CueSport TV - The Blog

It is the time of year where we once again embark on a road trip. It’s GB9 time. This year is probably the most anticipated British tour ever with the move to hotel venues and the increase in player numbers.

Top that off with 16 fantastic new tables supplied by SAM leisure, 5 of the world’s best players and you have the ingredients for something spectacular.

For the first time Cuesport TV will be able to provide a live stream of a GB9 Ball Tour event this Saturday (13th March) from 12pm UK time. It will be completely free to view and will appear on the front page when it is live.

But I didn’t really want to talk about that to be honest, one of the nicest things about the GB9 events is the craic, the players, organisers and what-not are all good to be around. It is (as ever!) a huge journey for us to undertake and due to Ange’s commitments means we cannot travel until late Friday. This is also another reason for not featuring the complete weekend, something we aim to do at future events.

This event is being held in Buxton, home of the spring water, a lovely town in the heart of the Peak District. I cannot think of a better venue for a tour stop.

You can cath up with the road trip that Ange and I make early next week, we will be producing one of our popular ‘diray-cam’ videos for your entertainment.

Anyway got to think about getting the car packed so catch up with you next week. Don’t forget the live stream at Cuesport TV from 12pm tomorrow (13th March).

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Back last year we trialled some HD streaming using our platform and the results were very nice. The response to the videos was also excellent. It always was the plan to complete full length matches in high definition.

Due to the nature of the web and the fact that people are generally watching on a smaller screen to their TV we have opted to rollout out the full length videos in 720p high definition.

The data rates of streaming a HD video mean a download speed of around 4meg is required to watch the videos without buffering.

The first of these full length matches is now available and is the first round match (Chris Melling v James Kay) at the GB9 British Grand Prix Pro Cup event last year. Please do tell us if we are wrong but we also think that this is a web first. Cuesport TV has become the first streaming channel to provide a full length 9-ball pool match in high definition.

The rest of this tournamnt, a further four matches, will also be HD encoded.

For those viewers that struggle to watch the HD versions due to low bandwidth then a standard version is also available for viewing.

Please let us know your thoughts on the videos and if you experience any problems. The best way to find out if you can view them without buffering is to run a speedtest.

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Live on Sky Sports Extra in the UK at 7pm and also a Mosconi cup live stream here. (external link we are not responsible for).

Todays Matches:

Match 6 - Van Boening/Archer v Souquet/Feijen

Match 7 - Deuel v Hohmann

Match 8 - Dominguez/Hatch v Appleton/Immonen

Match 9 - Archer v Appleton

Match 10 - Hatch/Deuel v Feijen/Hohmann

I reckon Europe could still be in with a shout if they win the session 3-2 tonight!

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To be honest on paper I thought it was a foregone conclusion that Europe would romp away with this years Mosconi Cup. There are still three days to go of course but the USA dominated in last nights first session.

After taking the team match (a format I have to say I don’t like as it lacks fluidity and does not allow the players to settle) 6-4, they never really looked back and went into the last match of the evening with a 4-0 scoreline.

Ralf Souquet, ever the European stalwart, managed to claw one back for Europe in the final singles game of the night - he beat USA rookie Oscar Dominguez 6-5.

Play continues tonight at 7pm and Europe could do with a 3-2 or 4-1 scoreline in order to stay in contention.

One thing I did like about this years opening night was the addition of the Captain’s pick, instead of picking for their own team Alex Lely and Nick Varner had to select a player from the opposition side. I was very surprised to see Souquet selected by Varner and thought he may well have opted for Darren Appleton (Europe’s only Mosconi Cup rookie this year).

Team USA 4-1 Team Europe

You can follow updates on Twitter.

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The order of play for tonights action at the Mosconi Cup is as follows:

M1: Team USA v Team Europe (all 5 players)

M2: Johnny Archer/Dennis Hatch v Niels Feijen/Darren Appleton

M3:Shane van Boening v Mika Immonen

M4:Corey Deuel/Oscar Dominguez v Ralf Souquet/Thorsten Hohmann

M5: Captain’s Pick v Captain’s Pick

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Along with many of you out there I am sure, I will be watching the Mosconi Cup which starts in about 6 minutes at time of typing. Each year I try to provide live updates and posts on the blog but I am going more interactive this year and am going to do live updates via my Twitter account.

@cuesporttv (Twitter link) I will be using the hash tag #mosconicup make sure you use it as well and see if we can get a bit of a buzz going online.

I want to hear from all of you either on this blog or via the Twitter account.

Oh and go Europe!

