Didn't realise Matt Selt was so disliked / such a tool

yer and they used to call snooker a gentleman's game. most of em r childish cretins.

The twitter spats only seemed to fire him up. He went from 2-7 to 10-8 after all that sh!t yesterday.

he does throw plenty of hissy fits in matches

Good bit of publicity for him.
And picking up on one of Angel Gabriels points I think it would be more of a surprise if a large number of professional snooker players did not sometimes act as immature as most of us on this forum as often guilty of doing.
You have to remember that outside of a certain ranking snooker is not a lucractive career. There are a lot of tournaments these days but also a lot of expenses if your not taking home any wages. Not sure you could say players outside of a certain ranking based on earnings are really fully professionals. Might sound nice being known as a professional snooker player but the earnings are not there to back up what most people would view as being a successful professional.
Happened to google a particular young player recently as I was betting on his match and knew little about him. Cant even remember his name but read a wee bit of a linked blog and he was one of two players in his local club fighting over the job ironing the tables to get free light money to practise each day. He was working casual part time jobs to get the money to travel to a few events he could afford.

They need to know when they are playing to book flights & hotels so they can make advanced reservations.

Not sure if the seeding cut off points are the issue as to why the draws are put off until the last minute. Although Selt was asking why the draws where not processed in further advance, which tells me for whatever reason he hadn`t asked the right people at world snooker.

If you have queries about the working regulations of the company you are contracted to, then you don`t go onto twitter to get the answer.

Heard last month that Hendy got an invite to this years world championships but turned it down. Not sure what that meant though. Did it mean he was given a bye to the last round of qualifiers?
Personally think a few places in the main tournament proper could be reserved for players like Hendry and Jimmy and it would be better for it. They are still bigger draws from a spectator, tv and sponsorship point of view. No one would be missing out if the other players knew in advance some places were being kept for these special case players.

He will always be the peoples champion Angel Gabriel and snooker like any sport should be about the people who watch it.

Put it another way Angel Gabriel. If you were in a supermarket and Graeme Dott was down one aisle doing his shopping and Jimmy was down another aisle getting a few bits and pieces which aisle are you casually going to walk down.

Don't see why they should have a pop at him, he is supplying the vehicle, every one gets the same chance, some will make good money and others will fail, but they all get the chance it is up to them what they make of it, don't blame Hearne if you are not good enough.
When my son finished school we gave him a chance to try making a living playing snooker, at the club he played 4 of them got as much time on the tables as they wanted, they brushed the tables and did a hour or so cleaning the club each day for as much table time they wanted.
Cost wise it was not a lot really, coming straight from school none of them needed much money and the parents took turns in getting them to tournaments most weekends, as long as my son was working at his game I didn't mind supporting him in his venture. It will be the same with the lower ranked players many will get help from the family whilst they try to make a breakthrough.
I was looking at the prize fund for this season, if a player wins 50% of his matches he would be on 24k for the year, if a player can't win 50% of his matches after a few years then maybe he has to accept he may not be good enough. The main tour are not the only tournaments, there are pro\ams and smaller events as well. lower ranked players can pick up a bit from these as the top players won't bother with those events. Going back a fair few years but I remember Steve Newbury picking up over 30k one year whilst still being a postman.

And no I am not talking about giving permanent wildcards to jimmy, davis or Hendry when they are 70 years of age. I mean this year when they can still play to a reasonable level.

Goodnight all.

As for the Masters where you could say that it is ok to have the oldies I can accept that as long as they are paired together, I was not rite for Hass and Dufner to have to play with Crenshaw, really did their chances no good at all.

Nice story that AG, can picture the look on Hendry's face when he first found out.
It may have all been about winning for Hendry, but I reckon this Phil Mickleson quote from a TV commercial a few years back sums up how many players in lots of sports feel, " I hate losing more than I enjoy winning"

Superb comment from Hendry, AG. A rare attitude in any sport nowadays.

Would give any Crucible finalist a w/c into the qualifiers, but when it gets down to the last 32 proper you can't be having 'easy' draws.

So Matthew Selt thinks the system is all wrong and Hearn is biased towards the top players, it did not seem like that to me so just had a look. I will use 3 seasons winnings to start off with, season ending 1993 as that was Ronnie's first season and am going to use that to compare with Selt's this year, season ending 2010 because that was the season prior to Hearn taking charge, and the current season, although this season totals will not include the World Championship of course.

Firstly how much money did highest money earner win each of these years, followed by the 10th, 20th, 50th, 75th and 100th.

1992-93 1st 451,950  10th 87,825  20th 40,450  50th 10,950  75th 5,450  100th 3,125
2009-10 1st 427,935  10th 133,740 20th 56,260  50th 19,425  75th 5,300  100th 1,400
2014-15 1st 422,450  10th 218,000 20th 101,334 50th 37,649  75th 20,183 100th 10,000

Total prize fund for each year, 1993-94 3.8m, 2009-10 4.2m, 2014-15 7.3m.

I don't think those figures shows Hearn being biased towards the top players.

Have the figures gone up because there are far more tournaments? not really there was 25 tournaments in 1993-94, 23 in 2009-10 and 26 this season, 27 if you count the senior championship.

Finally lets compare Selt's current season with Ronnie's first season on tour just to see how unfair people are being to him. to start with if Selt can close todays game out in which he leads 6-3 he will win 12k with the chance of much more of course, even if he loses today he gets 9k for winning through 2 rounds.
Ronnie by contrast had to win 10 matches in his first World Championship before losing the 11th game in the last 32 stage, he got 8k for that.

Ronnie 1992-93 season Ranking events only.

