2016 UK Championship

[vjmehra]

He's right about the snooker clubs closing down, but that's not world snooker's problem, or their fault. The smoking ban and the rise of the video game as number 1 activity for kids put paid to them.

I think property prices are the biggest issue there, snooker tables require a lot of space and today in anywhere near a town/city centre land is very expensive. Its likely that the rental costs are to high for many businesses to justify their existence sadly.

They are probably stuck with 2 options:

1) Up table and/or drink prices, reduce the number of customers and end up closing down anyway
2) Close down now and still have some cash in the bank

Its negative, but probably not far from the truth.

[vjmehra]

To be honest, there is probably some truth in what he says...albeit his plans are perhaps a bit extreme...that said a couple of little smiles suggests he wasn't being overly serious.

Sometimes I wonder if Barry Hearn and Ronnie get together and not quite plan these outbursts, but perhaps decide it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Ronnie was to speak openly...its guaranteed to make the papers after all, which is good for the game.

I think the answer perhaps is to tweak things slightly, so the top seeds come in, in the later rounds, we still have ranking points and 'live' rankings after every event so the top 16, top 32 etc. aren't as protected as they once were and the lower ranked players can gain ground in the smaller tournaments.

But what if say the top 32 only joined in the round of 64 instead of 128, that would help a bit perhaps?

[jonny66]

He's right about the snooker clubs closing down, but that's not world snooker's problem, or their fault. The smoking ban and the rise of the video game as number 1 activity for kids put paid to them.

[the lone wolf]

So what has ROS said today? :snooker:

[itsnoteasy]

Loved it!

Bang on

From what I see in our club he's bang on about the grass roots, there is none. There isn't a player under forty in our club, that plays even lower league standard( and that's pretty low) anyone who's any good is older, we did have one lad but he went to uni..
He was very harsh but probably true about the standard of players in the 128 draws and I have never been keen on it being that open but I honestly don't have an answer as to how to bring folk through, I have always thought like him and if you're good enough you will make it, if not you won't.

[Tim65]

What a nasty,self-opinionated little turd O'Sullivan is.

[jonny66]

Ronnie trying to get himself into trouble again. I enjoyed Steve's reaction to his comments,

[pottr]

2016 UK Championship

Loved it!

Bang on

[itsnoteasy]

Is anyone watching Ronnie getting interviewed just now?

[Odrl]

Good stuff from Murphy in the last four frames. A couple of good breaks from difficult positions, and couple of good ones from straightforward positions as well. Zhou might have got away with it against a lesser opponent, but Murphy was definitely on his game today. :smile:

[daffie]

Well looks like an early one for Matthew unfortunately. Hoping Murphy can come through on the other table...

[pottr]

2016 UK Championship

He should have got that, he snatched and the rest moved as he hit it...

Jamie Cope does that a lot

[trains]

Going toe to toe with O'Sullivan...

won't end well for Matthew

Ball run plays it part though tbf,when O'S missed one of the last reds in the third frame he was lucky to leave Stevens needing the spider to go over the blue,a spider over the whole length of the table,no piece of cake.

[pottr]

2016 UK Championship

Going toe to toe with O'Sullivan...

won't end well for Matthew

[DeanH]

I've come to the conclusion they're never going to update that dinosaur of a telecaster computer that generates the obtrusive white lines they use for predicting shots.

For God's sake, just use a dark green colour and turn the opacity down to about 0.4 - then maybe we could actually see the shots you're predicting!!

I think you lost them at "opacity" :biggrin: