The absence of Ronnie

[Looki]

he is both of those, he raped the audience with his time-wasting and murdered the game of snooker. and he is a cheater to boot - in an article written by the times after the match. peter ebdon sued the times re. the article and lost.

you develop rules in sport to promote fair play. wasting time and deliberately making your opponent sit in his chair to slow him down or throw his form / concentration / flow off is not fair play - in fact it is outright cheating. that is why every major sport has time rules of some sort to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen. when they originally developed the rules for snooker, it was for a friendly gentleman's game not for a professional sport. so were the rules for tennis. during the course of the game's evolution into a professional sport, new rules were introduced to ensure fair play. there was no 20-25 seconds to serve rule until the 80s - it was introduced to make sure players wouldn't try to delay play to recuperate etc.

http://www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2012-03-09/9039.php

this is exactly the same for snooker. there is absolutely no reason why there should be no time limits on a shot. if as a professional, you cannot cope with a time limit, then you have inferior skills and you should lose. fcs, even chess is time-based ok.

for the record, i enjoy watching ding, robbo, murphy, maguire, mjw, s.lee etc. - they are not fast players, they are normal players who don't time waste for the purpose of cheating - unlike ebdon, mcleod and selby. this is why the attendance rate for the ebdon vs selby world #1 match at the brazil masters was ~20%. what a joke.

but dinosaurs will be dinosaurs - they don't understand progress nor rejection, they exist only for their own selfish stubbornness. doesn't matter though - snooker will have to change to shot clock formats sooner or later to survive - and that will be the day snooker becomes a prominent sport in the world again. otherwise continue to enjoy the empty seats and patchy media coverage.

The attendance rate was very low in almost all matches in Brazil Masters because it was arranged in an resort where ordinary people in Brazil couldn't afford to go. How do you think shot-clock would've helped it?

I'm not holding my breath that you would answer this question, though... You've chosen to ignore all opposite opinions and waste people's time by spamming your "reasoning" to every other thread. Not to forget ad hominems and strawmen.

[nrage]

he is both of those, he raped the audience with his time-wasting and murdered the game of snooker. and he is a cheater to boot - in an article written by the times after the match. peter ebdon sued the times re. the article and lost.

Irrelevant - the criteria for upholding the suit are not the same as for whether he "cheated" or not.

you develop rules in sport to promote fair play. wasting time and deliberately making your opponent sit in his chair to slow him down or throw his form / concentration / flow off is not fair play - in fact it is outright cheating.

Not by the current rules it's not.

that is why every major sport has time rules of some sort to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen. when they originally developed the rules for snooker, it was for a friendly gentleman's game not for a professional sport. so were the rules for tennis. during the course of the game's evolution into a professional sport, new rules were introduced to ensure fair play. there was no 20-25 seconds to serve rule until the 80s - it was introduced to make sure players wouldn't try to delay play to recuperate etc.

Irrelevant. You're comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing a rule added to Tennis to prevent advantage following injury, to snooker where there is no advantage nor injury involved.

this is exactly the same for snooker. there is absolutely no reason why there should be no time limits on a shot. if as a professional, you cannot cope with a time limit, then you have inferior skills and you should lose. fcs, even chess is time-based ok.

Some forms of chess are time based, some are not. Again, the primary skills and abilities that snooker (in general) is testing do not include speed under pressure, instead it is control, concentration, stamina, etc.

for the record, i enjoy watching ding, robbo, murphy, maguire, mjw, s.lee etc. - they are not fast players, they are normal players who don't time waste for the purpose of cheating - unlike ebdon, mcleod and selby. this is why the attendance rate for the ebdon vs selby world #1 match at the brazil masters was ~20%. what a joke.

False conclusion. The reason for poor attendance in Brazil was .. it was in Brazil.

[wildJONESEYE]

he is both of those, he raped the audience with his time-wasting and murdered the game of snooker. and he is a cheater to boot - in an article written by the times after the match. peter ebdon sued the times re. the article and lost.

you develop rules in sport to promote fair play. wasting time and deliberately making your opponent sit in his chair to slow him down or throw his form / concentration / flow off is not fair play - in fact it is outright cheating. that is why every major sport has time rules of some sort to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen. when they originally developed the rules for snooker, it was for a friendly gentleman's game not for a professional sport. so were the rules for tennis. during the course of the game's evolution into a professional sport, new rules were introduced to ensure fair play. there was no 20-25 seconds to serve rule until the 80s - it was introduced to make sure players wouldn't try to delay play to recuperate etc.

http://www.tennis-x.com/xblog/2012-03-09/9039.php

this is exactly the same for snooker. there is absolutely no reason why there should be no time limits on a shot. if as a professional, you cannot cope with a time limit, then you have inferior skills and you should lose. fcs, even chess is time-based ok.

for the record, i enjoy watching ding, robbo, murphy, maguire, mjw, s.lee etc. - they are not fast players, they are normal players who don't time waste for the purpose of cheating - unlike ebdon, mcleod and selby. this is why the attendance rate for the ebdon vs selby world #1 match at the brazil masters was ~20%. what a joke.

but dinosaurs will be dinosaurs - they don't understand progress nor rejection, they exist only for their own selfish stubbornness. doesn't matter though - snooker will have to change to shot clock formats sooner or later to survive - and that will be the day snooker becomes a prominent sport in the world again. otherwise continue to enjoy the empty seats and patchy media coverage.

