Mark King syspended with immediate effect

Interesting, isn't it?  I just found a Wiki page listing all of the matches that have come under investigation, and there are definitely not three extras listed between the timeframe he speaks about...  (the Perry v King match is listed - as under investigation)

Yeah dont know what to make of it mate. A couple of cases, like Yu Delu, were settled in 2018, though the relevant matches were earlier, so maybe he's counting those. But i don't know if that even adds up. If only we had a hector nunns to quiz him about it

Just realised, we're another three and a bit months on and almost up to 11 months since the match in question, and still no announcement from WST....

Seems you're not the only one asking questions mate. Interesting line in thread about a non tour player being banned twice without any announcement. No idea who is being referred to there.

https://x.com/EdwardsTips_/status/1750141606823444740?s=20

It does hugely have the feel of having been done, dusted and swept under the carpet, mate, there is no getting away from that. 

I accept he has been through a lot in his life - plenty of it not at all good, and there may well have been "mitigating circumstances" that prompted whatever happened to happen (God know, his demons are well documented), but it's a dangerous road to go down, especially when they were quite happy to publicly hang the Chinese lads out to dry.

I doubt it will just go away, and if they are shown to have tried to make it go away, that's a very bad look for the sport indeed.

Interesting that someone has called Butch out as being bent in that thread, too!

Missed the butch comment but pretty much the same group of posters, or one of them anyway, were pointing the finger at Zhang Anda on another recent thread. Who knows really? All i would say is there are two top level pros in particular who have always stood out for me for the gap that exists between their A and D games over the course of their careers. Butch is one and i don't think the other actually needs mentioning

It is hard to say, mate.  It is such a mentally taxing game, as well as just being bloody difficult full-stop, that it doesn't take much of a drop-off for things to look really bad, really quickly. 

There's always that grey area, too, where you might not be giving it your all trying to win, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're deliberately trying to tank either.  You can't play at full throttle the whole time, that is clear.  Even peak Ronnie/Judd have/had dips.

Is there a clue in you mentioning "D game"? 

Ha, that hadn't actually occurred to me mate but you could well take it as one

Just to be clear, that wasn't intended to be casting aspersions on butch, it's just I've always been amazed at how utterly shyte he can be for long stretches of the season. And then he'll pop up from nowhere to reach a world or masters final and the bbc lads will be slobbering over him, "such an underrated player...up there with the greats of the game" etc etc. Just find it a strange one tbh

He is an interesting one, because they always love to tell us about his love for the game, and how, even if there's not a pro-tournament on, he'll still be playing in some pro-am or exhibition.  He's obviously been struggling with his eyes for a while, which I think explains the massive drop-off in recent years, and that remains unresolved.  That night he battered Shon last (?) season, he clearly took tremendous delight from it, and I think surprised himself.  Then he goes and gets battered NTO....  Without knowing about how players prepare ahead of tournaments (eg extra practice), it's hard to read too much into things like that, I think.

Fair post lats. I do remember Bingham being a regular around various pro ams in ireland, especially up in Fergal O'Briens club, where murphy was based for a while, so i think what they say about him is true enough.

And speaking of the devil, somebody randomly posted this wonderful shot from 2015 that i remember vividly. The bit you don't see is Virgo and Hendry (or whoever was with him at the time) discussing his options pre-shot and not coming anywhere close to what he ultimately came up with. It's up there with my favourite ever shots, the majority of which are probably by Alex

https://x.com/ILoveSnooker_/status/1751538989662662859?s=20

Crackerjack alright, mate! 

Sent you a message, BTW 

Got it mate. Cheers

A year on, I thought I'd just try my luck again with Hills.  After over an hour of chat bots, sitting, waiting, chat operators, more sitting and waiting, and a supervisor, they are still refusing to do anything until there is an official announcement from the WPBSA.

An update! Not from WS, mind, but from King himself who is clearly fighting this to the death. Pretty much every assumption I've entertained in this whole crazy saga has been flawed in one way or another, so I'm thinking nothing about it anymore! Just more curious than ever about WS and what its game plan is here.

https://snookerhq.com/2024/05/13/mark-king-gives-snooker-ban-update-after-14-months-in-the-dark/

Wow!  Only just seen this story pop up on my phone! 

