2018 World Championship

[Stony152]

Good Day, Professor Stony, I will try to attend a Pro Snooker Tournament in Poland this or next year, can you let me know if there is a good snooker hall that i can go play at when there. Thanks

Unfortunately, despite being a huge snooker fan, I rarely play and have no real connection to the snooker scene here. If the tournament is in Warsaw, there are a variety of places where you can play. There are probably numerous options in cities like Krakow, Gdansk, and Poznan as well.

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=poo...d_loc=Warszawa

[sharkster63]

I've watched the BBC for years using a VPN or DNS changer. A few months ago I paid for an IPTV service that has more than 1000 channels. I get BBC, ITV, Sky, everything for about $15/month.

I actually like John Virgo. He mangles the language, but I like his personality and enthusiasm. I'd rather listen to him than Doherty or Terry Griffiths. Doherty : "He has tree reds remaining" My Polish students would laugh at how he speaks English.

Good Day, Professor Stony, I will try to attend a Pro Snooker Tournament in Poland this or next year, can you let me know if there is a good snooker hall that i can go play at when there. Thanks

[Steve748]

Doherty : "He has tree reds remaining" My Polish students would laugh at how he speaks English.

I find him the most annoying commentator because of this..........makes Joe Johnson with his Bradford accent sound smooth and cultured

[Stony152]

I think that's a British thing more than anything. I've got used to it in sports like snooker, where I've only ever heard English commentary, but it becomes difficult to listen to when they starting doing it in basketball for example. It's the 4th quarter and someone scores to level at 70-70, and the commentator will start talking nonsense about how that's great for their confidence... Sure it is, but more to the point, it's great for the result as well. :wink: You wouldn't hear that style of commentary in Slovenia or any other country from this region. We have our own faults that are equally annoying though, if not more. :smile:

Polish commentators are actually pretty bad for psychobabble. Especially for tennis. The Polish snooker commentators are ok (I rarely listen to them), but they drive me nuts with their pronunciation of player's names. I've talked about this before.

John Heegeens got a keek.

[Odrl]

The biggest problem is all of the psychological garbage they talk about. "he's under more pressure", "he has the momentum" ,etc.

I think that's a British thing more than anything. I've got used to it in sports like snooker, where I've only ever heard English commentary, but it becomes difficult to listen to when they starting doing it in basketball for example. It's the 4th quarter and someone scores to level at 70-70, and the commentator will start talking nonsense about how that's great for their confidence... Sure it is, but more to the point, it's great for the result as well. :wink: You wouldn't hear that style of commentary in Slovenia or any other country from this region. We have our own faults that are equally annoying though, if not more. :smile:

[Stony152]

Four afternoon matches didn't get completed. Why don't they start an hour earlier? If you can start at 11, then not why at 10? It's not like you have to worry about fewer fans showing up because of the very early start time.

The other issue is the slow play. The shootout is ridiculous, but so is taking an average of 45 seconds for a shot. You need to do something to speed up the play, because younger fans just don't have the patience to watch grass grow or paint dry. I love old school snooker with lots of safety play, but what about the next generation of fans in 20-30 years.

[Stony152]

TBH, I'm sick of them all, I'd much rather have the unadulterated atmosphere, which the eurosport player usually provides, thamkfully.

-

I prefer watching with commentary. In the US they did an experiment a number of years ago in the NFL. They broadcast a game with no announcers. The vast majority of people hated it and it's never been tried since.

I like Hendry. He can be complementary or critical, depending on what's required. And it's interesting to hear him talk about strategy, because he's obviously been there and done that.

I pretty much hate all of the Eurosport announcers. Especially Dave Hendon and Joe Johnson. Hallett is annoying. I don't mind McManus. The biggest problem is all of the psychological garbage they talk about. "he's under more pressure", "he has the momentum" ,etc.

