International Championship - Opening Rounds

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 International Championship, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: 2012 International Championship

Well, since I did my initial write-up on this event, Ronnie O'Sullivan has pulled out of the event, Graeme Dott has indeed been beaten by Dominic Dale and the bold form of Stuart Bingham revealed in last week's premier league whitewashes over Selby and Robertson has been brought to a screeching halt as he trails India's Aditya Mehta 4-0. It is for these reasons, and many others over the years, that I only place monetary bets on snooker in sums no greater than $1.00 apiece.

Dott: The draw's really opening up for--oh, wait...

Photo by Monique Limbos

Turning to the matter of O'Sullivan, I understand that he's pulled out of this event for health reasons after completing several Snooker Legends exhibitions over the last several weeks in apparently quite able-bodied shape. The only thing predictable about Ronnie's behaviour has become his sheer unpredictability and though I wouldn't explicitly call him out on being too ill to travel in this particular case, but the sudden decision is somewhat suspect and will leave many fans disappointed.

When I first read the story though, I was less surprised than I was excited for Graeme Dott, who was slated to meet Ronnie in the second round. Dott has seen a bit of form returning now that the season has really gotten going and I expected him to be able to come through against Dominic Dale in the first round. However, Dale is quite unpredictable and he's looked like beating many players ranked well above him at ranking events over the last couple of seasons. Normally, he can't quite get over the line as he demonstrated in his two recent first-round meetings with Judd Trump, but in Chengdu, he disposed of Graeme Dott quite handily and played so well that I can't even be too disappointed. His safety in the ninth and final frame kept Dott tied in knots and it was clear that Dominic Dale had no intention of playing a tenth, effectively quelling a signature Scottish fightback before it could even really get started.

That section of the draw has gotten a little strange as 14 year-old Lu Haotian, who entered as a wild card and defeated his second successive qualifier in a deciding frame to enter the main draw with a 6-5 win over Welshman Michael White. White continues to reaffirm his membership in my honourary Bottleless & Overhyped Tour Player Club alongside the likes of Sam Baird, but I don't mean to suggest that he should've necessarily had this win because Lu Haotian is a bit of a scary young player who seems to play with no fluctuations in expression or emotion whatsoever. So it'll be Lu Haotian vs. Dominic Dale in what should've been Dott-O'Sullivan and frankly, I don't know if I can back Dale in this contest in spite of his excellent performance to knock out Graeme.

Stephen Maguire: Might be due for a win.

Photo by Monique Limbos

The winner of that contest will face either Neil Robertson or Matthew Stevens. Stevens was given a right scare against the Zhao Xintong yesterday who, trailing 4-1, fought back to force a decider after also winning the decider against Ken Doherty in the wild card round. Marco Fu was involved in another deciding frame before coming out on top against Martin Gould and will move on to face Mark Davis who caused a bit of a shock by defeating Mark Williams 6-4 for the first time I can recall in a major ranker since the 1995 World Championship qualifying competition.

Most of the other rounds have gone according to plan, with Mark Allen beating Robert Milkins 6-2, Stephen Maguire winning 6-3 using his ample experience playing Jamie Burnett over the years to come through quite easily and Mark Selby setting the tone with a 6-3 win over Ali Carter. Shaun Murphy shut out Andrew Higginson 6-0 in the only whitewash of the Last 32 in a match that was terribly one-sided in more ways than just the scoreline, reminiscent of his 5-0 win in the Brazil Masters final over Graeme Dott last season.

If Stuart Bingham is unable to come back against Aditya Mehta today, that will still only be the second-biggest shock on the drawsheet as the Crucible conqueror of Mark Allen claimed another big scalp in Chengdu. Cao Yupeng has eliminated John Higgins 6-3 yesterday and will continue to move up the rankings inevitably if these kinds of results keep coming in on his side. Other matches yet to come to a close today include Judd Trump, who looks good to progress against Fergal O'Brien as he currently holds a 5-3 lead. Meanwhil, Lu Ning, another victorious wildcard who won a marathon match (in yet another deciding frame) to send Barry Pinches back home, trails Ricky Walden 3-2 in a match that doesn't seem to be moving very fast either.

Now then, let's revise these predictions:


Haphazard Semifinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Neil Robertson
• Marco Fu
• Mark Allen
• Stephen Maguire

PREDICTED WINNER: Stephen Maguire

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Kill me.

The Other Other Big One - To Chengdu!