Very interesting to hear he's fighting it and has actually got legal representation on a pro bono basis.  Lawyers don't usually take on this sort of work unless they think they're going to win!

Absolutely, wouldn't make much sense if they didn't believe he had any case. Also, it might explain the considerable delay in arranging the hearing if WS was under pressure to solidify its own position. Huge embarrassment for them if they lost this.

100%, mate.  King's tone sounds very upbeat, too, TBH.

if you saw the match in question you can see king is clearly throwing it, cannot believe he will get away with this and allowed back in. Look at xintong, who NEVER threw a match, currently sitting out a near 2 year suspension. Don't tell me king is poor hard  done by innocent.

if you saw the match in question you can see king is clearly throwing it, cannot believe he will get away with this and allowed back in. Look at xintong, who NEVER threw a match, currently sitting out a near 2 year suspension. Don't tell me king is poor hard  done by innocent.

It looked bad.  Nobody's saying it didn't, but unless the WPBSA can show evidence that confirms it was as bad as it looked, he will likely be found innocent and cleared. 

BTW, Zhao is probably going to be banned for the full 30 months that the CPBSA imposed (and subsequently upheld at appeal) upon him, rather than WPBSA's 20.

We obviously don't know the extent of the case they have against king, but i would hope for WS/WPBSA sake it's a bit more thorough than "you only have to look at the video, it's obvious he's trying to throw it m'lud. Prosecution rests". There'll be various betting patterns, bookie testimony you'd imagine, but linking them to the player is the thing. Short of phone/text records, that might prove a difficult thing to do.

There was a load f weird bets all over the country on the 4-0 result. This was a tinpot tournament. Doesn't require columbo figure it out. King actually did a pretty terrible show on trying to make it not look bad if that was his intention , I vaguely remember one middle pocket red which was pretty much a dolly and he missed it by a foot.

Unless there's anything tying him directly or indirectly to those bets, it's circumstantial. 

Snooker does sometimes make you like a right mug, especially if you're not feeling it for whatever reason.  Using your argument, Butch wasn't off again JakJ at the Crucible.

Shot-by-shot on the link below.
.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieEEAZsG2Yo

As someone's said in the comments, maybe he was feeling rough and some people got wind of it, told their mates etc?  In that sort of tournament, it wouldn't take much money on a correct score bet to raise a red flag.  And it doesn't necessarily mean he was deliberately chucking it.  And Perry didn't exactly play no-miss snooker himself.

*your miss argument

WPBSA only have to satisfy that it's more likely than not to have occurred (civil law balance of probabilities). It's hard to see he has a leg to stand on with dodgy betting patterns matching a dodgy performance. If this was a criminal trial the burden of proof would be much higher and they would need to link the player to payments etc. but no one would ever get banned if that was the standard.

I'm not sure anybody is saying king is likely to get off here, I certainly don't think so anyway. The burden of proof is normally so overwhelming in these cases that I'd say the proportion of those charged winning their case is minuscule. And yet, a nagging doubt persists here. Why is that? If there has been a case where a player was done on the basis of a dodgy video and a number of apparently random bets on various outcomes alone, then I am unaware of it. Even in cases where guilt is uncontested, you will notice an impressively forensic account of the various fixes and how the player is linked to every part of it. Anyway, if it was totally unnecessary to even establish these patterns, why did King have to wait an unprecedented 14 months for a hearing? Why would it even take a month? Not like we're in Sherlock Holmes territory here, is it?

Bottom line is, we haven't actually got a Scooby about what they know/don't know, other than a fairly upbeat message from King himself thanking his pro bono legal team for being amazing.

Some of Perry's own misses in that match would have raised red flags if there had been dodgy betting patterns against him.  Hell, there have been plenty of times in the last season alone where I've been half convinced someone is throwing a match, only for them to eventually fall over the line.  It doesn't always have to be crooked to look bad.

And King did seem to spend quite a bit of time 'shaking out' his left hand after missing, like he was feeling something.  Was he?  Who knows?!

As John says, without some kind of tie to King with those bets, and the time it's taken to get to this stage, it does make you wonder just how flimsy the case against must be.

i still say the biggest fix in snooker history is the higgins v davis world champs

Another three and a half weeks on, and still nothing official....

*from King's statement

More delay, you'd think they could have sorted this one way or the other before the new season so King at least knew where he stood. A month would be the longest you'd expect for a decision in a case like this (the mass Chinese corruption cases took two) so we should be seeing white smoke in the next few days or else the whole farce just gets deeper.

Note: Kings statement came a week after the hearing so we're already over the month waiting already!!

he will be allowed back on tour, just watch

And another three and a half weeks of silence.... 

You could not make this up!

Yan Bingtao: from initial suspension to hearing - 4 months
             from hearing to decision - 47 days

Mark King:   from initial suspension to hearing - 14 months
             from hearing to decison - 58 days and counting...

What the actual f... is going on?

A very good question, mate

Shelley Higgins, niece of alex, posted couple of days ago that verdict was expected "in the next few days." Don't honestly know is she well connected or not, but that would suggest early next week if she is. Snookerbacker mentioned something about king supposedly having a hand injury pre-game. Craig saying he has stuff to post but is waiting for the decision before he does. Just snippets I picked up over the past few days.

Interesting, mate.  I picked up on him shaking his hand out a lot in one of my replies above.

We wait with bated breath.

nice excuse, head injury..no doubt the bosses will swallow it

Dunno but i'm beginning to think, just an inkling, that Shelley might not be all that well connected after all

65 days and counting....

The REALLY weird thing for me, mate, is that if King hadn't told us himself, none of us would be any the wiser that the hearing had taken place at all.  Why are the authorities keeping the whole thing so close to their chests?

Absolutely mate. The radio silence from the beginning is really hard to get the head around. I was perplexed by Kings near total silence - his 6 May statement was and is, I think, his only public utterance on the whole affair - but the corresponding silence from the wpbsa is even more baffling. Pretty certain this must be the first time ever no public announcement was made about a hearing taking place, at the very least that's worthy of the "news" section on the website! Tbh I'm blase about the ultimate finding now, what interests me is the procedure and why the apparent need for stealth. Staying completely open minded but these are big questions to answer.

Yeah, I think Jason Ferguson announcing he'd been suspended is literally their only public comment.  The whole thing is extremely odd.

It wouldn't even shock me that they reached the decision weeks ago, just nobody told the press about it. Nothing would shock me about this case anymore!

I've just checked.  They don't appear to have sneakily stuck him back on the rankings list   Though I note we do only have 126 names on it at present....

Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me if they released the draw for the first 128 event and kingy's name is lurking there in the middle of it. Quizzed by reporters, Jason Ferguson offered a terse "Mark King has been given a wild card with full tour rights. No further comment." Alighting from a brand new Porsche, King winked at the assembled reporters and said it was good to be back. "Just a little misunderstanding was all," he smiled. "I'm glad it's all been cleared up".

Just seeing on twitter ranking pro apparently got 3 year jail sentence for domestic assault. Nowt to do with king and it ain't Liang Wenbo. Name of a mid ranking uk player has been mentioned but not sure if legit so won't mention it. Sure it will all be revealed soon enough. Fck me, what a season and haven't even seen a single shot played yet

Fck it, name well and truly out there. Michael White jailed for 3 years for domestic assault. Weird only hearing about it now after sentencing but there you go.

Well known to suffer from demons, so would have certainly been top half of the list on "Guess Who?" if you were told someone had.  Still a shock, all the same.

True mate, alcoholic and all round mess of a person. I'd read he'd quit the booze 1-2 years ago but no shock if he fell off the wagon and resorted to old ways. Supposedly not first time he'd resorted to violence, fckin skumbag. Bailed in March apparently so was playing in tournaments while all this was going on, WST going to have questions to answer on that front I think.

Just add it to the list, mate!

Oh yeah...it's on the list I'm just about to send straight to Jason Ferguson's junk mail folder to save him the bother of having to read and delete it!

