Snooker

[Rustin Cohle]

Love the Worlds. Love having it on in the background whilst working from home as well, really nice. I used to have it on the iPad at work in one of my old jobs but don't think my current one would allow that.

[fergiegiveusawave]

This has been a superb World Championships. So many tense, dramatic matches and this final looking the same.

Really hoping Murphy can turn this around as I can't stand Selby's negativity but don't see it happening. Think Selby gets it done 18-13/18-14.

[Rustin Cohle]

May 3, 2021 13:37:59 GMT fergiegiveusawave said:

This has been a superb World Championships. So many tense, dramatic matches and this final looking the same.

Really hoping Murphy can turn this around as I can't stand Selby's negativity but don't see it happening. Think Selby gets it done 18-13/18-14.

Yep, much prefer Murphy. But as you say, lots of good matches and plenty of upsets as well.

[fergiegiveusawave]

Selby just one of those you have to admire through gritted teeth. Utterly relentless.

Come on Shaun, reel off 5 in a row!

[fergiegiveusawave]

This is so so good!

[Kojak]

Selby is a great competitor and a brilliant player, but he’s awful to watch.

[Rustin Cohle]

Murphy said he thinks Selby is the best all-rounder there has ever been. I can see what he means, even Ronnie and Hendry's games, whilst better, aren't necessarily as well-rounded as Selby's is.

It says a lot (both good and bad) that Selby has more Worlds than any other trophy. It's a very long tournament and he is a better grinder than anyone else - you could especially see that vs. Bingham when he played whilst needing snookers for 20 minutes just to disrupt Bingham's rhythm. Winning four Worlds is an incredible achievement, he's one of the greats, but it's clearly a tournament that suits him and almost no one else due to its length.

[fergiegiveusawave]

At 37 I reckon Selby probably gets to 6, maybe 7 World titles eventually. He's just a quality match-player, which as you say is so well suited to this longer format where it's really tough to just blow someone away.

They were talking about it last night and I think they're right, probably only Higgins who is comparable to him in the respect of being suited to these long matches but he's obviously far more positive than Selby.

Just very hard to criticise it, I don't like watching it when he's ultra negative but he's a 4 time World Champion and clearly already one of the all time greats.

Fair play.

[Rustin Cohle]

May 4, 2021 7:36:22 GMT fergiegiveusawave said:

At 37 I reckon Selby probably gets to 6, maybe 7 World titles eventually. He's just a quality match-player, which as you say is so well suited to this longer format where it's really tough to just blow someone away.

They were talking about it last night and I think they're right, probably only Higgins who is comparable to him in the respect of being suited to these long matches but he's obviously far more positive than Selby.

Just very hard to criticise it, I don't like watching it when he's ultra negative but he's a 4 time World Champion and clearly already one of the all time greats.

Fair play.

Yeah, could see him equalling or breaking that Worlds record. He'll be miles off Ronnie/Hendry/Davis in other tournaments (including the other triple crowns) though.

[Kojak]

I think it’s hard to argue against Hendry as the best all round player. Ronnie as well, anything his game has ever lacked has been due to him not being arsed. He went through a period working with Ray Reardon where he was the best safety player in the world cos that’s just what was getting him going at the time.

Selby is really good and the format of the tournament suits him because of the kind of competitor he is. However, he’s winning these world titles in an era of snooker that you’d have to say is quite poor. Most of his close rivals have been on the circuit over twenty years and should be long since retired. Ronnie shouldn’t be winning these tournaments at this point. No offence to the likes of Bingham, but he’s not getting near this level if he’s up against these players at their peaks. Trump is world number one, but again you get the sense that the long format of the worlds doesn’t suit him.

I sort of don’t want to take anything away from Selby because as bad as it is to watch, he’s clearly a good player. But regardless of how many worlds he winds up winning, I’ll never have him up there with Davis, Hendry, Ronnie, Higgins etc.

[Bestie]

May 4, 2021 8:34:07 GMT Kojak said:

I think it’s hard to argue against Hendry as the best all round player. Ronnie as well, anything his game has ever lacked has been due to him not being arsed. He went through a period working with Ray Reardon where he was the best safety player in the world cos that’s just what was getting him going at the time.

