2017 Snooker-Shoot-Out

[JimMalone]

How the hell is this a ranking event? We have so many ranking events anyways and now the terminus of "Ranking Event Winner" will be devalued by such a tournament, where you need only one frame to win each match. In fact you can't even call this a match. It's not surprising for me that almost all top players decided not to take part in this tournament.

The winner of this event gets 32.000 points. So winning this is worth more for the world ranking than reaching the second round of the World Championship, the semifinal of the International Championship or the final of last week's Welsh Open. I honestly think this is absurd and inappropriate.

You can make this a fun tournament for the professionals with good prize money, but please stop it being a ranking event.

Your thoughts?

[ghost121]

It's happened because Barry Hearn is a megalomaniac surrounded by yes men who wants to turn snooker into darts for profit and TV revenue under the guise of bringing the game into the 'modern' age. Whatever the hell that means. It's the same with race to 4 ranking events. Devalued for the sake of fitting in with the TV ad schedules and the ludicrous task of trying to accommodate 128 players when half of them aren't up to it in the first place. Time for two divisions and back to best of nines minimum.

[the lone wolf]

IMO, struggling pros should be treating this event like the world championships and its probably how Mr. Hearn has sold it to them. Become the one frame King and receive some much needed dosh and ranking points...

[Byrom]

A few have not taken part but its a good event for a unknown to make some much needed money on tour and a bit of a laugh/something different in snooker ....

MJ Williams needs a run in something or his crucible top 16 spot is in jeopardy

Anyone can win this and its a bit of a joke it being a ranking event tho like I said as the rules are not snooker are they and that beep beep beep shot clock really gets on my tits. Whoever wins it wont complain no doubt

[narl]

MJ Williams needs a run in something or his crucible top 16 spot is in jeopardy

I'm amazed he's even in the top 16, last lot of years all I've seen him do is lose.

[Dave Walton]

Frankly the shootout being a ranking event is a disgrace.

[Rane]

As I just as well could toss a coin. I decided that player no. 14 in the draw is my favorit. So player no.2 in match no. 7 John J. Astley is my prediction even though I´ve never seen him play.

[MrRottweiler]

For me a timed match makes no sense because the aim of Snooker is to make a frame winning breaks which takes time and planning so being against the clock makes it harder to make big breaks. It's like a pool match on a Snooker table which is a bit sickening but if people keep going to watch it and spend money at the bar it will get worse.

It's advertised as edge of the seat action but it's anything but that to real fans of the game.

[guernseygooner]

Shouldn't be a ranking event but snooker needs variation just like cricket needed T20 to reinvigorate itself.

We incorporated a shootout tournament into our calendar 4 years ago and it has grown year on year with 48 entrants this year including people who don't play league and 4 woman. The woman play pool but enjoyed playing snooker so much that they are looking to enter a team in the leagues next season.

See it for what it is - a good craic where the underdog can have his day.

[JimMalone]

As I just as well could toss a coin. I decided that player no. 14 in the draw is my favorit. So player no.2 in match no. 7 John J. Astley is my prediction even though I´ve never seen him play.

Nah, Astley has no chance. Ben Woollaston is gonna win. I'm pretty confident. Cause I circled with my cursor over the main draw and when I stopped it pointed to his name...
As a good method to predict the winner here as any other.

[bolty]

I can see the logic; snooker needs to bring in a new audience. Snooker has a core of hardcore followers but beyond that interest is quite low - and it's easy to understand why... there's an abundance of material people can watch nowadays that is much more appealing to the masses.

Attempting to make it more "exciting" is an obvious step towards captivating more people. Whether it should be a ranking tournament is a good question. I guess it's a way to tempt the big name players to take it seriously, which looks like it isn't working.

Personally, I quite like it - it's different and I appreciate the effort to increase the popularity of snooker. But I don't consider myself a snooker purist, as I enjoy all forms of cue sports quite equally and play pool much more than snooker.

[itsnoteasy]

It genuinely upsets me to see players that have spent their lives trying to perfect their technique and ability at this game, running around the table just bashing balls about hoping for a fluke as time is running out, how on earth is that snooker? Never mind we have the microphones to look forward to, hopefully a few players will swear under their breath,so we can get all excited about it like a bunch of Victorian women showing an ankle and pretend to be offended when all along that's what we were hoping for.

[Odrl]

In my preview for the World Open at the start of the season I promised not to spread my negativism during tournaments I personally dislike, and I have kept to that policy as much as I could, but I think it's worth making an exception in this case...