Dont Talk through your ****ing Arse.

Holy **** if you dont like Snooker **** off and find something else to watch instead of coming on Forums talking utter ****ing ****.

[SnookerFan]

Why are we arguing with somebody who gives the opinion; "Ding is not a fast player". WTF?

Do you think that unless you are Ronnie, you are automatically a slow player? You'll be saying Judd Trump is slow next. Or that Alex Higgins should've been known as Alex "Moderate Breeze" Higgins. Ding's not a fast player, ffs.

Anybody who says stuff like that, shouldn't even have their opinion debated, it's so irrelevant.

[SnookerFan]

Also, is Selby really that unpopular a player? I've met several Mark Selby fans. The only people he seems unpopular are the Ronnie O'Sullivan fanboy brigade. And that's only really because he's beaten him in several high profile matches.

[Particle Physics]

Also, is Selby really that unpopular a player? I've met several Mark Selby fans. The only people he seems unpopular are the Ronnie O'Sullivan fanboy brigade. And that's only really because he's beaten him in several high profile matches.

You're right, he's perceived as a bot, anathema to the Ronnie philosophy on how to play snooker. Chalk and cheese, and so are the fans. But variety of player is the spice of snooker life IMO. And if you don't have a villain, you can't have a hero. ;-) People like me who like Ronnie, probably like Jimmy, Alex, Judd etc. That's just how we roll. Others who like Selby, probably like Davis, Ebdon etc. It's flair v. stoic. It's all about like, not fact.

[Particle Physics]

It didn't help that slow play at The Crucible had the Ronnie fanboys on analysis up in arms. JP in the studio acted like Ebdon was a rapist and murderer just because he took a long time to make a 12-break against his favourite player.

Parrot and every fair minded person knew that 12 break was time wasting on a grand scale, a ridiculous scale. Some people call that playing the player. I call it something else. The refs need to have a word with players like this, a quiet word off camera, and warn them that they have to play shots in a reasonable time given the difficulty of the shot. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to play a short regulation pot. These pros play snooker as a job, for many hours a day. They can pot these balls in their sleep, they're that good. Ebdon has done 147s and can clear the table. He's time wasting to destroy the rhythm of other players and gain an unfair advantage and he and others need to be stopped before snooker audiences simply turn off. Like it or not, snooker is a spectacle, a show, and if the show's no good, no-one will tune in and the game dies. It's a tricky balance, I don't want a circus (though Hearn would!), but at the same time, let's not be ground to death like coffee beans.

[Looki]

Parrot and every fair minded person knew that 12 break was time wasting on a grand scale, a ridiculous scale. Some people call that playing the player. I call it something else. The refs need to have a word with players like this, a quiet word off camera, and warn them that they have to play shots in a reasonable time given the difficulty of the shot. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to play a short regulation pot. These pros play snooker as a job, for many hours a day. They can pot these balls in their sleep, they're that good. Ebdon has done 147s and can clear the table. He's time wasting to destroy the rhythm of other players and gain an unfair advantage and he and others need to be stopped before snooker audiences simply turn off. Like it or not, snooker is a spectacle, a show, and if the show's no good, no-one will tune in and the game dies. It's a tricky balance, I don't want a circus (though Hearn would!), but at the same time, let's not be ground to death like coffee beans.

Snooker can be a spectacle at its best. But most of all it's a job, a way to try to make the living, for the players. There's no guaranteed fat pay check, you have to win games to make good money and have your ranking points. This adds pressure to it. That's why it isn't a spectacle most of the time and in my opinion it's a good thing. It would be boring to watch a spectacle all the time. There'll never be a tour of 99 Ronnies or 99 Judds no matter how many bans your give to "time wasters" or introduce shot-clock etc.

[Gerry Armstrong]

The most famous and most watched frame of snooker in history took over an hour and ended up with 2 guys chasing 6 colours round a table, barely able to stand due to fatigue and unable to see or cue straight due to the pressure and atmosphere in the arena.

Snooker doesn't have to be a 5 minute 147 to be a spectacle.