Three calendar months tomorrow since King made it known that he'd had his hearing the previous week.  Still nothing from WST/WPBSA on the matter.....

Few bits from Ferguson here, including on King. Doesn't say a lot but does at least confirm that everything is done and we're all just waiting - and waiting - for a verdict. Interesting he describes the case as "very complex" which definitely suggests King was able to mount a meaningful defence.

Interesting bit about Zhao Xintong whose WpBSA ban is up soon but longer Chinese ban would last another season basically. Ferguson says they'd welcome him back regardless so two federations possibly not singing off the same hymn sheet on these matters. Talking a load of shyte about Michael Shyte at the end.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/16/jason-ferguson-gives-latest-crucible-snookers-olympic-hopes-zhao-xintong-21437717/?ito=article.mweb.share.top.native

Thanks for that, mate - I would have likely missed it. 

So it's the independent tribunal that are still to put it all out there, as it were.  I guess that's fair enough, and means my criticism of the powers that be has been rather unjust.

Knew the CPBSA had given Xintong an extra 6 months to the WPBSA, but the WPBSA had maintained they would honour the CPBSA's ban initially.  Does sound like they are now considering (if not actively) backtracking on that.

No worries mate. I wouldn't be so fast in letting them off the hook tbh, just waiting to see how it all ends up. Perry also refers to the case in a separate piece, sounds pretty upset at how he was treated almost as if he's suggesting they treated him as a suspect too for a time. Just another layer to add to the intrigue. On a tangent, interesting he says he's acting as a "mentor" to robbo which sounds unusual but could be a smart move by both.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/08/18/joe-perry-remotivated-fight-career-serious-thoughts-retirement-21442874/?ito=article.mweb.share.top.native

Knew Perry and Robbo were working together, but that is interesting about the King stuff! 

Thanks for the reminder, Joe!  So we're now just 5.5 months on from the hearing, and I've still not read anything about an outcome?!

Did my fellow gent mention King on live commentary? He'll be warned about that afterwards

My latest (and most likely useless) guess: the case has been resolved. King has signed an NDA and walked away with a pretty decent settlement. They won't announce it or even mention it until they have to which could be the fifteenth of never never.

Joe Johnson made reference to the scenes when King won here, mate.

I went on Twitter after my post and noticed someone else had asked Phil Haigh to find out what was going on just an hour before Joe mentioned him!

I also noticed that King is back on Twitter, and quite a few people were asking what the score was and when he'd be back.  No response....

Ah, wrong Joe! Didn't know that about King mate, very interesting.

Amazing....a resolution and it's not good news for Mark King. Whole case has been a headwrcker since the start and every assumption I've had about it pretty much turned out to be totally wrong, including final judgment King might yet appeal i guess

https://www.wst.tv//news/2024/november/15/wpbsa-statement---mark-king/

Just relieved really it's resolved but still intrigued it all took this long. Await the more detailed judgement with interest.

Justice. Horrible cheat.

Ooooh, I had all but given up on there ever being an announcement.

Very interesting that the match involving JB that they were looking at was thrown out....

Definitely needs some more flesh adding to the bones.

It has been some fcking saga in fairness, compelling in its own way but incredibly frustrating too. Assuming now bets will finally be paid out or voided, or resolved in some way?

Given their lack of desire to do anything up to this point, I won't hold my breath about them doing anything before the appeal window has closed.

(I've not checked yet)

Just looked.  Still not settled.

its for life because he will not pay the fine

It's costs isnt it, rather than a fine, so i think he might have to fork out or face consequences.

https://t.co/JJsfo0pOeg

Won't get to this till tomorrow at the earliest but some interesting reading by all accounts.

Some might be rather surprised to learn it, but snooker today is squeaky clean compared to the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Folks in rose-tinted spectacles could scarcely imagine how bent the game was back then, especially within the top amateur ranks of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

It was a different time altogether.

Only on p26, but I am starting to appreciate why it took so long!

It's a gripping read!  No wonder Perry felt like he was the accused as well given his association with the bloke (other than King) at the centre of it all!

The volumes and contextual comments show how dumb these people are/were.

