Shanghai Masters 2024

proper snooker in July...

madness I tell ya..though I wouldn't actually as massively overdue imo...

how dare we play a sport in a climate controlled, humidity controlled environment with potentially perfect conditions rather than in a slightly smelly damp theatre or sports centre with limited mod cons...

First big shock in overnight, Zhang loses to wildcard Zhou Jinhao 6-3.

Forgot to record the odds pre-off, and OddsPortal only gives BWin's odds, which were 1.02 Zhang, 12, Zhou (very generous %ages )

"Potentially perfect conditions"

Yeah you'd think but Shanghai is the spot for worst humidity reportedly so where you might expect a few players to struggle and get the odd strange result. Maybe technology is now so superior the climactic conditions matter less and less but not sure, be interested to hear what players have to say about it. Of course being 1st major event of season, fellas might not be wound up etc etc

I could probably be tempted into a bet or two but I'm never up in time for most of these matches which is probably just as well!

Oh, Tommy Ford....  Great chance to save the match and go 5-3 down, despite Si's insane fluke in getting out of a snooker, missed.

LOL!  Tommy Ford doubles the pink the length of the table!  5-3 Si

Wang back to 4-2 down to MJW

6-3 Si

Wonderful steal on the black from Zhou.  Red to get in followed by the blue were top drawer, leads Baz 5-4.

Baz blows a good chance to steal and force a W and eventually loses 6-4.

Second big shock with Cao Jin battering JakJ 6-2 overnight.  Cao plays Selby next.

BF haven't even managed to get Ronnie's match up for this morning.... 

Zhou Jinhao might be 2-1 down, but by heck, he's played some wonderful shots (and a few bad ones).

Si levels with Luca, 2-2

6-1 Wrongholed

Si takes advantage of a monster fluke, leads 4-2.

6-2 Si.  Luca looking a lot like the Luca of most of last season, TBH.

Dinger oner in a Win(o)na

Pretty brutal start from Selby, and it's taken Cao multiple chances to win the first frame, but win it he has, leads 1-0.

A few shockers from Tubbs, too, which Pang eventually punishes, 1-0.

Cao, you numpty!  The only thing you had to do was make sure you didn't pot the green, and Selby was in trouble

Goes in off in playing safe and sticks the frame, Selby levels, 1-1

Selby in with a fluke, runs the frame out.  Cao's missed the boat, I think, 2-1 Selby.

2-0 Pang (eventually, after Tubbs got the snooker he needed)

Cao lets Selby off the hook again, Selby steals on the black.... 3-1.

3-0 Pang, Tubbs in all sorts.

Pang massively lets Tubbs off, with Tubbs stealing on the black, 3-1 Pang.

4-1 Selby.

6-1 Selby.  Could have been quite different if Cao had taken his chances early doors.

Rinse and repeat, Pang not clinical, Tubbs eventually steals on the black, 3-2 Pang.

Tubbs been played into form, 3-3.

Pang fully rewarded for some excellent safety, 4-3 Pang

More gilt-edge missed chances for Pang, Tubbs eventually punishes, 4-4.

Pulled off at 5-4 Pang

Fancy ES ditching the WC   Kyren will not like that.

Zhou steals on the black, leads Kyren 3-0

2-1 JB over Shon

Shon gives JB a chance to steal, but he leaves a red in the jaws, Desmond.

Zhou gives Kyren a chance to steal, but he misses a blue.  4-0 Zhou.

3-2 Shon, and a decent chance for 4-2.

5-0 Zhou

4-2 Shon, 6-0 Zhou.

Tubbs levels and forces a W, 5-5

JB steals a frame he looked dead and buried in, 5-3 Shon.

Utterly vile snooker to get in (butchered, balls everywhere, red drops in) all but gets Shon over the line, and he eventually kills it off, 6-3.

*fluke!  Not snooker!

Bad miss from Tubbs when in with a very good chance to steal for F&M.  6-5 Pang.

Pang did not deserve to win that, that safety off last red was dreadful, was sure allen would clear them up, should have really. I speak as a Pang backer (initially) who won precisely £0 on the match

They were both pretty fecking awful, TBH, mate.

What's happened to this place? Can't a man have a good pocket talk to himself anymore

Pang plays proper safety that last red, i probably lay off sub 1.2. Instead he plays the most horrible slack shot and potentially stuck it all up. Switched all green very quickly to allen (more out of pique than anything tbh) and that actually looked clever until the blue. Tbf the way Allen was playing you couldn't say it was a gimmee. Still...

Ah never mind me...just another regular day at the office

  Sorry, mate! 

Yeah, it was not good.  Pang really should have had the match sewn up this morning, TBH.  Still really like him, but he's just lacking that killer streak. 

As for Tubbs, still say he cannot keep trying to play that style.  He will end up slitting either his own wrists or somebody else's throat, at some point.

I'm over it now I wonder if this No.1 business and the pressure to maintain it is actually good for Tubbs, makes it much less likely than ever he'd go back to his natural game. Maybe he's thinking I'll stick with what for me there but I've a feeling it's just more a distraction than anything else. We'll see next few tournaments i think.

Morning mate.  Yeah, I just don't see it doing his own game any favours at all.  He might bore the odd player out, but he'd probably out-pot most of them if he just played his natural game! (without doing his own head in in the process)

WOW!  What a fluke that is for Zhou!  Misses the blue to the middle, cueball into the pack, reds everywhere, and somehow the blue ends up going into the bottom right hand corner.

2-0 Shon over Zhou, 1-1 Pang v Selby

3-0 Shon.  Zhou not turned up yet.

Zhou on the board, 3-1.  2-1 Pang.