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 International Championship, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: 2012 International Championship

For as long as I have known, the World Championship at the Crucible has been the flagship event in professional snooker, while the UK Championship in December is often hailed as the second-biggest tournament of the year. Definitely a fair argument, as the whole of the tournament (including qualifiers) was played over a best-of-17 frames, with the final contested over 19. It is the sort of match that I love to become engrossed in and the scarcity of these longer formats in the modern game makes it all the more exciting when the holiday season rolls around.

However, in what I view as Barry Hearn's most unsavoury adjustment to the sport at large, the UK Championship rounds have been reduced to a mere best-of-11 frames, leaving it barely distinguishable from the myriad best-of-9 ranking events that occupy a second tier of significance and prestige on the snooker calendar. Many of the players agree that this was not the right move, but the end result is that the new International Championship in China starting next week, which carries precisely the same best-of-11 format, is being billed as the next biggest major of the season with a similarly husky prize purse of £600,000 on offer. I don't want to get too deep into it here, but I do think the length of the matches ought to reflect the prizes on offer a little more closely than they do under the new system.

Barry Hearn: Time is money, friend.

A best-of-11 is not a terribly short match, but it's short enough that it doesn't take something extraordinary for the better player to lose and it seems to me that when a lot of money is up for grabs, the best player should win. Particularly with Hearn's plan to eliminate ranking points altogether and seed players based on how much money they win over the course of a season come 2014. I'll probably write a separate post ranting about that later on, but the crux of my objection is that a money-based ranking system means that you would have to win FOUR Welsh Opens to earn the "ranking dollars" equal to winning ONE International Championship--and the format of the tournaments are not exactly all that different.

Nevertheless, with all of the good Barry Hearn has brought to the game, it's difficult to admonish his forthcoming misgivings too loudly and it seems clear that the direction he is going is unlikely to change. So, with that, I will begrudgingly treat the new International Championship as a big deal and I will begrudgingly pretend that the UK Championship carries all the esteemed prominence it has in the past, whilst muttering curse words under my breath as I watch the criminal injustice of Graeme Dott running out of frames in the midst of staging a late comeback during one of these so-called "majors". *deep breath*

The Draw
In the top quarter of the draw, we see a familiar name in the form of world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, entering a major ranking event for the first time since signing the players' contract and deciding that there was enough cash on offer to justify boarding a plane to China. The only other sign of Ronnie all season was a 4-3 defeat to Simon Bedford at PTC3 which he clearly didn't take too seriously if you watched his recklessly aggressive shot selections unfold. Ronnie will play the winner of a wildcard round between the Welsh underachiever Michael White and the recent conqueror of Marco Fu at the Shanghai Masters, 14 year-old Lu Haotian. I suspect he'll steamroll either of them, despite the assertions of some pundits that Ronnie might be a little rusty--poppycock, I say! Balderdash!

Unfortunately for Graeme Dott, he will likely face O'Sullivan if he is able to come through his first-round tie with Dominic Dale and although Dott is certainly capable of winning, it's tough to back him when Ronnie is expected to come back to the baize hungrier than usual. The good news for Dott (or at least Dott fans such as myself) is that he'll almost certainly be on a televised table--or he could lose to the Spaceman, I guess...

Also in this Welsh-heavy section of the draw is Matthew Stevens, who I haven't seen play all that well in quite some time and may be in tough against Ken Doherty, wildcard permitted. Ryan Day faces Neil Robertson in another match fit for television. I would bet on Neil Robertson to win by a couple of frames at least and likely move on to eventually meet Ronnie in the quarters--but hey, it doesn't take a genius to come up with that prediction.

Marco Fu: Reppin' for Deroo Cues in Chengdu.

Photo by Monique Limbos

India's Pankaj Advani, who had to fight through four rounds of qualifying to make it to the International Championship, disappointingly decided to withdraw after the fact in order to compete in the World Billiards Championship in Leeds. The result is that the second quarter of the draw will feature a Chinese wildcard squaring off against Ding Junhui in the opening round. I don't know much about Zhou Yuelong, but if Ding can't win this match, he may never be favoured to win again in China. I wholly expect him to lose to Shaun Murphy in the last 16. Marco Fu and Martin Gould will be engaged in what I imagine will be an entertaining match for the chance to face either Mark Davis or Mark Williams, the winner of which will have a chance to "mar" the record of Murphy in the quarters if I'm right.

