CueSport TV - The Blog

Happy New Year, this is my first post of 2010 and I have been looking forward to this year for some time. It is going to be a huge year in the development of Cuesport TV.

Our first event of the new year will take place this Saturday (16th January) and ironically like last year we open up with a £10,000 per man WEPF World Rules challenge match.

In terms of profile however, this one could not get much bigger. Gareth Potts, a three-time former World Champion will take on former European Champion Oly Bale.

The match is a race-to-30 frames and can only be watched at Cuesport TV. A subscription will be required in order to view this match and what a match it is expected to be.

Nobody hides the fact that both Gareth and Oly do not get on, the match has come about through a very good run of results from Oly against Gareth. Over the past two season he has beaten the Stoke-on-trent potter numerous times in short race tournament formats.

This will be a more difficult task and many people see Gareth as the pre-match favourite due to the longer race and pressure of the situation. In my eyes it will be close and I would be surprised if both players do not reach 20 racks. I am not going to call it and sit on the fence though!

All of this will of course go ahead weather permitting, travelling from Stoke for Gareth could be a major problem and likewise if there is snow in Yeovil then it may be difficult for fans and ourselves to get there.

The coverage kicks off at 5:30pm and the match is due to start at around 6:30pm. Prepare for a long night in front of your PC, MAC or laptop!

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This week is the start of our busiest period of the year so far.

On Thursday we have the first two quarter finals and the first semi final of the TCC Snooker Pro-am. This week the feature match live on Cuesport TV will be Ryan Day v Matthew Stevens. This will be followed up by the semi final where the winner of the aforementioned match will play either Darren Morgan or defending champion Lee Walker.

At the weekend (1st-2nd August) we have the eagerly awaited first tour stop of the 8-ball Super Tour (This was the Oracle Super Tour last year).

The cream of the 8-ball crop come out to play in this £44,000 guaranteed World Rules series. Newly crowned WEPF World 8-ball Pool Champion, Phil Harrison, will be in action plus former champions Gareth Potts, Mick Hill and Carl Morris. In addition to the players of championship pedigree a myriad of tournament winners, like Simon Ward, Tom Cousins, Craig Marsh, Ben Davies, Ben Flack, Steve Munro and Lee Clough will also be in attendance.

Both of these events and more are available as part of a Cuesport TV subscription which can be bought from £2.90.

For further events throughout August visit the Live Event Schedule.

English/UK Pool, General Snooker live 8-ball, live pool, live snooker, matthew stevens, phil harrison, ryan day, wepf world rules

2004 World Pool Champion, Mick Hill, has won the final event of the 2008 Oracle Super Tour. The win pockets Hill £5,000 and the title.

It was always going to be a tough final against event 2 winner Simon Ward. Ward plays some of the most attacking and attractive pool on the circuit and his wins over Oly Bale and Chris Melling were very good indeed.

In the final though it was Hill that looked the stronger eventually taking the match 8-5.

Speaking afterwards I found out that Mick was due to be on holiday in Spain.

CueSport TV - “Well played Mick, I hear you are supposed to be on holiday?”

Mick Hill - “Thanks very much, yes, I had to cancel my flight when I got into the last 16, I am supposed to be in Spain now.”

CueSport TV - “Well once again well played and at least the delay has made you £5000 richer.”

Mick Hill - “Yeah! Cheers”

All of Sundays action from the last Oracle Tour event can be viewed later this week on CueSport TV.

English/UK Pool 8-ball pool, mick hill, oracle super tour, wepf world rules

The eagerly anticipated final tour stop of the 2008 Oracle Super Tour takes place this weekend (22nd/23rd November). The winner of this one will collect a £5000.00 winners cheque.

So far the first three events of the season have gone to three different winners:

• Event 1: Jack Whelan
• Event 2: Simon Ward
• Event 3: Phil Harrison

With the amount of quality on offer on this tour it is difficult to see any player winning more than once. Dangerous players to look out for will be Tom Cousins, Ben Davies, Craig Marsh, Chris Melling, Carl Morris, Ronan McCarthy, Mick Hill and Darren Appleton (to name only a few!)

CueSport TV will be broadcasting the event live all weekend starting at 10:30am each day, to view you will need to be registered and logged in (it is free to do this!)

