2018 World Championship

[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]

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.

[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

[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

[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

[jw147]

ROS hopes Holt can convert his 8-4 lead against Slessor...

Is there any that chance I'll be able to stream Lisowski's second session?

ROS would beat slessor 10-0 at the crucible. If he got 3 frames id be shellshocked.

[jw147]

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

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Need to bring the great WT back, but they sacked him because mcgill was gone!

[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.

We’re actually doing reasonably well. Four of us are above the cut off point of somebody just randomly picking the highest ranked player. I'll post the final result on Wednesday night.

Stony152 (11) - Day, Xiao, Dott, Milkins, Lyu, Liang, Lisowski, Perry, Thepchaiya, Robertson, Maguire
Odrl (10) - Day, Xiao, Dott, Holt, Liang, Lisowski, Walden, Perry, White, Maguire
JimMalone (10) – Day, Xiao, Dott, Milkins, Lyu, Liang, McManus, Perry, Robertson, Maguire
Mr Snooker (10) - Day, Xiao, Holt, Lyu, Stevens, Liang, Lisowski, Walden, Robertson, Maguire
jw147 (8) - Ebdon, Highfield, Xiao, Zhang, Milkins, McLeod, McManus, Wakelin

[kligu]

How on earth can they not show Stevens vs Doherty?

[armstm]

what studies are these? do u have a link?

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.

[Stony152]

How on earth can they not show Stevens vs Doherty?

Aren't they jumping around from table to table like last year?

[Mr Snooker]

How on earth can they not show Stevens vs Doherty?

That is what I thought to a former world champion and also reached the final on two occasions plus a twice finalist as well playing each other, and they also played each other in the 2000 Masters final in Which Ken Doherty missed the black for the 147. Matthew leads the first session 7-2, I thought this would have been a closer match, let's hope Ken can pull it back in the second session I predicted a 10-9 win for either player on this match

[Stony152]

what studies are these? do u have a link?

There is a lot of discussion on this topic on the internet. Just google "momentum in sports" The first major study was in 1985, where Thomas Gilovich studied the "hot hand" theory in the NBA. He found that there was no evidence of a having a hot hand or momentum. As an example, if a player has made five shots in a row, the odds of him making the next shot were in line with his overall odds of makingthe shot. The same for a player who has missed five shots in a row. There was no way to predict when hot streaks started or when they would end. Recent studies have found errors in his methodology and it's a bit of a controversial topic.

Maybe I exaggerated slightly when I said it was a complete myth, but the concepts of being "hot" or a "clutch" player is really difficult to quantify. Announcers (especially ex-players)really believe in having or not having momentum in terms of how you feel when you are playing well or poorly. The problem is that the stats often don't back it up.

Like I mentioned, Gilbert wins four frames in a row to get to 9-8. Shouldn't he be confident and feeling less pressure at that point? If so, why did he then lose the next two frames. It's a difficult concept, and not nearly as straight forward as announcers would have you beleve.

[Stony152]

We’re actually doing reasonably well. Four of us are above the cut off point of somebody just randomly picking the highest ranked player. I'll post the final result on Wednesday night.

Stony152 (11) - Day, Xiao, Dott, Milkins, Lyu, Liang, Lisowski, Perry, Thepchaiya, Robertson, Maguire
Odrl (10) - Day, Xiao, Dott, Holt, Liang, Lisowski, Walden, Perry, White, Maguire
JimMalone (10) – Day, Xiao, Dott, Milkins, Lyu, Liang, McManus, Perry, Robertson, Maguire
Mr Snooker (10) - Day, Xiao, Holt, Lyu, Stevens, Liang, Lisowski, Walden, Robertson, Maguire
jw147 (8) - Ebdon, Highfield, Xiao, Zhang, Milkins, McLeod, McManus, Wakelin

I think I missed Burden, so jw147 is actually at (9). Some of his picks of lesser players like McLeod, Wakelin, and Burden are looking pretty good.

[PatBlock]

Maybe I exaggerated slightly when I said it was a complete myth, but the concepts of being "hot" or a "clutch" player is really difficult to quantify. Announcers (especially ex-players)really believe in having or not having momentum in terms of how you feel when you are playing well or poorly. The problem is that the stats often don't back it up.

Isn't that simply because we're all different, so any beneficial effect of having a lead is going to vary from person to person, depending on their own individual psychological makeup?

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