The bottom half has some interesting permutations, including five of the eight wildcards, of which I don't think any have much of a chance of progressing. I don't think anyone's picking Fergal O'Brien to dump Trump, Barry Pinches is going to have a hard time with Ricky Walden, Jamie Burnett's good run of form isn't enough to convince me he can beat Stephen Maguire over 11 frames and who can back Cao Yupeng against John Higgins? India's other representative, Aditya Mehta, faces Stuart Bingham if he can get through the wildcard round, and I sure hope he does given that he had the sense to at least board the plane and play in this tournament rather than spend his week stringing together 800 nursery cannons to an audience of two dozen sleeping bystanders.

Mark Allen, fresh off his win in Antwerp, faces Robert Milkins in his first-round fixture, the winner likely to progress to face John Higgins. You have to favour Allen, but I still feel Milkins is waiting in the wings to produce something big and this might be his best opportunity. Meanwhile, Mark Selby faces Ali Carter and assuming that Stephen Lee's sudden suspension from the tour despite a lack of hard evidence holds up, Peter Ebdon will get a walkover to face Stephen Maguire. They last met at the China Open final, which Ebdon won in characteristic fashion by pulling the pot off the boil and letting the match coagulate into a murky, nine-hour advertisement for how not to sell a sport to the masses. Although a deciding frame is never a surprise in a match featuring Peter Ebdon, I don't think he's going to get away with this one.

Stuart Bingham: India's worst nightmare.

Photo by Monique Limbos

So where are the upsets at this inaugural International Championship? No tournament is complete without a few, so I'll take a crack at who isn't going to win when they are probably expected to. Firstly, I don't think this will be Judd Trump's tournament and I expect him to either lose to Stuart Bingham early, or possibly to either Mark Allen or John Higgins in the quarters. I also don't think Mark Williams is going to make very much headway as he is lined up for a variety of tough matches no matter what happens in elsewhere in the draw. Even Mark Davis has the game to beat Williams on his day. Ding's record in China has begun to speak for itself, so it's hard to even call it an upset when he loses early in his own country. Stephen Maguire almost always plays well, but I'm not sure he'll get through Mark Selby in his quarter either.

The semi-finals are played over a best-of-17 frames, so at least enthusiastic viewers who appreciate a real match get a handful of these multi-session spectacles and this is where it's hard not to pick Ronnie to breeze into another final. There aren't many contenders in his section of the draw that are likely to beat him over 17 frames. The bottom half is somewhat less certain with Trump, Higgins, Mark Allen, Stephen Maguire and Mark Selby all possible contenders. It seems like it's been awhile since we've seen a good Selby-O'Sullivan final and that's what I'm counting on--there's plenty of room for upsets early in the tournament, but I'm backing the top two seeds to make the final.


Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Neil Robertson
• Shaun Murphy
• Marco Fu
• Stuart Bingham
• John Higgins
• Stephen Maguire
• Mark Selby 

PREDICTED WINNER: Ronnie O'Sullivan

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: An unfortunately small amount. If he can somehow make the semi-finals, then maybe I'll start getting excited.

John Higgins - Like a BOSS

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: 2012 Shanghai Masters

John Higgins: The CEO of bottle.

Photo by Monique Limbos

After John Higgins won the 2011 World Championship, defeating Judd Trump 18-15 from 7-10 down after the first day's play, Steve Davis pronounced him the greatest of all time--a statement that seemed rife with the heat of the moment, swayed by the tension of a close final and drew a bit of criticism for perhaps putting the cart before the horse. Although there are few true snooker fans that wouldn't put Higgins into the conversation for greatest of all time, most end up conceding that subjective title of ultimate prestige to Stephen Hendry for his tremendous record, or to Ronnie O'Sullivan, for his tremendous talent.

However, as one commentator (Phil Yates, I think--possibly Neal Foulds) pointed out, Hendry was a master of attacking snooker and, if faced with the prospect of a slower, more tactical frame, he would often become bogged down with the leaden pace of a more defensive contest, clearly less comfortable and less likely to win if the style of snooker wasn't to his liking. O'Sullivan is not dissimilar, but his patience for tactical frames seems to be more closely related to his psychological state than his disdain for any particular sort of snooker. We know that when Ronnie is on song, his safety is as good as anyone's and he can generally pot his way out of trouble and outscore his opponents before a tactical frame gets too drawn out. But John Higgins is armed with unmatched versatility in the game and it is that versatility that likely prompted Steve Davis's comments a little over a year ago.