When I joined this forum 10 years ago I was still fairly new to snooker, although I was already what I would call a "grand lover" of the game. I basically watched every televised tournament in full, and I even made a little poster of the draw each time and hung it on the living room door. To be honest, I still do that for the proper tournaments, more out of tradition than anything else, at least I can't think of any purpose it's supposed to serve. :smile: I guess I started doing this at a time when there were long breaks between tournaments, so it was a way to commemorate a "snooker week" when one finally came around. It's difficult to imagine going back to the kind of calendar we had back then, with weeks or sometimes even months between events, but one thing I do miss is that feeling of prestige that used to accompany each ranking event. If I had to single out one thing I dislike the most about Barry Hearn's reign as chairman of World Snooker, it would probably be how the term "ranking event" has gradually lost most of its prestige over the past seven years or so.

A lot of people who regularly post on TSF these days have joined after 2010, so you are probably not aware of the heated discussions we had when Hearn initially took over. Some people were afraid he would turn snooker into a circus with short matches and shot-clocks, whereas most people people were quietly optimistic about the future of snooker. Well, seven years later it seems that both groups were right. Rather than one great revolution, what we got was a gradual dumbing down of the game, mostly by introducing one short-format tournament after another, until the best-of-7 became the standard length of snooker matches. Hearn's first notable move was to cancel the long-standing Grand Prix from the calendar and introduce a best-of-5 event in its place, an event that carried 7000 ranking points for the winner, which was 70% of what the World Championship was worth at the time. After that failed experiment I thought we were safe from short-format ranking events for a while, but then came the Indian Open, a supposed "ranking event" played in what was basically a PTC format. Then there was the shortening of the UK Championship one year into Hearn's reign, even though he had promised not to touch the majors in several interviews he gave when he took over. The Welsh Open was another victim, with its matches reduced to best-of-7, supposedly so that all of it could be televised, only to then forget about that particular "excuse" and take 128 players to the venue a few years later. This season, the line between ranking events and the PTC series has been erased completely, so Robertson's win in Riga or Selby's in Fürth are on par with Hamilton's in Berlin, as far as most people are concerned. It's tough to decide which of World Snooker's "innovations" in recent years has been the worst...

Well, it would have been tough, but unfortunately a new contender has emerged with the introduction of the Shoot-Out as a ranking event. The debate about shot-clocks has been ever-present on this forum ever since I joined. The overwhelming opinion has always been that shot-clocks have no place in professional snooker, but there are always a few people who argue otherwise. Perhaps they think snooker would be more exciting if the pace was quicker, perhaps they think a shot-clock would filter out certain players they dislike, or perhaps they would just like to see something new and are willing to give this a try... Well, I couldn't disagree with them more. Snooker is at its core a slow-paced game, and much of its appeal comes from the hushed atmosphere and from the tension that slowly builds throughout close frames and matches. A shot-clock sucks the tension out of snooker like nothing else. Think of any legendary frame or match and imagine what it would have been like if the shot-clock was used. Can you imagine John Higgins being interrupted by the shot-clock during his clearance in the final frame of the 2006 Masters final? Can you imagine Anthony Hamilton being rushed in the German Masters final when he was playing the biggest match of his life? Or Mark King in Belfast? There simply has to be a moment for the audience to appreciate what is at stake, and that can't happen if you don't allow the tension to build. The Premier League had a shot-clock for a long time and saw some high-quality snooker played, but not once have I seen any Premier League match mentioned when the greatest matches of all time were discussed, nor has one stuck in my memory as particularly special, and I like to think I have a good memory for special matches. :smile: The argument people often make is that snooker should try to appeal to the younger generation who prefer fast entertainment, but what is the point in trying to make snooker appealing to people who perceive it as slow and boring, and are predisposed to dislike it? In any case, if people have little interest in a sport, they are only likely to watch the most prestigious events, rather than glorified exhibitions no one really cares about, so trying to introduce snooker to new audiences through minor events is not really a great plan. The dramatic increase in snooker's popularity on the continent has happened due to people being exposed to the proper ranking events on Eurosport, and judging by the audiences in the European PTC events in recent years, it's mostly young people who are into it. It's probably never going to appeal to the majority, but there are enough people who like it for what it is.

