Why don´t we accept the fact, the reality, that UK Championship is no longer 2nd...

[Billy]

These Chinese events are just soulless. The atmosphere is like an empty qualifying venue, the refs are forever having to tell them to turn their phones off and stop taking flash photos. Most the time the top players can't be bothered. I'm sure the money helps but these Chinese tournaments will never have the same prestige as the big UK events.

And yet we're still told how massive the game is out there. But where's the evidence? These teenage girls scrambling for autographs along the red carpet at the venues couldn't tell you a thing about the game itself, so they certainly don't qualify as evidence in my book.

[Csmith]

Whose game is it anyway ?

IMO the major competition final of any sport should be held in it's country of origin at a venue that becomes the mecca of the game where all participants strive to reach and feel honoured when they do, otherwise it's meaningless.
You can't buy tradition but you can sell out and lose it, the FA cup now means nothing, should we allow the UK snooker to go the same way ?

And a winter game should remain a winter game, can you hear me FIFA

Totally agree. As a comparison, in professional pool, they tend to consider just about anything that pays reasonably well a 'major' and as a result it's just a rotating group of tournaments that just happened to get a lot of sponsorship one year. Nowadays, no can agree on what a 'major' in pool is (aside from the world championship and US Open) and at worst people will list almost a dozen of them.

If Trump wins the UK championship AND this Saudi Arabia title next year, which one do we think he will put on his highlight real of top accomplishments? The guy already has a ton of money, so I would expect it would be the tournament that adds to his majors tally. The same way that a player will call out the UK or Masters over winning the International Championship. Without fans present, who will be there to call out "c'mon Ronnie" at every match, irrespective of the Rockets presence? As someone else said, there's just no atmosphere there and many of these events are still less than a decade old.