Fluency in scoring is what paved the way for what appeared to be a smooth road to Judd Trump's third ranking title at the Shanghai Masters on the weekend and the sweet taste of revenge following his Crucible defeat to Higgins. When Trump led 5-0, he had out-scored John Higgins 510-78, with 50 of Higgins' points only coming in the fifth after Judd had knocked in 59 at the first available opportunity. The first sign of life from John came in the sixth frame with the sixth maximum break of his career. Surely there is no better way to pull a frame back in a match that seems to be getting away from you than to hit a 147. That said, it appeared to be a flash in the pan, as Judd took the next to lead 6-1 and finished the day with a healthy 7-2 lead, complete with commentators stressing how important it was for John to win that ninth frame, forever promulgating the significant difference between a five-frame gap and a gap of only three.

I don't know how it happened, but John Higgins came out for the second session ready to boss the table around and didn't seem to have much of an idea about the scoreline. He calmly and coolly made a more-than-enough 89 break in one visit to close the gap to 7-3. Then, with a visit in which he racked up 74 points in frame 11, it was 7-4. Then a break of 48 and a 30 in the twelfth made it 7-5. It was only then that Judd Trump began to sweat in his chair, having squandered the five-frame lead. Though still ahead, Higgins did not leave him a shot, which is no mean feat against the likes of Trump. A 76 break won John Higgins the thirteenth frame and a 71 brought the match all the way back from a one-sided best-of-19 affair, to a tense race to 3 frames for the title.

Judd Trump sweating bullets and missing table time.

Photo by Monique Limbos

At 7-7, when a scrappy fifteenth frame ended on the black, which Higgins ultimately doubled into the corner pocket with unwavering confidence, the writing was on the wall. Give Judd credit for a stunning century break to draw level at 8-8, but when he next came back to the table, he was 64-0 down with 67 on. He had two chances to clear up and win it, the second culminating in a missed black off the spot that left him needing two snookers and, more significantly, he returned to his chair dejected and red-faced with self-deprecation. At 9-8, it became a war of attrition--an endurance test of emotion. In these tense environments, you bet against John Higgins at your own peril. The start of frame 18 was loaded with trepidation and apprehension in the performance's of both players and it was clearly no one would win it in a single visit. Each safety that left John Higgins a long red resulted in Judd shaking his head and fearing the worst.

2012 Shanghai Master Champion

Photo by Monique Limbos

He led the frame by seven points with one red remaining and maturely refused a pot in favour of playing a snooker in behind the yellow. Higgins played a heavy swerve shot to escape and the red rebounded off the black into the pocket for another body blow. A three-cushion cocked-hat double on the yellow several shots later looked like the end for Trump. As luck would have it (as it so often does in these circumstances), Trump was able to pull a very challenging frame out of the fire after Higgins went in-off on the pink, needing only it and the black to win the title. However, a decider was on the cards and by then, Judd was a bag of nerves, still able to knock in a long red by itself, but when it came to stringing together a frame-winning break, he was running slightly out of position throughout the visit and it came to an end at 36. His safety left John Higgins a long red and, with absolute aplomb, he cued it into the centre of the top left corner and made 61 for the match. Unbelievable.

It is these performances and the fact that he has demonstrated this sort of comeback before that makes him among the greatest. In 2010, Higgins also trailed 2-7, and then 5-9, to Mark Williams and won the last five frames of the UK Championship to defeat him 10-9.  More than a string of historical comebacks and a trophy case of accolades, John Higgins is also just a great player to watch. He doesn't have the flare and box office appeal of other players and for that reason, he may not be as entertaining on the basis of any one frame. However, to appreciate John Higgins, you have to see him in a match situation.

Watch this lengthy sequence of safety shots as Mark Allen is left needing snookers to draw their Premier League match. As they play one excellent safety after another, the tension in the arena builds and this is a great example of what professional snooker is all about and why I love it so. It's also another fine example of the unshakable composure of John Higgins and his relentless grip on the match which he absolutely refuses to let go of.

When he finally pots the green, that seals it and we know the match is over. However, John Higgins also knows the rules and just to assert his dominance, he drains the long brown right into the heart of the pocket and does the same to blue and pink as if there was no chance of ever missing them. What's that, Mark? You want to play on needing three snookers on the brown? Too bad. Pop-pop-pop! Like a BOSS. 

