2006 World pool Championships

[chrisfinch]

The 2006 event kicks off this weekend in Manilla and are there any predictions?

Will it be a big name like pagulayan or Strickland this year, or another unknown from Chinese Tapai.

Chia-Ching Wu is the defending champion, and seems to have a decent group that he should expect to qualify from.

There are a massive 32 groups of 4 players competing in a race to eight , and the top 2 from each group will qualify.

The tournament finishes a week sunday with a race to 17 final, and there's hours and hours of live coverage on Sky Sports.

http://worldpoolchampionship.com/default.asp

[Lindea]

I think I'll keep from predicting anything but I hope Immonen wins

And stupid eurosport wont show as much as 5 min of it
Wish I had Sky Sports

[chrisfinch]

I'd love to follow pool more, but I don't.

There's usually quite delayed coverage of most tournaments, but the only ones I really watch are the World Championships and the Mosconi Cup-which is the highlight of the Pool year for me (mainly cos you know christmas is coming)

[Lindea]

I've only just started following pool.

And I'm also really looking forward to the Mosconi Cup. I really hope eurosport will show that.

[chrisfinch]

The news from the group stages...

Champion chia-Ching Wu through as are efren reyes and Thorstan Hohmann.
2004 champ Alex pagulayan out after winning only 1 of his 3 games
Johnny archer, thomas engert and Bustamante through, britain's darren appleton just missing out.
Mika Immonen and rodney morris-out
Chamat and van den berg through easily, as is steve Davis, the ginger nugget
Strickland through as is Imran majid, but Tony drago and alex lely fail.

[Sarmu]

Looks like Steve Davis through to last 32

He will play Jharome Pena (PHI) next

[RaNeN]

I am glad Steve Davis is through. He was 4-1 down at one stage and then came back strong to make it 4-4. He eventually won 10-7!!!

[Mitsuko]

Good performance by the Nugget

[RaNeN]

Yay! Davis is in the last 16!!!

[Sarmu]

Steve Davis is in last 16, just beat J Pena 10-8

He is playing against Fu Chi-wei (TPE) next

[PaulTheSoave]

O'sullivan was all talk to change to pool, but it seems Davis is keeping a low profile and delivering the goods.

[chrisfinch]

As Jim Wyche said on Sky yesterday, Davis probably won't win another world snuker title (his way of saying snooker), and he believes that he can win this tournament, to become a 7-time world champion.

The only other player to win world pool and snooker titles? Allison Fisher-meaning davis could become the first male to do it.

This could be his year!!!

[hegeland]

I think I'll keep from predicting anything but I hope Immonen wins

And stupid eurosport wont show as much as 5 min of it
Wish I had Sky Sports

Here's a programme so that you can see several matches live (?). I haven't tried myself yet but it looks good.

1. Download. http://www.tvunetworks.com/downloads/player.htm

2. Tune in ESPN (Asia)

3. TV schedule http://www.viidoo.com/tvguide

[RaNeN]

I think these should work. Because Espn is airing the matches here in India.

[hegeland]

It's on right now. Not live since the clock is 01:38 there now.