2018 World Championship

[JimMalone]

Another good result if he can do it. I’m not adding to the ‘Is Bingham a good player?’ debate a couple of you have been having, but his game and style of play do absolutely nothing for me, nor has he ever really impressed me to any notable level.

Well, how can somebody, who became World Champion in Snooker not be at least a "good player"?

I think there have been better players that have never been World Champion and I wouldn't include him in my Top 8 (or maybe Top 10) active players, but his performance in the 2015 edition, when he grabbed the title, was quite impressive to me.

[JimMalone]

Before and after. If you look at his shot selections, they were often very attacking. The issue I think is that Ebdon also had this idea that he had to out-think everything, maybe to keep his focus or something. Still, brilliant shot-maker

John Higgins once said in an interview, that for him Ebdon was (aside from the likes of Hendry, O'Sullivan, Selby) always the hardest opponent, because "you would never know, what shot he was playing. With most players you could predict it, but Peter always came up with something different you didn't expect". Of course this is from my memory and those are not his original words, but this was about the meaning.

[the lone wolf]

It's actually quite amazing. I went all the way back to 1975 and I couldn't find any other instances of the top two seeds meeting in the final or both losing in the first round.

So in the history of modern snooker (more than 40 years) each event has only happened once.

1982 - Davis and Thorburn both lost in the first round.
1987 - Davis and Johnson met in the final.

That's it. Very weird.

This shows just how tough it is to become the snooker world champion.
17 days to prove yourself amongst the best IMO it's the hardest world title to win in major sport...
But I'm biased

[Csmith]

Robertson and Bingham?
Robertson might have only been in one final but his peak form is one of the best in the game imo
And he hold that crazy record of the biggest number of century breaks in one season.
Bingham isnt of a class capable of winning biggest titles but in 2015 he raised his form above the rest of the field and proved himself.

Yup. Not making any assumptions about either players. I expect Robertson to regain his form and return to the final one day. If Bingham never makes another final it may only be because he was such a late bloomer.

[Billy]

You are Phil Yates and I claim my free set of snooker balls.

[Stony152]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Sorry for the interruption.

[Stony152]

Times it almost happened.

1976 - Reardon (1) made final, Charlton (2) lost semi 20-18 to Higgins (3)
1985 - Davis (1) made final, Knowles (2) lost semi 16-5 to Taylor (11)
1988 - Davis (1) made final, White (2) lost semi 16-11 to Griffiths (6)
1999 - Hendry (2) made final, Higgins (1) lost semi 17-10 to Williams (5)
2014 - O'Sullivan (1) made final, Robertson (2) lost semi 17-15 to Selby (3)

It almost happened in 2014.

[Stony152]

It's actually quite amazing. I went all the way back to 1975 and I couldn't find any other instances of the top two seeds meeting in the final or both losing in the first round.

So in the history of modern snooker (more than 40 years) each event has only happened once.

1982 - Davis and Thorburn both lost in the first round.
1987 - Davis and Johnson met in the final.

That's it. Very weird.

[Stony152]

One more thing to mention is that the results have been considerably different in the years since Davis and Hendry ended their runs of winning titles. Looking at only 2000-2017 we get the following results.

#1 - 14-4, 7-7, 4-3, 3-1
Percent - 77.8, 50.0, 57.1, 75.0

#2 - 14-4, 10-4, 7-3, 3-4
Percent - 77.8, 71.4, 70.0, 42.9

0.778*0.778*0.500*0.714*0.571*0.700*0.750*0.429 = 0.028 = 2.8%

Here we get once every 36 years, which is very close to my original result. So the way things are right now and have been since Davis and Hendry makes a #1 vs #2 final very unlikely. From 1982 to 1999 it was much more likely. It should probably have happened once every 5 years on average.

It actually only happened in 1987, but we came close in 1988 and 1999.

[Stony152]

Interesting post. My reply is probably redundant given that Selby is out by I love stats!

The thing is though that the number 1 and 2 meeting in the final has a higher probability of happening than any other combination of finalists (assuming they are favourites for each match).

Also I would argue that selby and ronnie are far bigger favourites to to win their respective matches than you pointed out.
I would probably say they are;
90% Favourites in the first round
80% in Second
70% QF
65% SF

That changes the odds to 0.9*0.9*0.8*0.8*0.7*0.7*0.65*0.65 = 0.107... which is a 10% chance of it happening. Seems a lot more reasonable. However without crunching the numbers, on first thought most of us would say that a 10% chance of a ROS v Selby final sounds way too low. Only when you go through the probabilities round by round do you get to 10%

I think strike101 was very much on the money here getting a 10% chance. Much closer than my estimate.

[Stony152]

In 1982 the WC went to a best of 19 first round with no more byes given to the top seeds. Since then here are the records of the top two seeded players in each round up to the final. (1982-2017)

#1 - 30-6, 23-7, 18-5, 14-4
Percent - 83.3, 76.7, 78.3, 77.8

#2 - 29-7, 24-5, 15-9, 7-8
Percent - 80.6, 82.8, 62.5, 46.7

Total - 59-13, 47-12, 33-14, 21-12
Percent - 81.9, 79.7, 70.2, 63.6

The top seeds have performed very well with little drop off from round to round, while the second seeds have done relatively poorly in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. So I was right and wrong. 90% was too high as I said, but in general my percentages were too low.

0.833*0.806*0.767*0.828*0.783*0.625*0.778*0.467 = 0.076 = 7.6% chance of top two seeds meeting in final

1/0.076 = 13.2 It should happen, on average, every 13 years. The fact that it hasn't happened in 31 years is just one of those statistical anomalies. It'll probably happen a couple of times in the next 5-10 years.

100 - 83.3 = 16.7 and 100 - 80.6 = 19.4. 0.167*0.194 = 0.032 = 3.2% chance of both top seeds losing in the first round. This is once every 31 years and it hasn't happened in 35 years, though we came relatively close this year and very very close in 2012. So I was also wrong about this. The top two seeds losing in the first round is approximately half as likely as the top two seeds meeting in the final.

[PatBlock]

No one deserves it until they've gone the distance and won it

And ALL who have, do.

-

[kibo]

Anyone who has been to three world finals can't be undeserving of a world title.

Fun fact, only two former champions have only been in one final since the beginning of the Crucible era (assuming you count John Spencers finals since before '77) and most champions have been to at least three finals.

Robertson and Bingham?
Robertson might have only been in one final but his peak form is one of the best in the game imo
And he hold that crazy record of the biggest number of century breaks in one season.
Bingham isnt of a class capable of winning biggest titles but in 2015 he raised his form above the rest of the field and proved himself.

[thai_son22]

The only players who deserve to win world titles are the ones who have done so. Doesn't matter if you have 3 world finals. You don't deserve it til you've won. Same goes for Jimmy's 6. He doesn't even deserve the one he lost to hendry 17-18. And why? Because he bottled it on the black.

No one deserves it until they've gone the distance and won it

[DeanH]

You got Jimmy White on avatar and from what i hear he was fast player like Ronnie and Judd.So no wonder you dont like Bingham that much

I don’t mind slow players in truth. Bingham’s just a bit vanilla for me.

I think the ban has affected him, more than just time off the circuit. I have followed him since he turned pro and he was (to me) a joy to watch (ol' ballrun ), but something is just not there.... acuerate period? New Yankee cue? Old age () ?
Hope he has a great start to the new season