Last 16 in Shanghai - From deciding frames to decisive victories

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: 2012 Shanghai Masters

In the first couple of days in Shanghai, the results have been good for the bookmaker's with a couple of big upsets and a surprising number of ninth-frame thrillers. We saw Stuart Bingham buckle down with a 5-4 win over Tom Ford after leading 4-2 and Dominic Dale put in a solid performance coming back from the same scoreline only to ultimately lose the decider to Shaun Murphy. Three of the wildcard matches went to deciding frames, most notably the match involving Marco Fu who was ousted from the competition by recent IBSF Under-21 world champion Lu Haotian, who is only 14 years old and potted 9 reds and blacks in the final frame. Jin Long, a former professional who was relegated from the tour, ruined Jimmy Robertson's chance to get into the main draw after battling his way through qualifiers, again 5-4. Robert Milkins just scraped through his wildcard bout against Zhou Yuelong, plus Ryan Day was pushed to the final frame before securing a victory against Martin Gould having led 3-0.

But that's not all! How about Steve Davis, trailing 4-1 to Ricky Walden but then winning three on the spin to prove he can still mix it up with some of the best at the tender age of 209. As mentioned in my previous article, Ding Junhui couldn't close out the match despite leading 3-0 and 4-3 and lost a deciding frame to Mark King. Finally, Robert Milkins would go on to lose yet another deciding frame to Ali Carter, meaning that he came to Shanghai, played 18 frames and still lost in the first round.

But after a series of close contests just to decide the last 16, the second round has proven to be a bit of a different story, with not only a handful of severe beatings to report, but several severe beatings that have gone in favour of the underdog--similar to Jamie Cope's first round slaparound that took out Mark Selby.

Cope would lose decisively to Stuart Bingham, 5-1, which is not as much of a surprise as his appearance in the second round to begin with. John Higgins, who has been repeatedly written off and appears to be "out of form" in every match he plays these days, duly whitewashed Ryan Day 5-0. He will meet Ali Carter, who somehow managed to sweep Stephen Maguire clean off the table by the same 5-0 score. This has to be demoralizing for Maguire who was quoted as saying that he underestimated his opponent after losing the Crucible semi-final to Carter back in spring. Surely he hasn't underestimated him again?

Ali Carter: Regularly underestimated.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Mark Williams had little trouble dispatching Ricky Walden 5-2 and he will meet, in the most shocking result of the tournament so far, Joe Perry, who trounced Neil Robertson 5-0! Since winning the Masters and then being outclassed by Ronnie at the Crucible, Neil Robertson hasn't quite looked the same but I expect he'll come around and win something this year. To be shut out entirely by Joe Perry is a complete surprise to me, though--it's raining locusts in Shanghai, boils are popping up all over the faces of the officiating staff, the end is nigh.

Of course, the best news of the day came when I woke up this morning to discover Graeme Dott leading Stephen Lee 2-0. A poor record of 2 wins and 9 losses against Lee for Graeme was a dark omen, but then the lead became 3-0...then 4-0 at the interval. Dott is not the type of player I would ever expect to collapse from 4-0 up in a best-of-9 and would eventually come through a 5-1 winner in yet another decisive victory. Graeme meets the winner of Mark Allen and Judd Trump, who are now throwing figurative hands in the seventh frame with Allen trailing 4-2. Either match will be a tough quarterfinal for Dott, but there aren't exactly a lot of easy matches in the last 8 of a ranking event these days and you often do have to get through Trump to win big.

Nine matches went to deciding frames in the first round, including the wildcards, while in the second round, we've seen three 5-0 victories, and two matches finish at 5-1. Judd Trump has now finished off Mark Allen 5-2 and so, the result of Shaun Murphy and Mark King is all that's left to be decided for the quarterfinalists. John Higgins will meet Ali Carter, Joe Perry plays Mark Williams, Dott is stuck with Judd and Murphy or King will play Stuart Bingham.

This weekend, the 2012 Alberta Snooker Championship, the provincial championship held in Canada gets underway and I'll be busy running the show, so that's all I've got to say on the subject of this year's Shanghai Masters.

Unless Graeme wins it of course, in which case I'll likely mention it a couple of times throughout the season.

Defeat - A meal fit for a Ding

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: 2012 Shanghai Masters

There was a time when I believed that Ding Junhui would be the first world champion of Asian descent, but it seems to me that his rise to stardom in the throes of the bombastic promotion of Chinese snooker in his homeland has only hurt his chances of rising all the way to the top. As more and more events are being staged in China, more and more deciding frame defeats and embarrassing losses to lesser players seem to be floating Ding's way. When I watch him play against top players, it's often difficult to pick a winner--but I can't remember the last time I watched Ding Junhui play a first-round match against an unseeded player, confident that he would come through with a win.