Momentum in sport is mostly a myth. Look at last night. Gilbert was down 8-5 and won four frames in a row to go up 9-8. At that point he had all of the momentum. Then he went on to lose 10-9. Studies have repeatedly shown that there is something there, but it's mostly a myth.

If you went back through snooker history and looked at all of the matches were a player was two up with three to play and then the match went to a decider. I can guarantee you (assuming a large enough sample size) that the winner of the two frames to get to the decider has won the decider 50% (+/-3%) of the time.

[PatBlock]

I've watched the BBC for years using a VPN or DNS changer. A few months ago I paid for an IPTV service that has more than 1000 channels. I get BBC, ITV, Sky, everything for about $15/month.

I actually like John Virgo. He mangles the language, but I like his personality and enthusiasm. I'd rather listen to him than Doherty or Terry Griffiths. Doherty : "He has tree reds remaining" My Polish students would laugh at how he speaks English.

TBH, I'm sick of them all, I'd much rather have the unadulterated atmosphere, which the eurosport player usually provides, thamkfully.

-

[Stony152]

Then you should be "mighty relieved" that you don't have the BBC and John Virgo in Poland. :wink:

-

I've watched the BBC for years using a VPN or DNS changer. A few months ago I paid for an IPTV service that has more than 1000 channels. I get BBC, ITV, Sky, everything for about $15/month.

I actually like John Virgo. He mangles the language, but I like his personality and enthusiasm. I'd rather listen to him than Doherty or Terry Griffiths. Doherty : "He has tree reds remaining" My Polish students would laugh at how he speaks English.

[jonny66]

Annoyed, shirley?

I just copy and paste the links into VLC? I tried this from a Twitter thing the other day and nowt happened, saddeningly

Edit: I've just tried again, and all I get is an orange and yellow traffic cone.....

They don't seem to be working very well today. This one has Selt v. Duffy http://disq.us/url?url=http%3A%2F%2F...Q&cuid=2683017

[blahblah01]

"Hence why" is my latest bugbear. Stupid people say it when they want to sound clever, hence why it makes me annoy.

Annoyed, shirley?

I just copy and paste the links into VLC? I tried this from a Twitter thing the other day and nowt happened, saddeningly

Edit: I've just tried again, and all I get is an orange and yellow traffic cone.....

[jonny66]

Please tell me how ridiculous it is. (I need the moral support) When I mention it to people, most think it's not a big deal. "Drive safe" has now gotten to the point where it's pretty much accepted as grammatically correct.

I watched some football the other day. The only thing that was mauled worse than my team was the English language. They seemed to be stuttering because they had to think of a worse way to say what they wanted to.

"Hence why" is my latest bugbear. Stupid people say it when they want to sound clever, hence why it makes me annoy.

Sad to see Gould out. I think Ebdon may roll back the years and qualify since there aren't any great threats in his group. Maybe Ebdon v. O'Sullivan in the final?

EDIT - I got Ebdon's group all wrong, he's in Ryan Day's group and has no chance against Day

[PatBlock]

Please tell me how ridiculous it is. (I need the moral support) When I mention it to people, most think it's not a big deal. "Drive safe" has now gotten to the point where it's pretty much accepted as grammatically correct.

Then you should be "mighty relieved" that you don't have the BBC and John Virgo in Poland. :wink:

-

[Stony152]

Some of our predictions for who will reach the crucible aren't looking that good. On average 85% of the higher seeds win first round qualifying matches and 70% win second round matches. So 0.85*0.7 = 0.6. So theoretically the highest ranked player in each group of eight has a 60% chance of reaching judgement day. 16*0.6 = 9.6. So if you picked each favourite based on ranking you'd expect to have 9 or 10 players left going into tomorrow. Any more than that would be considered a good result. We'll check how everybody is doing tonight.

[Stony152]

Don't get me started on the death of the adverb

Please tell me how ridiculous it is. (I need the moral support) When I mention it to people, most think it's not a big deal. "Drive safe" has now gotten to the point where it's pretty much accepted as grammatically correct.