[SnookerFan]

Parrot and every fair minded person knew that 12 break was time wasting on a grand scale, a ridiculous scale. Some people call that playing the player. I call it something else. The refs need to have a word with players like this, a quiet word off camera, and warn them that they have to play shots in a reasonable time given the difficulty of the shot. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to play a short regulation pot. These pros play snooker as a job, for many hours a day. They can pot these balls in their sleep, they're that good. Ebdon has done 147s and can clear the table. He's time wasting to destroy the rhythm of other players and gain an unfair advantage and he and others need to be stopped before snooker audiences simply turn off. Like it or not, snooker is a spectacle, a show, and if the show's no good, no-one will tune in and the game dies. It's a tricky balance, I don't want a circus (though Hearn would!), but at the same time, let's not be ground to death like coffee beans.

I disagree. I always thought Ebdon got a bum deal out of that. If Ronnie got thrown off by slow play, tough. A guy of his natural talent shouldn't start throwing his toys out of his pram just based on his opponent's style. Can you imagine a prime Hendry losing a game just because his opponent played slow and kept asking for the cue ball to be cleaned?

Ronnie was 10-6 going into the evening session of that game, he only needed to win three frames. The score ended 13-11. In the next eight frames, Ronnie won one. I remember watching that evening session. Ronnie had (at least) one frame winning chance in the majority of frames he lost. Certainly in enough frames to win the 3 he needed to win the match. If Ronnie was so put off, he can't even pot balls when he's at the table and presented with the chance, then he can't blame Ebdon. It's all well and good saying; "Peter Ebdon kept Ronnie in his chair for too long", but when Ronnie wasn't at the chair, he made a good effort and getting himself sat back down again as quickly as possible.

As far as I can tell, it was Ronnie who had the problem. Not Peter Ebdon. Should you try and speed up your game to give your opponent as much chance as possible, or play your own game?

I'm no Ebdon fan, and thought the final that year was really grim viewing. But, there is no doubt in my mind that if that match had been Ebdon vs Somebody Else, we wouldn't still be hearing about it seven years later.

[daffie]

The most famous and most watched frame of snooker in history took over an hour and ended up with 2 guys chasing 6 colours round a table, barely able to stand due to fatigue and unable to see or cue straight due to the pressure and atmosphere in the arena.

Snooker doesn't have to be a 5 minute 147 to be a spectacle.

I could not agree more! I will favor tense, close frames anytime over quick-fire ones. A well-crafted 147 may be the exception to this rule...but this then is also because of the tension that builds towards the end.

[arbitrage]

Parrot and every fair minded person knew that 12 break was time wasting on a grand scale, a ridiculous scale. Some people call that playing the player. I call it something else. The refs need to have a word with players like this, a quiet word off camera, and warn them that they have to play shots in a reasonable time given the difficulty of the shot. It shouldn't take 2 minutes to play a short regulation pot. These pros play snooker as a job, for many hours a day. They can pot these balls in their sleep, they're that good. Ebdon has done 147s and can clear the table. He's time wasting to destroy the rhythm of other players and gain an unfair advantage and he and others need to be stopped before snooker audiences simply turn off. Like it or not, snooker is a spectacle, a show, and if the show's no good, no-one will tune in and the game dies. It's a tricky balance, I don't want a circus (though Hearn would!), but at the same time, let's not be ground to death like coffee beans.

exactly. however, a quiet word is too little - it won't do anything to deter a person bent on cheating. optimum scenario is rule change to remove any ambiguity. in absence of that, the referees need to enforce this rule strictly, with appropriate penalties for violation e.g. docking points or a frame etc. for minor infractions and in the case of repeated violation, severe penalties such as a ban from tournaments for a period of time plus a fine. that should be an effective deterrent against such cheats.

p.s. don't know what some reactionary dinosaurs are going on about - no one ever said ding is a slow player. this is like visiting a US right wing forum hosted by rush limbaugh or alex jones and frequented by ideologues, demagogues, conspiracy theorists et al. - lots of rhetoric, devoid of facts and logic.

[SnookerFan]

Parrot fair mind. Tut. He practically cried because Ronnie lost.

[nrage]

p.s. don't know what some reactionary dinosaurs are going on about - no one ever said ding is a slow player. this is like visiting a US right wing forum hosted by rush limbaugh or alex jones and frequented by ideologues, demagogues, conspiracy theorists et al. - lots of rhetoric, devoid of facts and logic.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Odrl]

Parrot fair mind. Tut. He practically cried because Ronnie lost.

Parrott has some weird snooker preferences sometimes. I remember a great frame in the 2009 Grand Prix final between Robertson and Ding that lasted about 57 minutes, and a lot of us thought it was the best frame of the match. But not Parrott and Hazel Irvine in the studio... they described it as "turgid" and hoped the rest of the match would be better viewing.

It's one thing to watch a snooker match as a fan and not like some of it, but to get paid to sit in a studio and basically tell snooker fans that snooker is crap... it's hard to believe sometimes... :redface: