a less than ideal time of the day for Americans to be on booking spots and were going to figure the rest out later. The whole thing was unexpected for them and she either said or alluded to them not even being confident they would be able to sell out all the player spots for the event, and the possibility of that happening in minutes was never even conceived of.
She also clearly insinuated that at some future point players better be prepared to get their spot the moment they go on sale regardless of when it is, that responsible people have to set alarms when it is time to either get up or get reminded to get things done, etc.
In the future this is how I think Matchroom should handle putting the player spots on sale for open events. For the simplicity of discussion I will use an example where it is an open tournament with 256 player spots. Publicize the date and time the spots will be released for sale, and that they will be accepting ALL fully paid submissions for a period of 48 hours but that they are still considered tentative and not yet confirmed/guaranteed at that point subject to final approval. At exactly the 48 hour mark, if they still have spots left, then everybody that is already paid is to be confirmed as being in, and it is first come first serve for the rest of the spots until they ultimately sell out. But if at the 48 hour mark they have more than 256 paid sign ups, then take the top 256 players by FargoRate and refund the rest and let them know they did not make the cut to get in but that they are on the waiting list which will also be continuously ordered by highest Fargo rating and anybody can get added to the waiting list at any time
Once Matchroom has their ranking points list fully established with enough data, they can use the Matchroom points list rather than the Fargo ratings to determine the top 256 to get in, or they can use some combination of both at that point, but the point is that when they sell out right away/way in advance they should be shooting for trying to get the top 256 players (or however many) rather than just the first 256 players who signed up. The method I outlined above would be completely fair to all, would not cause any undue inconvenience, and would also be the most beneficial to the sport, to Matchroom, to the fans, and to everybody else.
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The usual method for arranging seeded players to get in if they want is to allow them some number of days to accept a spot and then either take an open player or ask a lower-ranked player if they want the spot. "Open" is OK to an extent but I don't think you want to give preference to players who know how to use speed dial. I think the top 128 players by whatever ranking system Matchroom would like to use should have a day to enter without mass competition.
But if some spots were held open, I'm not sure why they haven't been taken by the players they were intended for. It has been a few weeks.
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While not bad, I don't think that is the best method for a few reasons. First, with fields of 256 or more, their ranking list is almost certainly not going to do a very good job of differentiating player skill levels/rankings way before it ever gets to player #256 (assuming it even does a good job initially). There are likely to be way too many players with tied points and no points at all and the like the further you get down the list. Second, too many people from the top 256 players will decline to participate, which will leave way too many spots being given to undeserving players just because they were the first come when the sign up then went to first come first serve. Maybe only 100 of the top 256 players will choose to participate which would leave the other 156 spots going to whoever came first which will include a lot of guys like you and I. Much better If they can pick the best 256 players rather than some of the best players followed by a whole bunch of random lower skilled people who got there through first come first serve, and they can easily do that using some form of my method. For the events that never fill up or take forever to fill up it will likely not make a lot of difference to who ends up in the field, but for the more popular events I think my method would lead to much stronger fields and I can't think of any big downsides off hand so it seems like that might be the way to go.
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Yeah, I suspect we’re going to see some good 9-ball played by some less than familiar faces.