Great to see Darren Appleton get the spot he fully deserves for Team Europe plus USA have two exciting rookies in Dennis Hatch and Oscar Dominguez as well

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Today see’s the delayed launch of GB9 Leagues a new amateur league structure for 9-ball pool players in the UK.

I was originally involved when this was first tried in the UK and after 12 months due to lack of support from sponsors and venues it failed to get beyond 12 months.

This time under the tutelage of Tony Weafer, a player on the GB9 Ball Tour and successful businessman, the league structure has much more planning and impetus to be successful behind it. Tony has worked tirelessly with Rileys (the UK’s leading pool and snooker provider) to bring them on board en masse. What this means is that the leagues will launch in around 100 venues simultaneously in January 2010.

It is an important time for such a scheme to get started, Britain as a nation has been achieving great results on a professional level with the likes of World Champions, Darren Appleton and Daryl Peach plus excellent performances from the likes of Imran Majid, Karl Boyes and more recently Chris Melling and Craig Osborne.

GB9 Leagues in my opinion will help us further strengthen our position internationally by developing the game and the interest at grassroots level. Yes, it will be full of amateur players wanting to have some fun, and why should it now be? However, it will also be a proving ground for young players and players moving across from other cue sports like snooker and English Pool.

Never has there been a better time in the UK’s history of 9-ball pool than now. Our professionals are performing better than ever and our official tour has announced plans to move into hotel venues for 2010 and beyond.

I wish the leagues every success and will actually be using them to get myself playing pool regularly again. The prize money, the county selection and ultimately spots on the GB9 Tour are all reasons why this will be a success.

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This weekend see’s the final event in the 2009 calendar for the GB 9-Ball Tour. This event will once again be held in the fantastic club that is Rileys Barnsley.

Rarely do we hear or see nice words being said about Rileys clubs but with this one, credit where credit is due. The manager is awesome, tables are kept immaculate and the club is clean and welcoming. I think Rileys as a whole should be taking note on what George Vetters and his team does.

Cuesport TV will be on site again to provide recorded coverage of the tour, we are itching to do these events live and with news of possible changes to the tour next season it looks hopeful for 2010. Different venues have been whispered and I am sure the organisers will make announcements soon.

Shirley Ang, Tournament Director, for the majority of the last two seasons has been told one way or another that her services are no longer required and Lee Rigby will be taking over the role for the final event and into 2010. Shirley has done wonders for the tour and will be a huge asset missing for next year.

Lee has helped with most of the running of the tour anyway so no doubt will step into the role very well as the UK’s own tour rolls into 2010.

A great club and great people this last event will hopefully live up to its billing and give us a good send off (from the main action at least, qualifiers for 2010 start in November) from the 2009 season lookinf forward to pastures new in 2010.

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At the weekend myself and my wife travelled to Shepherd’s Bush in London for the latest GB Ball Tour event.

We have been covering this tour since it’s inception in January 2008 and the tour has grown from strength to strength in terms of the organisation and the plyer depth.

This event was held in a Rileys club with only 12 american pool tables, this caused a very late finish, that was not helped by allowing a long wait until the quarter finals started. There were a couple of matches in the challenge division that were being waited on. If I was running the tournament, as long as players and tables are available I would get matches on. This could have saved around 1 hour in the pro cup.

I got a distinct feeling of tension at the tournament this weekend both from some of the players and some of the organisers. If the tour is to develop then these issues need to be solved asap.

Cuesport TV support this tour for no financial reward so there is a possibility that in the future we will no longer offer the coverage.

Well done to Mark Gray who lifted his first Pro Cup title with a 9-6 victory over Darren Appleton. He exorcised a few demons after the Nations Cup issues. You can watch all the matches from this tournament very soon on Cuesport TV.

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The second world ranking event of the new WPA Pool Tour is underway in China.

This event follows on from the recent Philippines Open which was won by, surprisingly in some eyes, by Indonesia’s Ricky Yang. The win propelled Yang into 19th in the world rankings and with a few withdrawals means he is seeded 11th for this tournament.

The event takes place inside the Pudong Yuanshen Gymnasium which has capacity to hold up to 5000 spectators.

As you can imagine the field is dominated by local Chinese players, but there are four British players who have made the trip. World 10-ball Champion, Darren Appleton (seeded 2) and Daryl Peach (seeded 7) plus Karl Boyes and Craig Osborne.

You can watch live scoring here: China Open Live Scoring

There is also a TV feed that as yet I haven’t managed to work here: Live Streaming

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