A lot of people have suggested that the shot-clock be trialled in one ranking event just to see whether it was viable, and I think we all knew it would eventually happen. What exactly the time limit should be has never been agreed upon, because some snooker shots can be played in seconds and would always be unaffected by a shot-clock, whereas some situations could take several minutes for the player to find a solution, so it really wouldn't make much difference whether the shot-clock was 30 or 40 seconds. In any case, I think we can all agree that this event is making no effort to test the merits of a shot-clock, because the time limit is set lower than the average shot time of someone like O'Sullivan, so it was always intended to be a circus act. It was easy to ignore it in previous years, since it didn't count towards the rankings and had no real effect on the proper game, apart from awarding a place in the Champion of Champions. But having this carry ranking points is unacceptable and surely has to be the biggest disgrace of Hearn's reign so far, ahead of all the shortening of events and the corrupt wildcard decisions. The snooker community has spoken out against many of his decisions in the past seven years, but at the end of the day we recognise that some things are much better since he took over, and no one really wants a return to the kind of gross mismanagement we had before. So we continue to watch... A lot of people have said they would stop watching snooker if the shot-clock was ever introduced to ranking events. Well, it's a reality now, so is anyone keeping their word and giving up on snooker today? It's not that easy, is it?

The players themselves have mostly spoken out against this disgrace as well, which was nice to see. I have great respect for the players who have decided to skip this event on principle, and at the same time I don't blame those who haven't. We have to live in the real world after all, and a lot of the players simply can't afford to pass up the chance to earn more money, nor should they be forced to even if they could afford it. I can only thank those who spoke up in defence of snooker and wish them the best of luck. At the same time, shame on the few exceptions who publicly supported this decision, I simply cannot respect you or your opinion on this matter!

I know some people are looking forward to watching and discussing this event, so my apologies to you for polluting this topic with my negativity, but it had to be done. To summarise, I fart on the Snooker Shoot-Out and everyone associated with it, and I hope most of you will join me in giving it a miss! :frown:

[JimMalone]

In my preview for the World Open at the start of the season I promised not to spread my negativism during tournaments I personally dislike, and I have kept to that policy as much as I could, but I think it's worth making an exception in this case...

When I joined this forum 10 years ago I was still fairly new to snooker, although I was already what I would call a "grand lover" of the game. I basically watched every televised tournament in full, and I even made a little poster of the draw each time and hung it on the living room door. To be honest, I still do that for the proper tournaments, more out of tradition than anything else, at least I can't think of any purpose it's supposed to serve. :smile: I guess I started doing this at a time when there were long breaks between tournaments, so it was a way to commemorate a "snooker week" when one finally came around. It's difficult to imagine going back to the kind of calendar we had back then, with weeks or sometimes even months between events, but one thing I do miss is that feeling of prestige that used to accompany each ranking event. If I had to single out one thing I dislike the most about Barry Hearn's reign as chairman of World Snooker, it would probably be how the term "ranking event" has gradually lost most of its prestige over the past seven years or so.

A lot of people who regularly post on TSF these days have joined after 2010, so you are probably not aware of the heated discussions we had when Hearn initially took over. Some people were afraid he would turn snooker into a circus with short matches and shot-clocks, whereas most people people were quietly optimistic about the future of snooker. Well, seven years later it seems that both groups were right. Rather than one great revolution, what we got was a gradual dumbing down of the game, mostly by introducing one short-format tournament after another, until the best-of-7 became the standard length of snooker matches. Hearn's first notable move was to cancel the long-standing Grand Prix from the calendar and introduce a best-of-5 event in its place, an event that carried 7000 ranking points for the winner, which was 70% of what the World Championship was worth at the time. After that failed experiment I thought we were safe from short-format ranking events for a while, but then came the Indian Open, a supposed "ranking event" played in what was basically a PTC format. Then there was the shortening of the UK Championship one year into Hearn's reign, even though he had promised not to touch the majors in several interviews he gave when he took over. The Welsh Open was another victim, with its matches reduced to best-of-7, supposedly so that all of it could be televised, only to then forget about that particular "excuse" and take 128 players to the venue a few years later. This season, the line between ranking events and the PTC series has been erased completely, so Robertson's win in Riga or Selby's in Fürth are on par with Hamilton's in Berlin, as far as most people are concerned. It's tough to decide which of World Snooker's "innovations" in recent years has been the worst...

