CueSport TV - The Blog

Last night saw the first of seven weekly transmissions from the TCC Snooker Pro-am. An event that has been running for 10 years at the Tredegar Cons. Club in Newport, Wales.

This years event has attracted Shaun Murphy, Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens and Ryan Day plus a host of other professionals and top level amateurs.

For us it was our second move into live snooker streaming, and obviously it is key with the move to subscriptions imminent, that we provide a good show. From my own point of view I think yesterday went well, the number of live viewers was small but this was due in part to the event being advertised as a paid event. I think the viewers that did watch probably would have paid anyway.

The key ingredient to the success was the mounting of a ceiling camera to give the typical full table shot we see on the BBC and Eurosport. This was quite comical really, we had brackets designed specifically for the job, however, the camera then would not tilt so all we could see was the light rig - a nice light rig, but not quite what people wanted to see.

Rather than actually start drilling into the ceiling of the TCC we made use of the suspended ceiling and using a plank borrowed from my son’s old bed set about creating a mount for the camera, it paid off and gave us the desired result. Although I was sweating it a bit with the camera precariously over the second table, secure though I must add!

The club is quite small and with 80 spectators crammed in we didn’t think there was going to be space for two cameras, but we did manage to add a second angle through the use of a tripod. The natural lighting in the club was perfect and a great nights entertainment was had.

Streaming at 450kbps is a first for us as we are normally stuck with small standard connections but the stream was smooth with no buffering and very little delay thanks to Virgin Media for that one!

Anyway you can watch the videos for yourself later on this weekend over at Cuesport TV and feel free to make a comment or two.

We will be providing live coverage again next week as well so stay tuned.

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Twelve high quality snooker players are in action from this morning, including four Chinese, in the 2009 Wuzhou International Group World Snooker Jiangsu Classic (that is the full title!)

Three former World Champions in Stephen Hendry, Peter Ebdon and Shaun Murphy are joined by defending Jiangsu Classic Champion and crowd favourite, Ding Junhui.

Completing the line up top 16 stars, Marco Fu, Mark Selby, Mark Allen, Joe Perry, Ali Carter and Ryan Day and two other Chinese players in Jin Long and Li Hang.

The invitational tournament was first held in 2008 and was won by Ding Junhui, he will be looking to lift the title on home soil once again but faces some very stern opposition from some of snooker best known players.

Two groups of six players play a round-robin format with each playing competing against every other player in their group over the best of 3 frames. The top two from each group step through to the best of 9 semi finals and the final will be a best of 11 affair to be played on Sunday 7th June.

The Groups:

GROUP 1

Ding Junhui
Ryan Day
Mark Allen
Peter Ebdon
Stephen Hendry
Li Hang (Wildcard)

GROUP 2

Shaun Murphy
Ali Carter
Joe Perry
Mark Selby
Marco Fu
Jin Long (Wildcard)

Updates to follow.

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World Snooker have launched a competition which will allow fans and enthusaists to vote for the 2008/09 Player of the Year. Voting has to be in by 29th May.

These would be my candidates:

• Judd Trump (For winning spot in Masters & Premier League)
• John Higgins (3rd World title)
• Shaun Murphy (Winning the UK Championships)
• Ricky Walden (For first ranking event victory, as a qualifier, in Shanghai)

You can vote for your Player of the Year by following this link:

http://www.worldsnooker.com/ws_championship_news-45905.htm?tid=124

Let me know your thoughts.

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John Higgins moved into the realms of the greats with his third World Snooker title.

In a final that by his own admission (and that of his opponent Shaun Murphy) was won in the second session on Sunday, John Higgins lifted the trophy ad picked up a cheque for £250,000 with an 18-9 winning margin.

Shaun Murphy had looked good throughout the whole tournament but lost his way in the second session of the final where some uncharacteristic misses allowed John Higgins to capitalise. He won that particular session 7-1 and Shaun was always going to find it hard to comeback from that scoreline.

There was a bit of a resurgence in Monday afternoon’s session which meant the crowd were treated to at least part of a final session, in the end though it proved too much for Murphy, who over the next few years will no doubt be back in the winners circle.

His third title puts John Higgins amongst snooker’s greats and at 33 he still has a few years of top level snooker ahead of him. If he can continue to perform at this level then I can see him reaching 5 world titles.

The season is now finished and the players can take a break until the return in August.

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The semi finals of the 2009 Betfred.com World Snooker Championships started yesterday afternoon with twice former World Champion, John Higgins against rising Northern Irish talent, Mark Allen.

