2007 Northern Ireland Trophy draw

[rivercard]

..can be viewed on GSC:

http://www.globalsnookercentre.co.uk...rophy-draw.htm

[Semih_Sayginer]

cheers river

[Alex0paul]

Possible Day/Dale rematch in round 2 and Selby/Higgins in the round of 16.


Interesting

[rivercard]

It's also interesting that Kachaiwong was drawn against Tony Drago again. They played against each other in last years UK Championship qualifiers, and they should have played again in the Shanghai Masters qualifiers..
This is only Kachaiwongs second season on the tour and this will be the third time he will be up against Tony.

[PaulTheSoave]

Is it not because of the rather static ranking system which is in use? Having the last 2 seasons counting, the chance playing the same opponent is more obvious than having a ranking updated after every tournament. Maybe it is another argument changing the ranking system. New players would like to play different players in ranking tournaments to get more experience. Its also odd Day and Dale playing in such an early stage of the tournament as they were the last tournament finalists. Present form should be rewarded a bit more. Shake it up!

It's also interesting that Kachaiwong was drawn against Tony Drago again. They played against each other in last years UK Championship qualifiers, and they should have played again in the Shanghai Masters qualifiers..
This is only Kachaiwongs second season on the tour and this will be the third time he will be up against Tony.

[Monique]

To come up with a new system they would have to THINK Paul! And changing for a more flexible approach would probably cost them more work

While now we are in for yet another possible ROS vs Higgins quarter. Habits are quite reassuring

[snooky147]

Is it not because of the rather static ranking system which is in use? Having the last 2 seasons counting, the chance playing the same opponent is more obvious than having a ranking updated after every tournament. Maybe it is another argument changing the ranking system. New players would like to play different players in ranking tournaments to get more experience. Its also odd Day and Dale playing in such an early stage of the tournament as they were the last tournament finalists. Present form should be rewarded a bit more. Shake it up!

The present ranking system is fine in my opinion. Players are rewarded for consistency or lack of over the two seasons. Both Day and Dale will benefit if they keep producing the goods.
Leave as is!

[Semih_Sayginer]

would it not be possible to do similar to what PTS suggests and update rankings after each tournament, and use these updated rankings for each draw......but have the World championship draw for the end of the season (into the next year but same season) done at the start of the season


that way, wed know the worlds draw, or at least who is placed where, and where qualifiers are, and also get draws done on updated form for the rest of the tournaments

no/yes?

[Monique]

Do you think they would have enough time to organise that properly? Some tournaments are quite close to each other like the Grand Prix and NIT this year (2 weeks between the two and the qualifiers of the NIT start only 2 days after the GP)

[Semih_Sayginer]

Do you think they would have enough time to organise that properly? Some tournaments are quite close to each other like the Grand Prix and NIT this year (2 weeks between the two and the qualifiers of the NIT start only 2 days after the GP)

if the qualifying venues and dates are booked, then i dont see why not, if they get their bottoms in gear... ?

[snooky147]

Cant have your cake and eat it Semih, The whole idea of the rankings is to rewards consistency over a period, not to reward possible flash in the pan results and before everyone jumps on me I'm not suggesting for a second that Dale's win was a flash in the pan. In the terms of rankings however consistency over the season is what should be the number one priority not shuffling rankings after every tournament.

[Robert602]

It would still reward consistency just as much though as they could still be compiled over two years. They'd just be updated after every tournament rather than annually, like (I think) tennis. I'd quite like to see it happen, but at the moment I doubt it would be possible to schedule it. It'd be particularly difficult given that ranking tournaments (if you include qualifiers) often overlap.

At the moment, Dale's win last week counts for nothing, but his performance in the 2005 GP will continue to affect his seeding for the rest of this season, a factor that by the end of the world's will be nearly 3 years old. On the other hand Mark Williams' most recent semi final may be a distant memory and his top 16 place a lost cause when he walks into the crucible 2008 as 12th seed (he's yet to win a single match in 2007).

By the time of the world's the official rankings fail to take into account the 6 or 7 most recent ranking events and they fail to give us realistic seedings. By all means calculate rankings over a long enough period, but if they're that far out of date they lose a lot of credibility.

(If people want to continue this discussion feel free to do so here for now, don't worry about off-topic, I'll move the posts into a new thread if there's much more to be said)

[Sabina]

thanks for the draw, river!
Robert, I agree with you, the rankings are not properly updated and I think it's a big disadvantage for most of the players!

[snooky147]

Sorry Sabina and Robert, I tend to disagree lol. All these players worked hard over the years to establish a ranking based on consistency over two seasons. How is it just for someone say at number 6 to have 2 bad tournaments to fall out of top 16 and have to qualify when someone who has done very little over the period suddenly comes good and jumps up the rankings. It's done the way it is now because it's these guy's way of making a living, it's not a hobby. Rankings have to be over a period of time. If the Dales of this world keep up with the results they will be rightfully rewarded and if the top 16 dont perform they will be out. Simple as that.

[Sabina]

I can see your point of view, Snooky and I can see that there is a an advantage of this rankings based on the 2 years. However I still think that this has its disadvantages too.....