As if we would let you you forget, this weekend it is the return of the GB9 Tour.
The third event of 5 in this years calendar takes place in Daventry and will be live on Cuesport TV. You can watch it for free on the 17th and 18th of July.
The tournament will feature Karl Boyes, fresh off the back of his first Eurotour victory, plus Daryl Peach, Darren Appleton, Mark Gray and more…
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
On Saturday 15th August American Pool TV will be providing live pay-per-view coverage of the hottest money match in the UK this year.
£10,000 is at stake as four of Britains best pool players with multiple International titles go head-to-head.
Karl Boyes, world bronze medallist, is partnering twice WEPF World 8-ball Champion, Chris Melling, as they take on World Number 1 and World 10 Ball Champion Darren Appleton and his partner, Nations Cup winner, Imran Majid.
The action will be live from 5pm with an undercard match between Scott Higgins and Alan Millership, a nice warm-up for the main event.
To watch this match you have two options, buy a PPV ticket in advance for just £4.99 or purchase on the day of the match for £7.49
PPV tickets go on sale on Saturday 8th August so do not miss out.
The main event is played to WPA Ten Ball rules and will be a race-to-35 racks. Expect some awesome shot making, an intense atmosphere and a very tense and thrilling result.
Do not miss out, PPV tickets on sale now.
Further Information:
American Pool TV is a new sister channel of Cuesport TV that will be offering standalone PPV tournaments and challenge matches in addition to Freeview content.
You can find the channel here: http://americanpool.cuesport.tv
If you wish to contact the channel please use enquiries@cuesport.tv
Over the next two weekends (August 8th and August 15th/16th) Cuesport TV are involved in live streaming three separate big money match ups.
Burford vs Gray - Saturday 8th August, 5pm (UK Time) - Cuesport TV
The first on August 8th features, European Junior 9-ball Champion, Phil Burford and former European number 1, Mark Gray. These two stalwarts of the British 9-ball scene go head-to-head for £1000 per man. The game is 9-ball and it will be a race-to-30, winner breaks.
The action for this event will be live over at Cuesport TV to paid up subscribers, something you can do for as little as £2.95. The action starts at 5pm with an undercard match between Andy Appleton (brother of World Number 1 Darren Appleton) and young up-and-coming player Louis Clarke. They are playing for £500 per man race-to-21 I believe and will be live also in advance of the main event.
£10,000 Scotch Doubles Challenge - Saturday 15th August, 5pm (UK time) American Pool TV
Another evening of entertainment that starts with a tasty undercard match, UK Pro players Scott Higgins and Alan Millership match up for £500-per-man. Race-to-15 9 Ball action. A good precursor for what is to come at around about 7pm.
The big match up on the cards on this particular night is an interesting one. Rarely do we see scotch doubles matches outside of the Mosconi Cup so this will be a treat.
Karl Boyes & Chris Melling take on World number 1 Darren Appleton & Imran Majid.
The Prize?
A killer £10,000 winner-take-all pot. The match is 10 ball with a race-to-35 in operation, I expect a very close match, Boyes/Melling have a 5 rack start to make it even more interesting.
This live event will be the first one shown on American Pool TV where you can buy the match in advance for £4.99 or on the night for £7.49 make sure you buy it, amazing match up.
Simon Ward v Craig Reynold’s - Sunday August 16th, 3pm (UK Time) Cuesport TV
Another match for Cuesport TV subscribers.
Simon Ward, one of the most consistent players of the 2008 season plays renowned money player and IPA professional Craig Reynol’ds for a £6,000 pot.
Played to WEPF World Rules this one will appeal to the small-ball fans throughout the UK and Europe, possibly further afield.
To watch this one a subscription is required.
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.
I will get the news out of the way first. Mika Immonen has won the third World Ranking event of the year, The Qatar International 9-ball Open, with a 13-10 victory over Taiwans Ko Pin-Yi.
In addition, by reaching the semi finals, Darren Appleton, has gained enough points to become the first ever British World Number 1 player. Congratulations to both players.
What I really want to mention though is the lack of International coverage of such a prestigious event, $40,000 was paid to the winner and the world’s best players were in attendance. There was regular live scoring and updating of the tournament sheet but in this day and age fans want to watch tournaments like this.
My understanding is that the event was broadcast in Qatar and that a live stream was supplied. Nobody that I know of actually got the live stream working. It is no good using a technology that nobody else can tap into.
With my next comment I don’t want to sound bitter but we approached the organisers in the first instance back in February/March 2008 for last years event. They wanted stupid money for something that had not been done before, even though all we would do is take a feed from the broadcaster and pump it out to the world.
This year there was no reply! These events need to be seen, whether that be through our technology or somebody elses it needs to be robust and of a standard that most of the Internet public can use. Cuesport TV is of course this solution but it is difficult trying to convince rights holders what can be done without them wanting rediculous sums of money for something that as yet it not worth what they are asking.
The future of TV, and in my opinion broadcasting of niche sports like pool and billiards, lies with the Internet. Vendors and rights holders need to grasp this now and actually need to take some risks. A company like ours can take a satellite feed of an International event and broadcast it worldwide at very high streaming quality for a fraction of the cost of traditional TV. The exposure of the sport would potentially be massive, the risk comes from not wanting up front payments, afterall the event is already being broadcast by a TV station in the home territory. It needs rev-share agreements to come into force. Get this right and licence fee’s can be discussed in future years.
Who else tried using the Qatar Open Live Stream? Did you get it to work?
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
Majid beat fellow Brit Phil Burford
We went into this morning with no less than nine British cueists still remaining in the German Open event. After this morning’s round we had seven players progress to the last 16 stage.
The players to fall were youngster Phil Burford who lost 8-5 to fellow Brit, Imran Majid and Daryl Peach who was beaten 8-6 by German star Thomas Engert.
Many of the last 16 matches have already been completed which means I can already tell you that Ralf Souquet will play Mark Gray in the quarter finals. Also, Craig Osborne and Karl Boyes have already reached the last 8.
As I write Darren Appleton is locked at 6-6 with Engert and Majid is leading Shaverdi 6-4. Ricardo Jones and Chris Melling have been beaten so the Brits are starting to thin out a little bit!
More news later.
We are continuing, as a nation, to make a massive impact on the Internetional pool scene. The German Open concludes tomorrow with nine of our original 16 entrants still standing in the last 32 knockout stage.
Those players include past Eurotour winners and two world champions. Daryl Peach, Darren Appleton, Karl Boyes, Imran Majid, Craig Osborne, Ricardo Jones, Phil Burford, Mark Gray and Chris Melling. These true brits are joined by an honorary Brit in Tony Drago as well.
On the plus side only Imran Majid and Phil Burford have drawn each other so we have a chance of getting 8 players through to the last 16, this would have been unimaginable 5 years ago, but through hardwork and dtermination I would say that we have the best players in Europe at the moment, if not the world.
Updates throughout the day tomorrow complete draw here: http://www.eurotouronline.eu/
Recent World Pool Masters Champion Darren Appleton
The Dynamic German Open started yesterday with a field of around 256 of Europe’s best pool players including the likes of Darren Appleton, Daryl Peach, Ralf Souquet, Nick van den Berg and Tony Drago.
€40,000 in prize money is up for grabs with the winner receiving €5,000 and vitally important ranking points, the German Open is one of 7 rounds in the EPBF Eurotour and the EPBF rankings act as qualifiers to International events.
You can find the action Eurotour Online
The action continues until tomorrow afternoon when a winner will be crowned. The two hottest players on the tour this year are Ralf Souquet and Niels Feijen but after his recent World Masters win Darren Appleton will be looking for another title.
