Archive for English/UK Pool

Top 5 Matches of 2011

January 2, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Thought I would have a go at compiling a ‘Top 5 of 2011′ in terms of the matches that we have covered, you can find details of them below and where we have it a link to the video on Cuesport TV.

It has been a difficult task to compile this list due to the sheer amount of pool that I have been involved with covering in 2011 so they are in no particular order of preference!

1. Welsh Open Blackball Final – This has been our most watched video of the second half year even though it was only released at the end of November. In my eyes one of the most perfect games of pool ever played in front of our cameras as Simon Ward won his second consecutive Welsh Open title by demolishing Richie Oliver 6-0.

2. GB9 British Grand Prix Final – Jayson Shaw once again proved what a very classy and entertaining player he can be by lifting the GB9 British Grand Prix in November. Up against the best GB9 player of all time (Imran Majid) many felt that Imran’s more deliberate style would have slowed Jayson down but not on this occasion, the Scotsman showed pure class as he lifted the title 11-4 with 4 break and runs in the process. The win also meant that he finished 2nd in the end of year rankings. (Video available soon)

3. Oly Bale v Ronan McCarthy – This was a well talked about, high profile, big-money 8 Ball match that in terms of the pre-match hype didn’t meet expectations from the home player. What it did do though was prove what a class act Ronan McCarthy is! (Link is to the first part of the match.)

4. Money Match TV 14: Matt Lawrenson v Craig Osborne – There have been many great MMTV matches over the last 12 months but this one sticks in my mind due to the final part of the match alone, both players were tied early on with Matt the taking a lead. It looked pretty much over when Matt went 18-14 in front only to see one of the greatest comebacks in MMTV history by Craig Osborne. (Video is a link to this exciting final part)

5. European Blackball Championship Semi Final – ‘The Battle of Ireland’ as Gavin Cleary of the host nation took on Darren Sterrett of Northern Ireland for a place in the final. A very good advert for the game of Blackball with two very contrasting styles of play. Video link is part 1 of 2.

If you would like to submit your ‘Top 5′ or ‘Best of 2011′ then please drop us an email to enquiries@cuesport.tv

Category: 9-ball Pool, English/UK Pool / Tags: , ,

And Finally…

December 1, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

I know it has taken an age, and all I can do is apologise, but finally we have released the final part of the Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8-ball Money Match. We have had so many problems getting this particular video file to work properly but now it does!

You can watch it below:

Category: English/UK Pool, money matches / Tags: , , ,

Almost Perfect Pool

November 29, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

This video is definitely worth a watch. In an amazing match that lasted just 23 minutes one of the two players played almost perfect pool, in fact their only mistake was a scratch in frame number 5. The match was the final of the 2011 Welsh Open recorded in Sunday 27th November.

Watch it below and then please let us have your thoughts:

Category: English/UK Pool / Tags: , , ,

A Short Lived Return

November 26, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

It has been a very long time since I personally picked up a cue in anger. I don’t mean to use as a cosh in some bar brawl, but as the weapon of choice on a pool table.

Laughing aloud the organisers of the Welsh Open, a blackball event I am covering for Cuesport TV, told me they had put me in the main draw.

It would have been fine but for two things, I haven’t played any form of small ball game for about two years and I didn’t have a cue.

The cue problem was solved by borrowing a very nice Trevor White one piece owned by Paul Bushnell. I can’t reply you in words how nice that cue is!

Ok so we come to the second problem, not having played for a very long time.

I have to say I was strangely nervous, with no expectations I expected to be feeling quite relaxed. Not the case!

I won the lag and hit an awesome break. All the balls in situe for a nice dish, I didn’t take it out though failing on my final colour. Luckily though I got a second chance and went 1-0 up!

Second frame I made a nice clearance after my opponent failed to make his break work, and after a bit of a battle. This meant I was leading 2-0 in the best of nine match.

It went downhill from there though! He battled back to lead 3-2 even though I had a chance in every frame.