Ding Junhui: What the f----

Photo by Monique Limbos

As I type this up, Ding has squandered a 3-0 lead on Mark King and now trails by 12 points in the final frame, the match now level at 4-4. Whether he wins or not, Ding's performance has been extremely dodgy and, though I mean no disrespect to Mark King, there's no excuse for someone with Ding's pedigree to be playing with such an apparent lack of confidence and an unmistakable air of frustration. He's just attempted a reckless shot on the thinnest of possible reds that has almost certainly cost him the match and only barely resembles the player that struck fear into the hearts of the whole British Empire only a few years ago.

Mark King has never beaten Ding Junhui before today and more recently, he has also been beaten in the opening round by Mark Davis 5-2 in Wuxi, was crushed at the first hurdle by compatriot wildcard Jin Long 5-1 back at the World Open, lost to Peter Ebdon in both the China Open and in Australia, and was even eliminated from the German Masters by Yu Delu 5-3 in possibly the worst performance of his career--again, in the first round. As of late, commentators have spoken of his poor record in China, but while his talent can't be disputed, his record against lower-ranked opposition in general hasn't exactly been glowing with the same sort of luster of, say, the top 5--which he was recently a part of.

Couple that with the air of frustration I mentioned and you start to see a player on the decline. He received a light slap on the wrist for saying "fuck" at the press conference for his deciding frame loss to Ryan Day at the World Championship, which was little more than a dejected-looking Ding who seemed keen to blame his loss on the Sheffield crowd despite sparse evidence that the audience was at all partisan or uncharacteristically and unreasonably unruly for the excitement of a Crucible decider. Since then, he always seems to be pointing fingers at the crowd and finding excuses to lose matches he should be winning. It's almost as though he just can't handle the pressure.

It's weird to see a top snooker player get so far up in the game and then suffer from the sort of behaviour that typically prevents players from ever reaching the top, but I really think we might just be seeing Ding Junhui on a premature decline. At this rate, any number of players from China's growing snooker conglomerate might don the Crucible crown before Ding does.


Haphazard Semi-finalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Stuart Bingham
• Stephen Maguire
• Mark Williams 
• Graeme Dott

PREDICTED WINNER: Mark Williams

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: It's really all contingent on Mark Allen beating Judd Trump.

PTC3 - Gloucester's second-to-last hurrah

There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 PTC3 Event, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here: Players Tour Championships - Event 3

The highlight of the penultimate PTC event to be held at Gloucester's South West Snooker Academy for the forseeable future is, in the minds of most snooker fans, the return of Ronnie O'Sullivan. As per usual,  he successfully stole most of the headlines in major newspapers this season without even picking up a cue by refusing to sign the players' contract and probably threatening to retire a few times--or was that last year? The year before? I don't know, I've lost count.

Yu Delu: Not Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Because I follow the game a little more closely than the Daily Mail sports columnists, the exploits of the ever-mysterious O'Sullivan are a little drab for me and frustratingly repetitive when all I really want to see him do is play snooker. I liken them to the discussions in Canada surrounding the collective bargaining agreement amongst professional ice hockey players and team owners in the NHL. Locally, with the threat of hockey players being locked out at the start of the season looming, these kinds of stories dominate the sports coverage of most news outlets, despite having very little to do with sports. So, whether Ronnie plays or not is of no consequence to me--though I'd prefer it if he did, just as I would prefer to see the hockey season start on time. What the suits behind closed-doors do that lead up to these predilections isn't why I watch sports.

In any case, it's irrelevant--Ronnie is in the draw and presumably will show up (though nothing is promised) and power his way to the quarter-finals at least. He doesn't ever seem to suffer from a lack of match practice as Ding Junhui and John Higgins seem to have done this year. His draw is quite favourable compared to some other top-16 players and many might expect him to meet Neil Robertson in the Last 16--however, Robertson hasn't been particularly impressive in this season's PTC events as of yet.

Looking at the rest of the draw, I'm hoping to see Marco Fu make some noise if he can topple the current Order of Merit leader Stephen Maguire in a rough opening-round draw, but he's got some tough opponents in that quarter afterwards as well including Luca Brecel, Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens, Ryan Day, Ricky Walden and Xiao Guodong--phew!

