Snooker World Championship
Discussion
The Mad Monk said:
Ructions said:
Can't believe Higgins gets so much support at the crucible, I couldn't stand to be in the same room as the cheating ****.
Why?What's he done?
Higgins was seen to go along with it in the video but later said he was just playing along because the situation took him by surprise
The video did look dodgy BUT I gave him the benefit of the doubt because it was the NOTW and it is possible to engineer things to look a certain way unless you know everything that went on and saw all the footage and knew all of the buildup.
I think the fact that subsequently a lot of NOTW stings were found to be dodgy and led to some criminal cases collapsing reinforces the need to treat them with some scepticism
As far as I understand there was no evidence he had fixed anything although of course he could have gone on to.
IIRC it was revealed the day he was in a World Final so he was hardly going to throw that,
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I think the mealy-mouthed explanation for the punishment was not that he did it, but that he didn't report it to the authorities.The position taken was that they believed his excuse about being scared, but that he deserved a small punishment for not reporting the incident. Had he reported the incident straight away, at no cost to himself, then of course his reputation would be entirely unharmed. But he didn't.
Now, you may believe that he didn't report the incident because he was actually intending to do what they had discussed, and his post-outing line about being scared was a desperate, paper-thin, arse-covering fib. I couldn't possibly comment...
thebraketester said:
soad said:
What a legend. 
What surprises me is the effect that the tournament results have had, or indeed not had, on the world rankings. The post-Championship rankings are here:
http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=31
Despite Selby's poor season and going out in the first round, he still has an absolutely massive lead in the overall rankings. Ok it's a two year rolling system, but Selby could lose all the ranking points from last years World Championship victory too* and he'd still be world No. 1. He must have had an amazing season two years ago...
*Noting that you still get some ranking points if you're knocked out in the first round.
http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=31
Despite Selby's poor season and going out in the first round, he still has an absolutely massive lead in the overall rankings. Ok it's a two year rolling system, but Selby could lose all the ranking points from last years World Championship victory too* and he'd still be world No. 1. He must have had an amazing season two years ago...
*Noting that you still get some ranking points if you're knocked out in the first round.
Apropos of nothing, I remember maybe 20 years ago lots of stories about the amazing growth of snooker in Asia, and confident predictions that with literally millions and millions of fanatically keen and talented players, they would soon come to dominate the top of the professional game.
It never happened. Does anyone know why?
It never happened. Does anyone know why?
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I don't buy the argument that if you were scared that you would not report I think it needs to be put into context that Higgin's manager had already had meetings with these people about staging events and this was another meeting - but some new guy turned up and mentioned fixing out of the blue so Higgins was caught unaware. I can certainly see why you would just bluff to get it over with
Also I read that the 4 frames were going to be in exhibitions not proper matches
Finally, if the NOTW released a lot more footage then it would have been more conclusive I think.
http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/09/21/rev...
SpeckledJim said:
Apropos of nothing, I remember maybe 20 years ago lots of stories about the amazing growth of snooker in Asia, and confident predictions that with literally millions and millions of fanatically keen and talented players, they would soon come to dominate the top of the professional game.
It never happened. Does anyone know why?
Also always thought, Dings lack of performances and failure to win the WC, somewhat has maybe dulled their enthusiasm .It never happened. Does anyone know why?
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I can see what you mean, and I'm not miles from agreeing with you.If he was scared at this point, too scared to have the word with Barry Hearn that might have saved his reputation, then he was going to have to do it, wasn't he.
If he can't say 'no' in person, and he can't talk about it with the boss, then when push comes to shove and he gets a note under his dressing room door that says "frames 2,6 and 9. There's a big bag of spondoolies (scottish, see) in your Spanish pool house." then he's absolutely going to to do it.
If he was scared before they put their money down he'll be bloody petrified by the time their money is riding on his obedience.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I don't think I buy it as particularly feasible for either situation.If he'd said "sorry lads, thanks for the coffee, that's really not my thing. Better you look a bit lower down the world rankings, or try tennis" then that's likely the end of it.
To do anything else but that is volunteering to go deeper, and is at best, extremely stupid. Then he's either in the s
t with the good guys, or he's in the st with the bad guys, but definitely in the st one way or the other.And I expect these sorts of approaches are sadly a lot more frequent than we'd like to imagine.
Blackpuddin said:
thebraketester said:
soad said:
What a legend. (Credit: Twitter RTs)
SpeckledJim said:
Going to tap on Barry Hearn's door to say 'listen Barry, don't take this to the press, but yesterday...." would have been an easy way to get himself off the hook forever, at no cost. After all, Hearn's got no reason to publicise such a situation - he's desperately trying to minimise this sort of thing.
This is the key part for me.Does anyone know the timeline of events, specifically how long after the video was shot did the story break ?. If it was me, and I was innocent, and scared as was Higgins excuse, I imagine it might take me a few days, maybe a week, to think about what to do and possible consequences before contacting Hearn. However, if the story broke almost immediately after the video was taken he may not have had that time, flip side being, if it broke months after then it gives less credence into him wanting to do the right thing.
toastybase said:
Williams is into his cars, I remember years ago when he was showing off his Nobel m12 gto and Ferrari 355.
Wonder if he’ll treat himself to something special this time round
I remember the 355. But i'd take a punt and say that now he's a father a few times over, a new people carrier is more likely than a Ferrari. Although £425k is plenty for a family friendly RS6 or something similar. Wonder if he’ll treat himself to something special this time round
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