Interesting point at 95b(iii)!  Has nobody told them that gambling winnings are non-taxable, regardless of your 'status'?

(though I imagine if you have putters-on the position is, legally, different)

Should the preamble in 97 say "Mr King's performance" rather than "Mr Perry's performance"?

Nov 22, 2024 -- 5:04PM, Pokermonster wrote:

Some might be rather surprised to learn it, but snooker today is squeaky clean compared to the 70s, 80s and 90s.

I wouldn't say you're far out at all PM. Only thing i guess is the availability of micro markets thoroughly changed the game when it came to betting and ways you could facilitate it. But it was never any way clean, no question about it. And getting harder now too for sure, at least to make decent sums from it.

Hoping to get stuck in later today, seems fairly riveting stuff.

Love the idea in 178b that King losing to JB would convince people involved that he could be trusted to lose to Perry, as if he wouldn't (most likely) have lost to JB anyway, fix or otherwise! 

All very interesting, and "on the balance of probabilities" pretty difficult to argue with the outcome.

The betting volumes part are still the most striking for me (for a variety or reasons, not least how you could think it wouldn't draw attention given typical amounts matched on those markets). 

The one thing that I still have trouble with, though, is that King was (allegedly) prepared to do that for £15k.  It would have been interesting if they'd included how much those bets stood to win, but I would guess (without the absence of specific breakdowns of the correct score bets and the associated odds - there was defo a collapse in the odds in the hour prior to the off), we are conceivably talking in excess of EUR500k.

I remember a certain Scouse player who has some extremely dodgy matches back in the day, particularly towards end of his career

Sounds like King was pretty desperate for cash around that time, not sure is that drawn out or not? One figure i saw mentioned was £140K which was the total bet on the world final between ronnie and judd, which puts the whole thing into perspective. A figure of £190K for a bog standard ranking match is instantly going to set off any number of alarm bells, will be keen to see how they thought they might get away with it. Though this case had me all over the place, i never for an instant was sure King was innocent, just that they might not be able to definitively link him to the bets. Obviously, i was wrong there!

Sounds like King was permanently desperate for cash, mate!  They categorise it as "getting by", which was considered to be his norm.

*characterise

Hawkins look value later. Ronnie , to me ,is coming towards the end of the road now.

Nov 23, 2024 -- 5:23AM, Latalomne wrote:

Sounds like King was permanently desperate for cash, mate!

Sorry, mate, you've been Latted!

There used to be a saying back in the day before online betting… “if there is more money on the outside than the inside, beware.”

Essentially, it means if there is significantly more money being wagered on the rails than is in the players’ prize pot then there is a definite chance that the game might be bent. At some of the tournaments I frequented it often seemed like most game were dodgy on some level. The only truly safe bet was on oneself.

Having said all that negativity, I loved those days!

The most memorable incident for me was a 1989 match between two top professionals.

Many on the Birmingham snooker scene knew that the match was bent to finish 5-2 in favour of the underdog. The bookmakers were fleeced that day and, to the best of my knowledge, paid out without suspicion.

1989 match between two top professionals.

A pro match and tournament? Can't imagine all that much bookie markets if it was a side tournament, or maybe there was in those days...?

My (admittedly suspect) memories of 80s/90s was that you could definitely get a decent bet on with most high street books, match markets and frames score for sure, not sure about handicap. Think it was Bet365 that started to introduce betting on qualifiers/lower grade matches around 2005 or thereabouts and that was a gamechanger. Plenty of opportunity for shenanigans there i reckon.

I heard tell of a match in 80s/90s where a player had problems with his tip/cue and Willie Thorne heard about it.
Possible Doherty v Parrott?
Willie had £10k on.
You can guess the rest.
Poor Willie

And iirc.......................he was commentating on the match

yes, I read Willie's book about his gambling troubles - he recounts that one, which is painful.

We all think inside info is the real game changer, but if you're unlucky it's the opposite!

or at least not in the direction you want in the game, lol

Chased Hills on the 29th.  Still hasn't been settled.  Have just escalated it.

Now settled, ironically as a winner (presumably because of how they dragged their heels subsequently).