Bad split for Zhou when on the cusp of claiming the frame, one missed difficult pot attempt after, but Shon runs out the frame to steal on the black, 4-1.

2-2 Selby

Zhou blows a fantastic chance to steal with a really poor positional shot off the penultimate black, leaving a difficult red.  Shon makes no such mistake.  5-1.

Zhou gets one back, 5-2

3-3 Selby

6-2 Shon

4-3 Selby

Thought the Selby market was quiet for a TV table.  Just realised I was on Frame 10 and not the match odds

5-3 Selby

6-3 Selby

Ding blows a great chance to steal for 5-4 Ronnie, 6-3 instead.

Judd 5-2 up on Si

Whoops Shon

8-8  - some finish to this one

Smurph moves in to the lead 9-8

8-5 to 8-10 Some comeback from Murphy - Selby short one duffed up.

1.07            £5,764.53
1.08    £0.84        £2,057.51
1.09            £154.58
1.1            £3,732.62
1.11            £709.53
1.12            £1,339.56
1.13            £925.23
1.14            £2,799.57

Imagine Lumpy's done his nuts there.  Selby was artificially very short from the moment I turned on (8-5).  1.71 to lay at 8-8!

Got back all of what I've given him earlier in the week and a bit on top!

Nice1 Lat  - Good to have the longer sessions - and to have summer Lumpy in the market

Thanks, mate.  Needless to say, it happened on the one where I'd pulled my reins in somewhat, but I'll still take it.  It had been grim up to this point!

Proper stuff next Thursday.  Qs! 

"grim up to this point!"  - Not much munny about for a Ronald/Judd match up. Must just be early and will pick up the second session. 4-1 Trump and in again.

Nice break form Judd 5-1

Knocking them all in

Lumpy has arrived

7-1

Shocker of a miss

8-1

The second session is only available via Discovery+ (and betting sites).

What happened to Ronnie - one of his usual 'giving up' games of the past, or Trump playing great?

I only saw the first session but Judd was on fire - Ronnie on the other hand fluffed the few chances he had.

Ok, cheers Gin - Ronnie has always been somewhat variable of course, but sounds like Trump form is fine too.

Feck me, I presume ES's "Pot rate" stats aren't the same as "Pot success"?

The second session is only available via Discovery+ (and betting sites).

for IR betting discovery way too far behind but if just want to watch the game they are doing an offer at the moment (£3.99 a month) can cancel during the month to avoid re-bill..means you get extra olympic feeds as well if of interest.

Jul 21, 2024 -- 9:46AM, Latalomne wrote:

Feck me, I presume ES's "Pot rate" stats aren't the same as "Pot success"?

Pot rate just a simple percentage of pots from the total number of shots, including safety. It's what they use on the WS stats page too. I've seen guys argue it can indicate whether a match was scrappy or free scoring and so is useful on that front, but it's still not the same in my book. Unfortunately, i don't think they've yet devised a way of doing pot success without somebody having to manually input the data.

Thanks, mate.  Can't say as I've ever seen them make reference to it on ES before.  That makes sense.  Figured Shon's 50% pot rate (as announced when I posed the Q) couldn't possibly be the same as what we would ordinarily speak about.

You could be right there lats. I think it's only on the bbc events now you get the pot success stats, not sure about the ITV ones. Maybe ES just stopped paying some guy a few quid to do them. Have a vague memory Ian Burns used to do stats for them at some point.

Shon Moff, table puncher.

Jul 21, 2024 -- 10:59AM, gjohn101 wrote:

You could be right there lats. I think it's only on the bbc events now you get the pot success stats, not sure about the ITV ones. Maybe ES just stopped paying some guy a few quid to do them. Have a vague memory Ian Burns used to do stats for them at some point.

Sounds about right, mate.  Pretty sure ITV still have (or at least had as of last season) them.

Jul 21, 2024 -- 10:06AM, brentford wrote:

The second session is only available via Discovery+ (and betting sites).for IR betting discovery way too far behind but if just want to watch the game they are doing an offer at the moment (£3.99 a month) can cancel during the month to avoid re-bill..means you get extra olympic feeds as well if of interest.

Just cancelled my second broadband line (this one with BT, retaining my Zen one - son has officially moved out and approaching end of contract).  Upon reading the cancellation email, I've just discovered I've lost Discovery+, as it was included in my TNT Sport sub.  I had NO idea about that.  So if people happen to have TNT Sport, they too may be unaware that they already have it, or at least qualify for it!

apologies to gin..was half asleep when posting yesterday morning..hadn't realised he was referencing the SF on Saturday

just a small point of note the discovery feed was only about 10 secs or so behind BF live video..so not sure if they are significantly improving delay times or whether the BF stream was rather further behind than usual as was focused on cricket market..

that said for IR still not really practical but their are suggestions the tech will eventually get streamed sports much closer to true live than currently...

re the BF video - was a bigger picture than I remember though still full of lost of glitchy frame loses and such especially seemingly at key moments..

*lots of glitchy frame loses

BFLV is increasingly often being on a par with, if not behind ES pics.  I suspect BFLV has been slowed down rather than the other option!

I noticed last week, that when the BFLV feeds freeze, it coincides with utterly awful cutaways on ES.  They only ever happen when something interesting has happened and they don't want to show where the balls have actually finished, until whoever is taking advantage has taken advantage.

cheers for the feedback Lats'

disappointing on the BFLV..

re the cut aways..must admit I noticed some almost unfathomable cut aways from the table at key times on ES coverage..as I've not watched a lot I was kindly putting it down to naivety rather than something worse but guessing not now..

It might just be to allow bookies to reprice, I guess, but it looks awful and is so obvious something is going on.