Graeme Dott: Will win 2 or 3 matches this time, goddammit.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Graeme Dott has finally been awarded an easier start to this campaign than the downright ugly draws he was facing in earlier PTCs as he takes on Ian Burns for the right to face the winner of Andrew Higginson and Q School newbie Chen Zhe. Also in the second section, Jimmy White is going to have to stop Aditya Mehta's solid run of form to make any headway and Sam Baird, who it seems still hasn't recovered from nearly beating Mark Selby at the Welsh Open, may well be on a slide down the rankings as he faces Michael White. The third section features the likes of Barry Hawkins, who I'm sure will defeat Tony Drago and I actually expect him to beat Shaun Murphy as well. If so, I would expect him to meet Jamie Burnett, who has also had a solid start this season, in the Last 16. This would probably set up a quarterfinal with Judd Trump, whom Barry has beaten in deciding frames in their last two meetings. That would bode well for Dott--but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Trump is likely to stroll through his section--who he will face in the Last 16 is a matter of speculation, but I'd be betting on Mark Davis to continue playing the best snooker of his life. Alfie Burden, who made a surprise run to the semi-finals at the last event in Gloucester, will square off against last year's Snookerbacker Classic winner Martin O'Donnell for the right to face (likely) John Higgins. Down in the seventh quarter, Mark Allen, who I haven't seen much of this year, looks to be probably facing Ken Doherty in the Last 64. With Ken fresh off his first maximum in Germany, I do hope he can bring home a victory for the Irish Republic.

Then, down at the bottom end, it looks like another straightforward handful of ranking points for Mark Selby, who doesn't really have any serious threats in the draw as he will look to continue piling on to the stranglehold lead he has at the world number one spot. Over seven frames, Dominic Dale might be able to topple Selby...but probably not.


Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Mark Williams
• Graeme Dott
• Barry Hawkins
• Judd Trump
• Stephen Lee
• Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Michael Holt
• Mark Selby 

PREDICTED WINNER: Mark Selby

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Trace amounts of hope--tough quarterfinals if it all goes the way I see it. 

August Calendar Crunch

It's not even September and the snooker calendar is full enough to keep journalists covering the sport employed full-time--I'm thankful to be a volunteer. Since I last piped up from the peanut gallery, Stephen Maguire ousted Graeme Dott in the cruel first-round draw of PTC2 and went on to appear in his second successive Players Tour Championship final, falling at the last hurdle to Martin Gould who is no doubt happy to have won something with a little more substance than his *ahem* coveted Power Snooker crown from last year.

Meanwhile, there are heaps of other events getting underway this month that aren't scheduled to see a winner until later in the year and here's a brief re-cap/pre-cap on what's been/will be going down:

2012 Gdynia Open
(Click here to view the draw)

The second European Tour event gets started before the first one does with all rounds leading up to the Last 32 taking place at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield while those left make the trip to Poland in early October. Those lucky candidates have now been decided and Stephen Maguire hasn't lost a frame yet, while Andy Hicks made it through by the slimmest of margins notching 4-3 victories in his two matches. Maguire will meet Michael Wasley in Poland while Hicks faces Liang Wenbo.

Other notables include Jimmy White who was fortunate enough to receive a walkover in his opening match and came through a 4-3 winner of Andrew Norman to set up a Last 32 tie with Dave Harold, the winner of which will face Hicks or Wenbo. Neil Robertson and Jamie Jones will also meet for what I think is the first time and I expect it to be a good match over the short seven-frame format. Andrew Higginson and Stephen Lee also square off in their first meeting since Higginson upset Lee at the Crucible a few months ago. The winner of that fixture will face the winner of a match that I have no interest in watching at all between Michael White and Michael Holt.

Andy Hicks: Makes more centuries than you.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Elsewhere, it's Ding Junhui and John Higgins in the Last 32, the highest-ranking players to meet at that stage of this competition--there will be no reprieve for the winner though, as they will face Mark Selby if he can overcome Fergal O'Brien in their match. Shaun Murphy fell at the first hurdle to Alfie Burden who then proceeded to lose 4-0 to Norway's Kurt Maflin who has made a good run of things in this event and has a chance to do at least one better against Kyren Wilson. Last, but never least, Graeme Dott overcame Jack Lisowski in the first round and Craid Steadman in the second to make it to Poland and be drawn against the large-chinned and hot-tempered Tom Ford. Ford smoked Graeme pretty good in the semi-final of last year's eleventh PTC event 4-0, and managed to knock Graeme out of the Welsh Open last year 4-2. Dott still has the better record and would be expected to win, but anytime I watch these two meet now, I feel nervous.

Haphazard Quarter-finalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Stephen Maguire
• Liang Wenbo
• Tian Pengfei
• Neil Robertson
• Stephen Lee
• Ding Junhui
• Jamie Burnett
• Graeme Dott

PREDICTED WINNER: Neil Robertson

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Lots of hope, sprinkled with a dash of reason. He can beat anyone left in the draw over seven frames.