I did manage to level it in the next only to see him take the seventh frame.

The 8th frame saw a dry break from my opponent with a scratched white. I used my first shot to good effect and looked set to take out the frame only to go in off whilst getting position on the black – gutted!

I lost the game 5-3 and was reasonably pleased with my performance, may even have to start playing again now!

Category: English/UK Pool, General / Tags: , , ,

A Very Good Advert for Blackball

November 10, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

For some reason these two video files took longer than all of the others to come through our transcoding system. they were originally uploaded on the 29th September and a few errors occurred meaning they have only been made available today.

For me this was the best match and best advert for Blackball pool from the entire week of the European Blackball Championships in Ireland.

It was a real clash of styles between Darren Sterrett of Northern Ireland and Gavin Cleary of the host nation. The match was from the semi-final stage and a place in the final was up for grabs.

Darren was much more the steady player and from my experience of Blackball over the past couple of years I had him down as the favourite.

Before the tournament Gavin was unknown to me (may have missed a trick there I know!) but came out in this match with some seriously aggressive and attacking pool.

I won’t ruin the surprise go and watch both parts of this match yourself at the links below and please let me know your thoughts.

Gavin Cleary v Darren Sterrett – European Blackball Semi Final – 1 of 2

Gavin Cleary v Darren Sterrett – European Blackball Semi Final – 2 of 2

Category: English/UK Pool / Tags: , ,

A Truly International Tour

October 17, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

In a statement posted yesterday, the IPA Tour, have confirmed that they have secured the sponsorship of the Hilton Worldwide chain of hotels to become the host venues for the 2012 season.

Whilst this is an excellent move there is still a lot of work to be done behind the scenes to secure the funding necessary to drive the tour forward. It is without doubt that the tour is in a transitional state and with the launch of the UK Pool Tour (started by the IPA’s former Chairman) that already has significant funding and backing a package needs to be put together sooner rather than later.

The one thing from the statement that I did pick up on though was the line quoted below,

We would like to advise that in 2012 the IPA TOUR will for the first time become a truly international tour by staging one of its events in Wales

Although Wales is officially a constituent Country of the United Kingdom it is hardly giving the tour some International flavour, many Welsh players have participated in the tour for a long time. If a tour such as the IPA wants to claim to be International in terms of the events then they have to leave the UK, France have a big Billard Anglais following and places like Belgium, Catalonia, Gibraltar and Malta also play a lot of 8-ball.

I am in no way knocking the efforts of the new tour committee as I understand the problems with trying to move events into other countries, and I also applaud them trying to change the geographic spread of the tournaments, hopefully in time many of the countries mentioned would have a genuine leg of the IPA Tour. Having Hilton as a sponsor may help towards this as they have hotels all over the world.

In the first instance though the tour need to announce their plans, entry fee’s, accommodation prices and prize funds for the tour next year so that players can make an informed choice over which series to participate in, and this is mainly a choice for the amateurs as it is them that make up the majority of the prize funds in the first place.

Does moving an event to Wales constitute a Truly International Tour?

Category: English/UK Pool / Tags: , , ,

Heaps of Videos Now Showing

October 12, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

It has been a little over two weeks since I returned from Ireland and the European Blackball Championships, during the time I had over there James and I recorded some amazing action and it has always been my intention to make new content available sooner.

On this occasion I have pulled out all the stops to try and keep this event fresh in people’s minds. All of the content has now been uploaded to our system, some is taking a bit more time than others to come through transcoding however. What this means is that there will be somewhere in the region of 30 hours worth of Blackball Pool for you to view.

Most of the content is broken down into hour long chunks, but if that is too long then just use the skip feature on the video player.

I really hope you enjoy tucking in and watching some of this action, my favourite match of the whole week was probably the men’s semi-final between Darren Sterrett and Gavin Cleary, the match was tense, had great safety and some good aggression on the table as well. In my eyes it proved to be a very good advert for the Blackball game.

Sadly this is one of the matches that is not yet released but I will update this post with a direct link once it is.

