Welcome to the new look On the Baize. I say new look as we are now in video!

In this week’s edition Pete Williams from Cuesport TV talks about recent news from the World Snooker Championship Qualifiers, including wins for Steve Davis, Ken Doherty and Graeme Dott plus one major shock!

Also, GB9, the tour that Cuesport TV have supported since 2008 is back this weekend with its first ever live stream. This national 9-ball pool tour features the likes of Daryl Peach, Darren Appleton, Karl Boyes, Raj Hundal, Mark Gray and Imran Majid.

Further Information:

> Cuesport TV - to watch a version of this podcast in HD

> Cuesportnews.com - For the latest news from snooker and pool

> GB9BallTour.com - Keep up to date with this very exciting pool tour

Firstly a huge thank you to everyone that joined our the Cuesport TV Facebook Fanpage. We set the challenge of trying to reach 1000 fans by 31st January. I am pleased to say that we surpassed that target on January 31st.

What this means is that we will as promised donate £100 to the Paul Hunter Foundation (a video will be made to show us actually sending the money!). In addition Fabio Marcello of Italy won the £50 voucher for BilliardsBoutique.com.

Snooker

John Higgins has won the Welsh Open with a 9-4 win over last years champion, Ali Carter. The win puts Higgins 9505 points ahead of Ronnie O’Sullivan at the top of the provisional rankings. If he matches Ronnie’s result at the China Open in March then he will be confirmed as world number 1 before the World Championships start in April.

Cuesport TV

• First episode of ‘In the Frame’ has been shot and will be available to view mid-february.
• Tri-nations Blackball Tournament becomes five-nations, more details soon.
• Confirmed the University Pool Council 8-ball event as live at end of February
• Confirmed the EBA World Masters, live at end of April
• First full-length HD matches will be available starting this week with Chris Melling v James Kay

Facebook Challenge

We set fans of Cuesport TV the challenge of helping us reach 1000 Facebook fans by 31st January 2010. The response so far has been very good, when I checked this morning we had 798 fans signed up.

If we reach the target then we will donate £100 to the Paul Hunter Foundation and one lucky ‘fan’ will receive a £50 voucher for BilliardsBoutique.com.

Sign up here: Cuesport TV on Facebook.

Gareth Potts v Oly Bale - £10,000 per man - 8 Ball Challenge

Saturday 16th January sees this eagerly awaited match actually take place. The talk will be over and the action will commence. The dislike amongst the players is well known which is why this match is of huge importance.

Gareth Potts as a three-time world champion will undoubtedly start as favourite, however, Oly Bale has a good game and if he plays his own game then has every chance of causing an upset.

The game will be live on Cuesport TV, Potts v Bale 8 Ball Challenge, and viewers will need to pay to watch this event.

A subscription costs from £2.95 and a how to guide is available here: How to Subscribe to Cuesport TV.

Firstly, A massive thank you for your support of Cuesport TV and On the Baize throughout 2009. It was a big year for us and without you listening, watching, rating, downloading and reviewing there would be no Cuesport TV.

2010 will be even bigger with some huge plans in the pipeline for some great content and interesting ideas. The first will be a move to a video podcast on this website (we will still release an audio version as well for those that enjoy listening rather than watching).

Facebook Fanpage Challenge

This is something really important to us, we want to have 1000 fans signed up to our Facebook Fanpage by 31st January 2010.

If we reach this number then we will donate £100 to the Paul Hunter Foundation - in addition one of these fans will be drawn at random on 1st February to receive a £50 Voucher for BilliardsBoutique.com

Please help us reach 1000 fans by joining the page and telling your friends.

> Cuesport TV on Facebook

Live Events in January

16th Jan - Gareth Potts v Oly Bale (£10,000 per man 8 ball challenge match) Live on subscription from £2.95 only at Cuesport TV.

28th Jan - In the Frame magazine show 7pm - first ever edition of this new 1/2 hour magazine style show.

What else is happening?

• Masters Snooker
• Welsh Open Snooker
• Derby City Classic
• Berkshire Blackball Open
• Championship League snooker

Well if Europe were favourite’s for this years 16th running of the Mosconi Cup someone forget to tell Team USA. A great performance from the US team meant they took a commanding 4-1 lead after the first session.

The only European player to pick up a point was the stalwart that is Ralf Souquet (ironically picked by USA captain Nick Varner for the last singles of the night).

Listen to the podcast for more information on last nights action.

Results:

• Team USA 6-4 Team Europe
• Archer/Hatch 6-5 Appleton/Feijen
• Shane van Boening 6-3 Mika Immonen
• Deuel/Dominguez 6-2 Souquet/Hohmann
• Oscar Dominguez 5-6 Ralf Souquet

The Mosconi Cup returns this weekend (10th-13th December) and is live in the UK on Sky Sports Extra starting at 7pm on 10th December, Team Europe is captained by Alex Lely and is made up of a host of World Champions: Darren Appleton (making his debut for us Brits!), Niels Feijen, Mika Immonen, Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann.