2012 International Championship - Qualifiers
(Click here to view the draw)

The biggest new tournament on the calendar has its televised stages get underway October 28th, but in the meantime, everyone outside of the top 16 is being put through the qualifying grind, some needing to win up to five best-of-11 frame matches just to get into the main draw.

As I type this, Jimmy White and Aditya Mehta are level at 3-3 and a great deal of the matches have already occurred as the first two rounds came to a close yesterday. Highlights include Pankaj Advani, a famed billiards player in India, having come through the winner in the first three of his four qualifying matches to set up one last clash with Michael Holt for a place at the venue--his 6-5 victory over Steve Davis will surely be a memorable one for him. If Aditya Mehta can get through Jimmy White, then there's a pretty good chance that India will be quite well-represented in this inaugural "major" ranking event.

Xiao Guodong: Hoping for TV without the broad cast.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Luca Brecel is no doubt itching to find the televised stages more often, but he lost out yesterday to the ol' Sheriff of Pottingham, Anthony Hamilton who faces Ryan Day tomorrow for a place in the main draw. Sam Baird got his revenge over Australia's Ben Judge 6-1 after being upset by Judge in their last meeting and being placed on snookerbacker's blacklist. However, David Gilbert was too much for him in the second round and having defeated Rory McLeod in the third, Gilbert will face Andrew Higginson to have another shot at a big run in a big ranking event. Kurt Maflin has continued a good start to the season and come through two eleventh-frame deciders against both Gareth Allen and the ever-banausic Rod Lawler. Elsewhere, Q School's Robbie Williams has had a good run to win his opening match and dispose of Andy Hicks but currently appears to be 4-1 down to Mark King.

Anyhow, before the results start rolling in, I'd better dish out the better-late-than-never predictions.

Haphazard Qualifier Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Barry Hawkins
• Paul Davison
• Ken Doherty
• Anthony Hamilton
• David Gilbert
• Michael Holt
• Marco Fu
• Mark Davis
• Mark King
• Aditya Mehta
• Robert Milkins
• Cao Yupeng
• Marcus Campbell
• Peter Ebdon
• Xiao Guodong
• Dave Harold

PREDICTED WINNER: Marco Fu (sure, why not?)

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Medium-to-high. Although not the biggest fan of international travel, he's won the China Open and his game can really come through sometimes on big occasions regardless of where he is in the world. Go Dott!

2012 Paul Hunter Classic 
(Click here to view the draw)

All rounds of the tournament held in Fürth, Germany to take the name of the late great Paul Hunter will, unlike the Gdynia Open, take place in the same country as the final rounds and it's the only one of these events where nothing has been decided as yet. It features more nations in the pre-qualifying round than any event I've watched before including Croatians, a handful from Bahrain, Icelandic snooker players, that guy from Turkey I saw Ronnie decimate once on YouTube, more than one Swiss player and a guy from Malta who isn't Tony Drago. And a special shout-out and wishes of good luck go out to Sweden's Ron Florax, proprietor of www.cuetracker.net and an exceedingly helpful fellow whose dedication to the game is unrivaled amongst Dutchmen living in Scandinavia.

Jimmy White: Cursed to lose to biblethumpers.

Photo by Monique Limbos

Last year's Paul Hunter Classic in Germany saw Mark Selby whitewash Mark Davis 4-0 in the final. If they are to meet again this year, it will be in the Last 32 round, and looking at the draw, there's no reason to expect that Selby won't make another run to the latter stages. In Section 6, Jimmy White has a relatively easy go of things until running into possibly Luca Brecel, or even Rory McLeod who recently laid a 4-0 hiding on Judd Trump in their most recent meeting. I like to hold out hope for Jimmy to make the quarters of any ranking event these days, but so much depends on what happens to Shaun Murphy in his section because I'm not confident Murphy will lose to White under any circumstance these days. He hasn't done so since 2004 to my knowledge.

After getting some ugly draws in the earlier events, Graeme Dott is offered something of a reprieve by facing a pre-qualifier in the opening round, only to end up against either Marco Fu or Stuart Bingham in the Last 64--the conspiracy to eliminate Dott from the top 16 grows. Nevertheless, if he can get through that round (and he most certainly can), I like his chances.

Haphazard Quarter-finalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Ryan Day
• John Higgins
• Stephen Lee
• Mark Selby
• Ricky Walden
• Shaun Murphy
• Graeme Dott
• Neil Robertson

PREDICTED WINNER: John Higgins

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Reasonably high--I'd be disappointed if he lost to half the players I've backed to make the quarterfinals.