You can watch some of the previous tour matches by following the links below:

• Oracle Super Tour - Swindon - Chris Melling v Jack Whelan - Final
• Oracle Super Tour - Swindon - Oly Bale v Jack Whelan - Semi Final
• Oracle Super Tour - Swindon - Sefton Payne v Carl Morris - Quarter Final
• Oracle Super Tour - Swindon - Lee Clough v Neil Raybone - Last 16
• Oracle Super Tour - Swindon - Gareth Potts v Oly Bale - Last 32

Uncategorized 8-ball, eightball, oracle tour, pool, wepf world rules

Firstly, sorry about the abrupt ending to our live broadcast from Bilston last weekend. The previous two finals have been wrapped up by 8:00pm and this tournament happened to overrun. The unfortunate thing was that it was also my parents 25th wedding anniversary the same day, had everything gone to plan we would have stayed around until the end but needs must!

Phil Harrison won the event against Ben Davies in the final, two very talented players and very likeable characters as well.

During the weekend there was some really slow play from some of the players, I am not sure whether this was down to them or the table conditions but 2hours 30 minutes for 13 frames is a seriously long time! The players know who they are so no need to mention names.

It was good to see Keith Brewer back to winning ways reaching the semi-final against Ben Davies - I know for a fact he has struggled all season with running the tournaments and playing at the same time. It is difficult to mix both so well done Keith on this occasion.

The Tour Finale is in the same venue in a couple of weeks time and should be a cracker!

English/UK Pool 8-ball pool, oracle super tour, wepf world rules

Semi-Final Draw & Results

• Clough/Doble v Harrison
• Davies v Brewer/Munro/Begley

Quarter-Final Draw & Results

• Clough v Doble
• Harrison 8 v 2 Bale
• Cousins 3 v 8 Davies
• Brewer v Munro/Begley

Last 16 Draw & Results

• Clough 8 v 5 Uttley
• Doble 8 v 7 Camm
• H. Singh 4 v 8 Harrison
• Davis 4 v 8 Bale (TV Table)
• Doyle 7 v 8 Cousins
• Raybone 7 v 8 B. Davies
• Munro v Begley
• Brewer 8 v 5 Shepherd

Last 32 Draw & Results

• Lee Clough 8 v 5 Gareth Manning
• Aaron Stack 5 v 8 James Uttley
• Anthony Doble 8 v 3 Emma Cunningham
• Wayne Camm 8 v 4 Ian Whitehorn
• Partab Singh - v w/o Harjeet Singh
• Max Nosko 5 v 8 Phil Harrison
• Adam Davis 8 v 3 James Ross
• Vikas 6 v 8 Oly Bale
• Simon Doyle 8 v 5 Craig Harley
• Wayne Smith 5 v 8 Tom Cousins
• Neil Raybone 8 v 6 Nicky Scott
• Rob Chilton 7 v 8 Ben Davies (tv table)
• Steve Munro 8 v 6 Jez Graham
• Lee Nelson 1 v 8 Darren Begley
• Keith Brewer 8 v 5 Robin O’Connor
• Jordan Shepherd 8 v 3 Neil Toms

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This weekend see’s the third instalment of the £44,000 Orcale Super Tour.

Simon Ward of Wales won the last event against Chris Melling in a very high quality final. Both of those players will be in attendance this weekend looking to get their hands on the £3,400 winners cheque.

You can get live pool all weekend over at CueSport TV the first match is on at the moment and is 6-4 to Lee Clough against Ian Hubbard.

English/UK Pool 8-ball pool, live pool, oracle super tour, wepf world rules

I have just finished editing a recording made in June (I know it has taken a while!). This match features Welshman Simon Ward and Frenchman Christophe Lambert and was recorded at the £100 per man Blackball tournament this year.

It is a 1/4 final match of the highest quality and an edited 50 minute version is now available on CueSport TV, you can watch it here: Simon Ward v Christophe Lambert - Blackball - you will have to login to watch the match but it is free to do so.

If you want to watch the entire match then you can by purchasing the official DVD at a price of £15. It is a two disc set and features the entire 2hr 50 minute match, it is certainly worth a look and demonstrates why Blackball could be the future of the small ball game. Contact us via email to buy the DVD on:

enquiries @ cuesport.tv (remove spaces).

These two players both play very attacking pool with numerous break and runs between them, creativity and flair are certainly the key to this game and both are tremendous shot makers. This was further enhanced two weeks ago when we had some of the cream of the Blackball fraternity taking part in the British Open and the CueSport TV £50,000 Pool Series. Ben Davies, Tom Cousins, Scott Higgins, Karl Boyes, Simon Ward, Craig Marsh and more took part in these two events with over £16,000 prize money on offer across the two events. These matches will be available when we can find the time and again are worth a watch especially if you are not familiar with Blackball.