On the Team USA side once again it is headed up by Nick Varner and his team is made of a lot of inexperienced Mosconi players in comparison to the European side. Shane Van Boening, Corey Deuel (returning to the side), Oscar Dominguez (rookie), Dennis Hatch (rookie) and stalwart Johnny Archer.

On paper I would say Team Europe all the way but on US soil the story could be different.

I will try and update as much as I can over the weekend.

Pukka Pies UK Championships

This tournament continues throughout the next four days culminating in the final on Sunday. Todays matches in the 1/4 finals are Ronnie O’Sullivan v Mark Selby and John Higgins v Liang Wenbo. Already in the semi’s are Stephen Maguire and Ding Junhui.

Cuesport TV visited the Welsh Festival of Pool at the weekend and spent three days broadcasting live, videos available on demand shortly. This event would be well worth a visit next year!

Pukka Pies UK Championship qualifiers will be broadcast on Eurosport this Thursday between 12:45-14:45 it is a two hour highlights show from the 110sport TV coverage.

GB9 Leagues finally launches, you can read about it here and here.

In this edition of On the Baize, Pete Williams discusses the Kappa Woemn’s World 9-Ball Championships which started yesterday. 64 of the best female players in the world are competing in this one, a tournament that in recent years has been dominated by Asian players.

You can find results and news related to the event here:

> Cuesportnews.com - WPA Kappa Womens World 9-ball Championships

Recently World Snooker announced a one-year sponsorship deal with Pukka Pies for the UK Championships. Although this is good news for snooker in terms of a new sponsor being found is it the right kind of sponsor for the long-term benefit of the game - please post your thoughts on this blog.

> Pukka PIes to Sponsor UK Championship Snooker

Cuesport TV have two live events coming up in November you will need to visit the channel for more details, but both are UK 8-ball pool events played to different rule sets. The first is 21st and 22nd November and kicks off at 12pm UK time.

> Cuesport TV

Finally the UK Championship qualifier start next week and are live on pay-per-view at 110sport.tv priced at £2.99 per session.

If you have any comments or thoughts about the content of this podcast then please post them below.

The Shanghai Masters started on MOnday of this week and it started off with the Wildcard rounds, most of the pro’s came through unscathed to reach the first round proper of this event.

However, the first round saw a number of ’shocks’ as seeded players fell at the first hurdle. Neil Robertson, Peter Ebdon and Mark Selby all lost their respective matches. In addition Stephen Maguire quite literally fell, in the shower! The damage he did to his shoulder is meant to be quite severe so he had to pull out gifting Barry Hawkins a match in round 2.

Results/News: Cuesportnews.com

Cuesport TV are live again this weekend, 12th Sept, at the 2009 Wytech Ladies Masters.

The second most prestigiopus ranking event in the Ladies calendar and Cuesport TV will be there for the whole day. Reanne Evans is looking to defend the title she won last year 3-2 against Katie Henrick.

Today Cuesport TV have launched a short (1 minute) HD Streaming demo. The video clip is a snooker montage originally recorded at the TCC Snooker Pro-Am in July.

HD web streaming is relatively new yet there is more and more of this style of content popping up around the Internet, this particular clip is encoded at HD 720p and will require a 4.5meg download speed on your Internet connection in order for you to watch it.

This will be the first of many HD Snooker videos available exclusively at Cuesport TV.

Pete Williams of Cuesport TV said ‘It is theoretically possible to stream video in full HD, however, in reality the UK does not yet have the broadband infrastructure to cope with the demands of HD streaming.’

HD 720p Snooker Montage

For more HD videos online check out the links below:

Bartape.net (Cervelo Test Team Cycling Videos)

ViewTV HD

Darkside Promotions had their first evening of challenge matches on August 8th, the matches featuring Phil Burford and Mark Gray were shown live on Cuesport TV via the subscription system.

Although a late finish the evening was declared a success.

In addition American Pool TV (A new sister channel from Cuesport TV) held it’s first live event on pay-per-view from the Tonic Promotions event on August 15th in the same magnificent Club 147. The scotch doubles main event featured Darren Appleton, Karl Boyes, Chris Melling and Imran Majid. A 4:50am finish was the worst part of the day and all matches from both events will be available for on-demand viewing very soon at Cuesport TV.

Cuesport TV Launch Niche Channels:

> American Pool TV

> 8-Ball Pool TV

> Snooker TV

> Darts TV

Stayed tuned this podcast will be coming thick and fast over the next few weeks.