Well, it would have been tough, but unfortunately a new contender has emerged with the introduction of the Shoot-Out as a ranking event. The debate about shot-clocks has been ever-present on this forum ever since I joined. The overwhelming opinion has always been that shot-clocks have no place in professional snooker, but there are always a few people who argue otherwise. Perhaps they think snooker would be more exciting if the pace was quicker, perhaps they think a shot-clock would filter out certain players they dislike, or perhaps they would just like to see something new and are willing to give this a try... Well, I couldn't disagree with them more. Snooker is at its core a slow-paced game, and much of its appeal comes from the hushed atmosphere and from the tension that slowly builds throughout close frames and matches. A shot-clock sucks the tension out of snooker like nothing else. Think of any legendary frame or match and imagine what it would have been like if the shot-clock was used. Can you imagine John Higgins being interrupted by the shot-clock during his clearance in the final frame of the 2006 Masters final? Can you imagine Anthony Hamilton being rushed in the German Masters final when he was playing the biggest match of his life? Or Mark King in Belfast? There simply has to be a moment for the audience to appreciate what is at stake, and that can't happen if you don't allow the tension to build. The Premier League had a shot-clock for a long time and saw some high-quality snooker played, but not once have I seen any Premier League match mentioned when the greatest matches of all time were discussed, nor has one stuck in my memory as particularly special, and I like to think I have a good memory for special matches. :smile: The argument people often make is that snooker should try to appeal to the younger generation who prefer fast entertainment, but what is the point in trying to make snooker appealing to people who perceive it as slow and boring, and are predisposed to dislike it? In any case, if people have little interest in a sport, they are only likely to watch the most prestigious events, rather than glorified exhibitions no one really cares about, so trying to introduce snooker to new audiences through minor events is not really a great plan. The dramatic increase in snooker's popularity on the continent has happened due to people being exposed to the proper ranking events on Eurosport, and judging by the audiences in the European PTC events in recent years, it's mostly young people who are into it. It's probably never going to appeal to the majority, but there are enough people who like it for what it is.

A lot of people have suggested that the shot-clock be trialled in one ranking event just to see whether it was viable, and I think we all knew it would eventually happen. What exactly the time limit should be has never been agreed upon, because some snooker shots can be played in seconds and would always be unaffected by a shot-clock, whereas some situations could take several minutes for the player to find a solution, so it really wouldn't make much difference whether the shot-clock was 30 or 40 seconds. In any case, I think we can all agree that this event is making no effort to test the merits of a shot-clock, because the time limit is set lower than the average shot time of someone like O'Sullivan, so it was always intended to be a circus act. It was easy to ignore it in previous years, since it didn't count towards the rankings and had no real effect on the proper game, apart from awarding a place in the Champion of Champions. But having this carry ranking points is unacceptable and surely has to be the biggest disgrace of Hearn's reign so far, ahead of all the shortening of events and the corrupt wildcard decisions. The snooker community has spoken out against many of his decisions in the past seven years, but at the end of the day we recognise that some things are much better since he took over, and no one really wants a return to the kind of gross mismanagement we had before. So we continue to watch... A lot of people have said they would stop watching snooker if the shot-clock was ever introduced to ranking events. Well, it's a reality now, so is anyone keeping their word and giving up on snooker today? It's not that easy, is it?

The players themselves have mostly spoken out against this disgrace as well, which was nice to see. I have great respect for the players who have decided to skip this event on principle, and at the same time I don't blame those who haven't. We have to live in the real world after all, and a lot of the players simply can't afford to pass up the chance to earn more money, nor should they be forced to even if they could afford it. I can only thank those who spoke up in defence of snooker and wish them the best of luck. At the same time, shame on the few exceptions who publicly supported this decision, I simply cannot respect you or your opinion on this matter!

I know some people are looking forward to watching and discussing this event, so my apologies to you for polluting this topic with my negativity, but it had to be done. To summarise, I fart on the Snooker Shoot-Out and everyone associated with it, and I hope most of you will join me in giving it a miss! :frown:

Splendid write-up as nearly always, odrl. Only thing about that horrible violation of snooker that concerns me is how it will affect the world ranking.

I think this definitely not the way to attract new viewers. Cause this isn't Snooker anymore. So even if you might attract some new people. You don't attract them to Snooker, but to something that is a caricature of it. You would be willing to sacrifice your own sport and with it all the fans of it.

[SnookerFan]

I can see the logic; snooker needs to bring in a new audience. Snooker has a core of hardcore followers but beyond that interest is quite low - and it's easy to understand why... there's an abundance of material people can watch nowadays that is much more appealing to the masses.

Attempting to make it more "exciting" is an obvious step towards captivating more people. Whether it should be a ranking tournament is a good question. I guess it's a way to tempt the big name players to take it seriously, which looks like it isn't working.

Personally, I quite like it - it's different and I appreciate the effort to increase the popularity of snooker. But I don't consider myself a snooker purist, as I enjoy all forms of cue sports quite equally and play pool much more than snooker.

If it's a way to tempt the big players there, it hasn't really worked. Didn't a lot of them pull out?

I've never really been a fan of the Shoot Out, but haven't had any real problem with it existing, if people want to watch it. Making it a ranking event though is the most ridiculous decision World Snooker could've made. It's not even real snooker.