Allen has been playing some of the best snooker of his career after already having dispatched Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ryan Day. This session started well, Allen winning the first frame, however Higgins came back and handn’t even looked as if he was playing at his best. He lead 3-1 at the mid-session interval.

In the interval the players spoke to the tournament director about the less-than-adequate table conditions, aparantly caused by increased humidity. This led to a very hot iron and a complete change of balls at the halfway point in the session.

The table played better in the latter half and Higgins extended his lead to 6-2, this match continues this morning from 10.00.

Honours Even With Robertson and Murphy.

The other World Champion still in the draw, Shaun Murphy, had a very tight session against Australian Neil Robertson. The match will continue at 14.00 today with the score at 4-4. There were six breaks over 50 with Murphy winning this stat 4-2.

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Ronnie O’Sullivan has been magnificently sent packing out of this years Betfred World Snooker Championships. Mark Allen, the world number 16, is the man that has sent Ronnie home early and what a victory it was.

A match of the highest quality where the pressure on Allen never really seemed to phase the Northern Ireland star, he wound up a 13-11 winner.

The match had been close throughout the three sessions with Ronnie leading 9-7 overnight. Allen came back the fresher player it seemed this morning winning the first three frames to lead 10-9. In the 20th frame Ronnie responded with a 147 attempt failing to get his 10th maximum by missing a difficult 14th black playing left handed.

Even with everything Ronnie threw at him Mark Allen had the confidence and ability to step into the 1/4 finals for the first time.

In this mornings other match, Shaun Murphy only needed two sessions to demolish former semi-finalist Marco Fu 13-3.

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John Higgins, who at one point led 4-1 against Ronnie O’Sullivan until the reigning World Snooker Champion had a bit of a resurgence, came through his quarter-final a 5-4 victor.

Higgins will now play Welshman Ryan Day who himself demolished Saun Murphy 5-0 in an earlier encounter.

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Shaun Murphy joins Marco Fu in the final of the Maplins UK Championships in Telford. The final starts tomorrow afternoon and is live on the BBC in the UK and online.

Marco Fu has had an astonishing tournament where he has simply worked hard to reach another ranking event final, he becomes the second Chinese player to reach the final of this tournament after Ding Junhui in 2005. Fu is the consumate professional and has gone about his business almost without being noticed in this event, Murphy will be a tough opponent.

Shaun Murphy, had until this event had a shocking season, he had not won a match before turning up in Telford. Things have just got better and better for the 2005 World Champion as he has progressed in to the final. His semi-final match against Stephen Maguire was very scrappy and twitchy in places but was topped off with a 136 total clearance to put him 7-3 in front.

My prediction Murphy to win the final by 4 frames!

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You can watch live 9-ball pool and live snooker this weekend!

The Mosconi Cup returns for it’s 15th edition and starts tomorrow evening the 11th December live on Sky Sports. The European team (captained this year by Alex Lely) are the defending champions having won the trophy in Las Vegas last year. The tournament MVP last time out was Tony Drago and he will be looking to put on a similar performance as he will be playing in Malta, his home country.

The rest of the European team are Ralf Souquet, Niels Feijen, Mika Immonen and Englands own Mark Gray. European players currently hold all of the world titles and have also been successful in the majors this year as well, Ralf Souquet winning the US Open the highlight.

The US team is captained by Nick Varner and is almost an unchanged side from last year, Earl Strickland returns as the only ever present since this tournament started and is joined by Johnny Archer, Shane van Boening, Jeremy Jones and Rodney Morris.

If snooker is more your tipple then prepare to be mesmerised as the Uk Championships starts on Saturday 13th December from the Telford International Centre. Regarded as the second most prestigious snooker tournament after the World Championships Ronnie O’Suillivan will be on hand to defend the title he won last December.

Other contenders:

• Shaun Murphy (due some form after losing all first round matches this season.
• Stephen Maguire (World number 2 could do with a good run)
• Mark Selby (Looked poor in the Premier League final last weekend but has had a solid season)
• John Higgins (Always a good performer)
• Ryan Day (About time he won something)

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Tomorrow we are down to the last 16 stage of what has been a very good tournament the TV table will feature 4 best of 9 matches starting with a Last 16 match at 10:00am local time. I don’t yet have the match available to me.

• Last 16 - 10:00am - Mark Williams v Shaun Murphy
• Quarter-finals - 12:00pm
• Semi-final - 14:30pm
• Final - 17:30pm

We hope that you can join us for the action once again.

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