Do you have a favourite match from the event? Please let us know

Category: English/UK Pool / Tags: , , , , ,

A Quiet Couple of Weeks

October 7, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

After the hectic last few weeks with Cuesport TV out and about on our travels to different live events, there are now at least two weekends without any live coverage.

Fear not though fellow cue sport fans as there is plenty of video content available for you to peruse over at the VOD site.

Some top picks for you:

European Blackball Champs – Wheelchair Final – 8 Ball

European Blackball Champs – Men’s B Team Final – 2 of 2 – 8 Ball

MMTV 12 – Kevin Uzzell v Matt Lawrenson – 11 of 11 – 9 Ball

MMTV 12 – Ben Clayton v Alex McElhatton – 1 of 8 – 9 Ball

Jamie Cope Interview – Snooker

Live events will return on the 29th October with Money Match TV 16, once again 3 live matches back-to-back and there is talk of Craig Osborne playing Chris Melling in this event.

Category: 9-ball Pool, English/UK Pool, General, Live Event News / Tags: , , , ,

The September Collection

October 3, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

As with most people these days I spend some time browsing the web and finding useful and interesting stuff. Some of it related to the industry and some that is not! these links are presented as is and there is only a short description of what the link is about, I will leave it for you to decide if you like it or not.

Now Is The Time – A link to a forum thread (there are loads at the moment) over on Cue Club International about the EPA/IPA saga that will continue to go on for the foreseeable in my eyes.

10 Cool Tools for Marketing – This interested me due to the Facial recognition campaign being used by Unilever to give people Ice Cream bars for smiling!

First Foray into Google+ – I managed to get an invite to see what all the fuss was about, so link me up if you are currently using Google+

Wheelchair Blackball Final [VIDEO] – This deserved a mention in this random list due to it being the first ever European Blackball Wheelchair Championships final.

Your Playing Small Doesn’t Serve Anyone – Anybody interested in the Internet, marketing or business should follow this blog from Duct Tape Marketing. Some great ideas and snippets.

Twitter Feed of the Month

@ProSnookerBlog – How the guy finds the time I am not sure but an amazing Twitter feed for fans of snooker. Live tweets throughout tournaments, in depth coverage and almost instant ranking updates.

Facebook Page/Group of the Month

Rack ‘n’ Roll Pool Leagues & Tournaments – I picked this group simply due to the fact that it is regularly updated and commented upon by a core group of 9-ball pool enthusiasts in Leicester. Go and join in the fun!

If you have a Twitter feed or Facebook page/group that you think deserves a mention then please let me know.

On a Cuesport TV note: Thanks to the viewers that tuned in on 1st October for MMTV 15, plus keep checking the site over the coming week for new videos from the European Blackball Championships in Ireland.

Category: 9-ball Pool, English/UK Pool, General / Tags: , , , , , ,

Return to Form

September 29, 2011 / The_Teach / No comments

It is a sad state of affairs that our 8-ball coverage has been somewhat lacking over these last 18 months. But with the European Blackball Championships now complete we have a return to form this weekend with edition 15 of Money Match TV.

The event promises once again to be full of highlights, pressure, tension and of course some good quality pool. The match that needs a mention out of the three televised matches is the headline game. Mike Gibney finally plays Craig Dixon in a £2000.00 challenge. These two have wanted this game for a while but until now had not been able to arrange the details. Well now it is on we can all just get on and watch it, it will be tasty!

If you get in quick (like right now!) you can get access to the live stream for only £1.99 – that is 3 matches and about 9 hours worth of pool for less than the price of a pint!

Buy Money Match TV 15 – 3 live 9-ball Pool Money Matches

If you enjoyed our coverage from the European Blackball Championships then until the videos are released (looking likely this will start to happen week beginning 3rd October 2011) then you can check out some great photos from the event taken by myself and James during the event. Euro Blackball 2011 Pictures

Category: 9-ball Pool, English/UK Pool, Live Event News / Tags: , , , ,
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