Our next live event is actually from the other code WEPF World Rules and this takes place on 24th/25th October from Bilston. Tune in please!

English/UK Pool 8-ball pool, blackball, christophe lambert, simon ward, wepf world rules

English Pool (the small ball game played in an large number of pubs in the UK) doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in the industry and has struggled to grow outside of the UK (there are small pockets elsewhere but not like 9-ball). In my opinion over the last 10-15 years this has been caused in part by the in-fighting amongst the organisers and the fact that there are two governing bodies playing slightly different rules.

This weekend (6th - 7th Sept) we did a live broadcast from the Oracle Super Tour in Leicester. It was massively refreshing to see players from both rule sets playing in a tournament with a decent amount of priz money. Throughout the weekend there was no bickering or sneering about who plays what rules just simply getting on with the action and putting on a performance.

To give you the information, the tournament was being played to WEPF World Rules and had a first prize of £3400.00. The tournament featured former and current world champions and someone called Tony Drago!

I don’t want to go into much detail about the actual tournament because that can be found elsewhere online, what I want to talk about is the quality of some of the matches.

Four matches spring to mind and three of them involved Chris Melling (who it has to be said was flying all weekend!).

The first was Mellings match against Neil Toms, the first frame was utter dross and lasted 26 minutes but then the next 10 frames only took the same amount of time with Melling in particular playing some awesome stuff. The next match featured Mick Hill and Craig Marsh and for me was the pick of the day, I haven’t actually looked through the tapes yet but there must have been 9 or 10 break & runs by either player with Marshy eventually winning 8-7. One of the best adverts for the game of 8-ball pool in my opinion.

Why I suggest it’s a good advert for the game is due to the fact that we recieve viewers from 110 countries and this weekend was no exception with 1300 viewers tuning in to watch the Oracle Super Tour live. If 8-ball pool in is country is going to develop internationall then it is the example set by these players (including the semi-final and final in my list) that will reach the masses. It was almost all out attack and that is ultimately what viewers want to watch and the tactical, defensive shots that were played were also of the highest order.

Since I have owned CueSport TV this is probably the best days pool we have had on the channel and further gives me drive to push both the channel and the game forward.

English/UK Pool, Uncategorized 8-ball pool, chris melling, club 147, leicester, oracle super tour, wepf world rules

Many of you may well know that it is time for the second ‘episode’ of the Oracle Super Tour. This new tour, born out of the Gangsters Grand Prix, features some of the world’s best 8-ball pool players, including World Champion Gareth Potts & former World Champion Chris Melling.

Why do these player participate? Simply due to the prize money on offer, £44,000 across the four event series, with £3,400 to each event winner (events 1-3) and £9,400 to the winner of the final event in November.

A lot of tournaments in the UK do struggle for numbers but it shows when you combine a guaranteed prize fund with an interesting handicap system (Pro players give up to a 4 start in a best-of-15 frame match!) the players will turn out. This tour has a full list of 128 players signed up in advance, with a few more waiting in the wings should spots become available.

Credit for the success has to go to Keith Brewer and Oracle Hotel Refurbishments Ltd, one for Keith bringing a sponsor of this size on board and two for Oracle having the vision and confidence to put money into what is still a fringe sport.

CueSport TV came on board late in the day, I have personally known Keith for a number of years, and  offered our services to the tour which they gladly accepted. This is part of our vision as a company, there is no hiding the fact that we are in this business to make money however, I always have the best interests of the sport in the back of my mind when I do anything.

The first event (from our point of view) was a dissapointment as we could not broadcast live, it is these live events that are going to lay solid foundations for the sport and give it a worldwide audience. Every month CueSport TV receives viewers from 110 different countries worldwide, these come from some very obscure places but they sit and watch for long periods of time. There is no other broadcaster or network that can allow users/viewers to dive in and try something of this nature for free.

The more countries that continue viewing this sport the more chance there is of the game progressing on a world stage.

The second most popular viewing country from the list is the USA, a country that plays 8-ball but not the game that we play. I have had conversations with a number of US viewers over the game of English 8-ball and they are all positive. Especially once you explain that the pockets are like snooker pockets and you play on a slow napped cloth. They do not realise how difficult the game is to play until you explain the nuances. I am not suggesting for one minute that the UK game is going to take over the world, but what could and should happen is that the game is given more respect from players all over the globe.

You can watch the Oracle Super Tour Live this weekend (6th/7th Sept) only at CueSport TV.

English/UK Pool 8-ball pool, chris melling, gareth potts, keith brewer, oracle super tour, wepf world rules