UK open commentary

I’d rather listen to Vietnamese rabbiting on than Phil Yates (+whoever they decide to chuck in with him at the time), rabbit on about nonsense. Surely there is someone more knowledgeable, and more charismatic?
So I'm not in an exclusive club.

I'm certain he covers some lower-profile snooker tournaments here in the UK too. He's probably a lovely guy but, I'd rather listen to Janice, from Friends, read aloud the Chinese phone book.
 
I stand in the minority. I really enjoy Phil Yates and gobble up the wisdom nuggets he drops about the players backgrounds, personalities, and other historical pool happenings in the past. I think he's great.

I definitely enjoyed Rico Diks. Here is someone who knows pool inside and out and can make an educated description of shots before and after they occur. I was pleasantly surprised to see him there.

I too was wondering about JJ and Scott. Maybe WNT is going to preserve them for American WNT events? Not sure. I know Scott Frost is very excited about the upcoming WNT Arizona Open. I'm sure he'll be there, probably along with JJ too.
 
I stand in the minority. I really enjoy Phil Yates and gobble up the wisdom nuggets he drops about the players backgrounds, personalities, and other historical pool happenings in the past. I think he's great.
I'm with you on this, agreed 100% about Phil Yates. I like them all - I've always like Karl Boyes and even though he went into full on clown mode recently when he didn't know the rules, I still rate him highly as a commentator. I love JJ's calm zen and knowledge - perfect commentator for both pool aficionados and channel hopping refugees whose favorite sport has just finished. Scott Frost is equally excellent.
 
It makes no sense for Matchroom to fly out JJ and Scott to commentate. Flights and hotels are very expensive!

WNT are clearly cost-cutting, so this sort of makes sense.
Why would pool commentators have to be on site?

They could commentate from a booth at home, over the live stream. Obviously someone on site would have to do post-match interviews with players though.
 
So I'm not in an exclusive club.

I'm certain he covers some lower-profile snooker tournaments here in the UK too. He's probably a lovely guy but, I'd rather listen to Janice, from Friends, read aloud the Chinese phone book.
Welcome to the club, this comment had me in stitches 😂
 
I stand in the minority. I really enjoy Phil Yates and gobble up the wisdom nuggets he drops about the players backgrounds, personalities, and other historical pool happenings in the past. I think he's great.

I definitely enjoyed Rico Diks. Here is someone who knows pool inside and out and can make an educated description of shots before and after they occur. I was pleasantly surprised to see him there.

I too was wondering about JJ and Scott. Maybe WNT is going to preserve them for American WNT events? Not sure. I know Scott Frost is very excited about the upcoming WNT Arizona Open. I'm sure he'll be there, probably along with JJ too.
I agree with you on Yates. I would also add Michael McMullan as an excellent commentator. He has a good voice, a good memory, and is always well prepared with information.

This is the first time I have heard Diks commentate, and it is going well. He did, however, blunder when they were talking about Shaw's straight pool run of 832. Diks said his own high run was about 150, but then he calculated how many racks Jayson had to run to get to 832 and he used 15 balls per rack (producing 55 racks) rather than the correct 14 balls per rack (59 racks plus 6 more balls, assuming the run started with a full first rack).

As for JJ, I think one of the commentators mentioned that he is recovering from something.
 
After a few views, I can’t even watch MR pool. Cloth color, ball colors, inferior camera work of their crews, and yes, the damn commentary.

Phil Yates is unbearable with info that has no bearing on pool, I don’t really give a damn about insipid observations and info on players other than their game. I used to really like both JJ and Frost when they started with Accustats. Now that they’re in the MR stable, listening them talk about pool using snooker terminology is just irritating, they’ve become suck ups to the MR machine. Brings a whole new meaning to the term “selling out” as compared to its use in pool.
 
As long as I was giving a couple kudos on the WNT presentations, here is another one.

To me, Abigail Davies is by far the best announcer/interviewer they have ever had. She is articulate, knowledgeable, personable, and excellent at the quick interviews they do. And she is an "interesting" dresser.

In the other direction, I would like to do without the Masters of Ceremonies they have had.
 
As long as I was giving a couple kudos on the WNT presentations, here is another one.

To me, Abigail Davies is by far the best announcer/interviewer they have ever had. She is articulate, knowledgeable, personable, and excellent at the quick interviews they do. And she is an "interesting" dresser.

In the other direction, I would like to do without the Masters of Ceremonies they have had.
Abigail was mostly very sharp and showed her knowledge. The MoC likes to go all baritone, but his role is too tiny for me to bother. (-:
 
... I would like to do without the Masters of Ceremonies they have had.
A large part of the MC's job is to make things lively during breaks and prepare the audience to do their part, which we usually don't get to see on the stream. Around 2000 MR had a Scot(?) named John(?) who did a really good job at that.
 
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