Selby is really good and the format of the tournament suits him because of the kind of competitor he is. However, he’s winning these world titles in an era of snooker that you’d have to say is quite poor. Most of his close rivals have been on the circuit over twenty years and should be long since retired. Ronnie shouldn’t be winning these tournaments at this point. No offence to the likes of Bingham, but he’s not getting near this level if he’s up against these players at their peaks. Trump is world number one, but again you get the sense that the long format of the worlds doesn’t suit him.

I sort of don’t want to take anything away from Selby because as bad as it is to watch, he’s clearly a good player. But regardless of how many worlds he winds up winning, I’ll never have him up there with Davis, Hendry, Ronnie, Higgins etc.

I think exactly this. O'Sullivan is a tosser but he's brilliant, and entertaining when he's not being a tosser. Selby winning is the equivalent of getting a confession after drip torture.

I have said before though that Higgins is my all time favourite. Gritty and entertaining while generally not a tosser.

[Kojak]

May 4, 2021 11:07:24 GMT Bestie said:

May 4, 2021 8:34:07 GMT Kojak said:

I think it’s hard to argue against Hendry as the best all round player. Ronnie as well, anything his game has ever lacked has been due to him not being arsed. He went through a period working with Ray Reardon where he was the best safety player in the world cos that’s just what was getting him going at the time.

Selby is really good and the format of the tournament suits him because of the kind of competitor he is. However, he’s winning these world titles in an era of snooker that you’d have to say is quite poor. Most of his close rivals have been on the circuit over twenty years and should be long since retired. Ronnie shouldn’t be winning these tournaments at this point. No offence to the likes of Bingham, but he’s not getting near this level if he’s up against these players at their peaks. Trump is world number one, but again you get the sense that the long format of the worlds doesn’t suit him.

I sort of don’t want to take anything away from Selby because as bad as it is to watch, he’s clearly a good player. But regardless of how many worlds he winds up winning, I’ll never have him up there with Davis, Hendry, Ronnie, Higgins etc.

I think exactly this. O'Sullivan is a tosser but he's brilliant, and entertaining when he's not being a tosser. Selby winning is the equivalent of getting a confession after drip torture.

I have said before though that Higgins is my all time favourite. Gritty and entertaining while generally not a tosser.

I’ve always been a huge Ronnie fan (though acknowledge that he is a prick) so when I was younger I hated Hendry and Higgins. And that’s the biggest compliment you can pay them in many respects.

Hendry was a fucking shark when he was young. For all the talk of Selby’s grit, Hendry would have eaten him alive. Not sure a more competitive person has ever existed than Hendry in his teens and 20’s. You could see that edge drift away from him as he got older which I think is why he couldn’t maintain the same level that Ronnie and to a slightly lesser degree Higgins have over the years.

Hendry was at Butlins once while I was there on a lads weekend. I assume he was doing an exhibition. He ended up leaving his wife for one of the children’s entertainers who was dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine that weekend. So maybe he was still a shark as he got older after all.

[dazjoe]

Agree with the above.

Selby is boring as but clearly a very good player.

But Ronnie, Hendy and Davis stand out as the 3 greatest players ever for me. Higgins close behind.

Hendy and Davis were just machines in the 80's and 90's. Rutheless players. Ronnie just the greatest natural talent in the game, if he'd had their drive he would have double figures for worlds and have been untouchable for the last 20 years. White and Alex Higgins clearly amazing talents too, but how anyone can just decide to start playing with their wrong hand and still knock in centuries is so out there I don't know where to start; playing with my right hand is hard enough, to do it with my left? Bloody hell.

I've always said Ronnie greatest ever but I do think Hendry played in a harder era, he had Davis and White when he came through, then Ronnie, Higgins, Williams, Hunter (very good player who could have done a lot more were it not for his dreadful illness and passing).

[dazjoe]

Good to see Ronnie finally win another title, 1st since the 2020 worlds.

Hasn't played great this week but suddenly produces something from nowhere in that last session.

And with the Ashes going the way they are, thank God an Englishman can beat an Aussie at something.

[Kojak]

Dec 19, 2021 22:12:15 GMT dazjoe said:

Good to see Ronnie finally win another title, 1st since the 2020 worlds.

Hasn't played great this week but suddenly produces something from nowhere in that last session.

And with the Ashes going the way they are, thank God an Englishman can beat an Aussie at something.

Don’t want to say that me naming my bairn after him was the key to him winning his first ranking tournament in 500 days, but I expect a personal thank you message from him in my emails tomorrow morn.