Dubai Classic  won 7 games lost in last 96,  winnings 250 pounds ( blinking Pound sign don't work on this computer)
Grand Prix  won 9 games lost in last 64,  winnings 2,000
UK Championship  won 10 games, lost in last 32,  winnings 3,375
Welsh Open  won 10 games lost in last 32,  winnings 1,375
European Open  won 11 games lost in Q/F,  winnings 5,000
British Open  won 5 games lost in round 6,  No winnings, well you only won 5 games, what can you expect.
Asian Open  won 10 games lost in last 32,  1,500
International Open  won 8 games lost in last 32, winnings 1,250
World Champs won 10 games lost in last 32,  winnings 8,000

Won 89 games to earn 22,750, total for season was 40,450 from all events

Selt's current season Ranking events only
 
Wuxi Classic  won 1 game lost in last 64, winnings 3,000
Australian Open  No wins lost in last 96,  winnings 83
Shanghai Masters  won 3 games lost in last 32,  6,000
International open  won 1 game lost in last 64, winnings 3,000
UK Championship  won 3 games lost in last 16,  winnings 12,000
German Masters  won 2 games lost in last 32, winnings 2,500
Welsh Open  won 2 games lost in last 32,  winnings 2,500
Indian Open  won 2 games lost in last 32, winnings 3,000
Grand Prix  won 1 game lost in last 16,  winnings 5,000
Players Grand Final won 2 games lost in Q\F,  winnings  12,500
China Open  won 1 game lost in last 64, winnings 3,000
World Champs won 2 games so far,  winnings minimum of 9,000

Won 20 games to earn  61,583,  total for season was 107,483 with possibly more to come.

Must be a real pain for Selt having to start in the first round in most tournaments, so unfair eh?

If an average player had been playing those tournaments instead of Ronnie is it any surprise that so many could not afford to continue, win 1 game now and you get something, in 1992-93 you could win 11 games and get nothing!!
In 2009-2010 the year prior to Hearn you could still play 6 games and come away with nothing.

Hearn promised to make the game fairer, the top 16 still get benefits in that they are seeded and get strait through to the Worlds and other invitation events, but any one starting now has a better chance of moving up the rankings and as Hearn says "knock the top players off their perch"

I think Hearn is doing what he promised and think snooker will benefit from it.

I've been a massive Jimmy fan for over 30 yrs but he should think himself lucky to get a chance in the first Qualifying round - Crenshaw got in the masters as a double past champion and all previous champs get invited and this has been the status quo for yrs, players know its probably the hardest major to get an invite too, but also the easiest to win cos there is less competition

advocating seedings for previous finalists is getting very tenuous - however great Jimmy was, on merit, you could argue Ebdons record is as good (3 finals, one win) - I cant see 20 million viewers tuning in to watch Peter chalking his cue for 45 seconds at a time

only way is to do it on merit - the previous system worked perfectly - harsh on 17-32 ranked players this way who have earned the right to be one game away from the Crucible

I don't get why a lot of lower ranked players would secretly be thanking Selt?

It would not matter who was running the tour there would always be plenty who would prefer someone else to be doing it, each player in the top 64 got a vote and Hearn was the choice, I can't see a lot he has done wrong, players have a stronger tour developing, a massively fairer ranking system now it is based on money won and  re-ranked after every ranking tournament and more money to play for and not just for the top few, hence Ronnie moaning that there is no money in snooker, but Selt gets more than double what a player in his ranking would have got the year before Hearn took over.

I am sure the tour as it is now is not the finished article things will be tweaked year on year, but if Selt don't like it I certainly don't respect the guy for slamming Hearn on social media, and certainly not the most effective way of getting any changes he thinks there should be. I agree the Qualifiers followed on close after China, but many sportsmen travel from one side of the world to the other with even less days between tournaments, As for not knowing who he had to play in 3 days time, that's just a pointless moan you don't know who you are playing the next day in most tournaments.

^ Although what i just typed points to who perhaps being the issue but it`s more to do with not knowing what dates to book your flight and hotel. They want to get the best advanced deal like the rest of us when we book.

Btw it's not that i hold any flame for Selt, a lot of the stuff he's going on with on twitter is mind-bogglingly dull and puerile, a chronic waste of time, but to be honest Hearn is just as bad, rising to the bait and giving off this "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" vibe. Maybe i'm old-fashioned but I dont believe the figurehead of a major sport should be so active on twitter, engaging in verbals with players or indeed any mug who fancies having a cut. Then again, he's in the promotion business so I guess it's grist to the old mill with him.

Again I see that as a very reasonable question to be asking. Why the draw couldn't have been made an hour after the China was finished is a mystery to me. For an overseas player a Ryanair flight that cost 50 quid one day could be 250 quid the following day. Thats obviously what Selt and others are asking, why the need for any delay in making the draw?
Yep can agree with that.

What the players can't acknowledge for fear of scorn is that the over-stuffed calendar is at the root of the issue. There are too many tournaments and logistical difficulties are the inevitable outcome. There should be a minimum of 4 weeks between ranking events and none of this would arise. In solving some problems, they are merely creating more.
But can't agree with that, why can there not be tournaments every week? It is a money list that the players get ranked by now, so players are free to choose when and where to play, does Tennis or Golf suffer by having events for 11 months of the year? I would not expect a player to play in every single event, Bingham, Perry and Mavis seem to want try too, but most seem to realise it will not harm there ranking if they miss some.

There should be benefits for getting into the top 16 or 32 etc and as I see it there is, seeded through to the Crucible the Masters and the Grand Prix, but not to the degree that it was for so many years where once in the top 16 a player had to have a terrible two seasons before they dropped out, and that is how it was when run by player, many of whom where in the top 16, Being run by Hearn who is prepared to be unpopular seems good to me.