I found out from ProSnookerBlog.com (thanks Matt) that there is yet another Invitational event happening in China next week. The Beijing International Challenge features 8 top snooker players, no details have been announced about the format or possible media coverage. But I will try and find out.

Pro Snooker Blog is becoming a very good snooker resource and has been the place I turn to most about interesting snooker news.

Also on the snooker front, the TCC Pro-am returns this Thursday with week 2. Week one went off well and the two second round matches were won by Shaun Murphy and Mark Williams who will now meet in the quarter finals. The highlight of the night on the Cuesport TV front was Michael White’s 104 Break.

The two recorded matches (that went out live) are now available as part of a subscription to Cuesport TV.

Live action continues this Thursday with week 2 on July 2nd.

Further Information:

> Tredegar Cons. Club

> Qatar Open 9-ball

> Fosters World 8-ball Championships

Part two of the extended interview with Raj ‘Hitman’ Hundal, recorded in one of his families restaurants in Hounslow, London.

One of pool best players and someone that has a very exciting future ahead of him in the games of 9-ball and 10-ball, not only does he play pool for a living but he is already making a few investments to protect his future outside of the game.

>Raj ‘Hitman’ Hundal - His official website

>Cuesport TV - Watch Raj Hundal videos

Back in May Cuesport TV interviewed the ‘Hitman’ in his home town of Hounslow, he gave his own insight into the world of pool from his beginnings to his professional career and the governing body.

A number of the channels viewers have asked for this to be released as an audio file as well hence this podcast and the subsequent one that will feature part 2.

Watch the Videos:

>Raj Hundal Interview Part 1

>Raj Hundal Interview Part 2

Visit The Hitmans Website:

>Raj ‘Hitman’ Hundal

Ross McInnes who was playing on a minus 1 handicap throughout the tournament came through undefeated to lift the Legends Tour event in Leicester last weekend. His opponent in the final was John Day.

Raj Hundal v Ricardo Jones takes place on 20th June at 7pm British time and will be featured live on PPV over at Cuesport TV. Only £2.95 to buy the match on the day.

Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen has lifted his first professional title in four years as a professional. He picked up £20,000 after demolishing Ding Junhui 6-0 in the final.

More information here: http://www.worldsnooker.com

Cuesport TV return to live entertainment this weekend with the second addition of the Legend’s Tour. This over-45’s event features Ross McInnes, Pat O’Kane, Maltese Joe Barbera and Martin Rothwell. McInnes will be looking to make it two out of two this weekend in Leicester.

The event is completely free to watch at http://www.cuesport.tv - hit Live Events

Finally, Cuesport TV will be moving to a subscription based system from the 17th June, the first PPV match under the new system will be between Raj Hundal and Ricardo Jones. You can see further details at the following link: http://www.cuesport.tv/RajHitmanHundalvsRicardoIndianaJones-LivePPV

You will be able to buy the match for just £2.95.

Any comments about anything in this podcast please add them below, we want to hear your thoughts.

Dennis Orcullo of the Philippines beat Ralf Souquet to lift the Predator International 10-ball title. The two semi-finals, that also included Orcullo’s countrymen, Kiamco and Pagulayan, along with the final were recorded for later TV distribution.

Unfortunately it will not be available in the UK, as far as I am aware. I have already seen the schedule over in Asia on ESPN Star Sports and assume it will also feature on ESPN in North America.

For more information: http://www.predator10ball.com

The German Open Eurotour event started yesterday with 16 British players involved in the event including Daryl Peach, Darren Appleton, Imran Majid and Karl Boyes. Very possible we could lift yet another title!

For further information, results and live streaming: http://www.eurotouronline.eu

Jayson Shaw lifted his first major title at the weekend beating Andy Lucas 10-4 in the final of the CueSport TV £50,000 Pool Series over in Dublin, Ireland.

Find out about all of the latest live events from CueSport TV over the coming weeks, especially an early heads up on the Raj Hundal v Ricardo Jones 10-ball Challenge match on June 20th. It is live on Pay-per-view for only £5 per ticket.

John Higgins won his third World Snooker title on Bank Holiday monday to lift him to the echelons of the greats, is he playing for the money or the accolade?

The CueSport TV £50,000 Pool Series returns this weekend live from Dublin, Ireland, watch the best Blackball action exclusively at CueSport TV over the 9th-10th May. Simon Ward will be looking to do the double after winning the first leg in the Isle of Man and Scott Ross (winner of the 2009 EBA World Blackball Masters Final) will also be looking to lift another title.

Please place your comments below or on the main Media Portal: On The Baize Podcasts

Get up-to-date with the latest World Snooker Championship news including a very interesting match between Jamie Cope and John Higgins that was shrouded in a bit of controversy.

You can watch the World Snooker Championship live on the BBC and BBC interactive right up until the final ball is potted on Monday night.