Trump is the winner!

[William Seger]

Not Donald; #1 ranked Judd Trump won the Northern Ireland Open snooker tournament last night by defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan, 9-7. Amazingly, it was the third year in a row that Judd defeated Ronnie in this tourney by the same 9-7 score.

And, once again, no commentator made any mention of the fact that Judd has the same last name as a world famous turd who is pitching a world class tantrum.

By the way, if you're a hunkered-down snooker fan, matchroom.live is showing the UK Championship live this week, for free.

[ZZenith]

1. Fellow snooker lover!!!

Yes, congrats to Trump, who’s a decent chap in spite of his name. I was pulling for The Rocket but didn’t think he’d pull it off.

Thanks for the matchroom.live tip, I always have to wait til it goes up on YouTube.

[William Seger]

2. I'm watching Mark Selby play Michael White right now

[ZZenith]

3. It's a fantastic game, innit?

I really hope it catches on here in the U.S.

Are you a Selby fan?

[William Seger]

4. I'm mainly a Rocket fan, myself

But I really like watching Selby and Trump play. Ronnie just wasn't himself yesterday -- got off to a slow start and by the time he got settled, it was too late. Judd likes to do that to him.

[ZZenith]

5. Disheveled, he was.

I know you enjoyed the WC semi-final as much as I did, then.

Have rewatched those last three frames a bunch of times since - some of that safety play was out-of-this-world!

[William Seger]

6. Oh, yeah

When Ronnie is on his game, his cue ball control is supernatural, and he makes it look so damned easy!

[ZZenith]

7. A wizard, a true star!

It’s a monstrously difficult game to play and it boggles my mind how effortless the top pros make it seem.

I’ll let you get back to your match, but thanks for the rare thrill of encountering someone who knows about that whole world. Looks like Michael White’s putting up a fight, at least.

[William Seger]

8. I've got it on a separate monitor

White leveled.

I was watching a lot of American pool videos on YouTube, and what got me hooked on snooker was a suggested video of Ronnie scoring a Maximum 147 in like 5 minutes and 20 seconds. The only thing slowing him down was the ref re-spotting the colors -- she often barely had her hand off the ball before he shot again. I've watched a lot of snooker since then, but that frame still stands out as what's got to be the most awesome attack on a snooker table in history. Yeah, I'll still be a Rocket fan no matter how he gets on now.

[William Seger]

10. John Higgins vs. Fergal O'Brian now, never heard of him

... but the referee is "snooker's hottest referee" Desislava Bozhilova. Someday, I'm going to write a song entitled "I Love You, I Love You, Wish I Could Pronounce Your Name." (It'll have to be a country song, of course.)

But the reason I mention it is that while searching for the spelling of her name, I saw a Google-suggested search for "How much do female snooker referees get paid," and the answer was that "Professional" referees get a base salary of $25,000 plus $250 per match, while "Women" referees get $20,000 plus $200 per match! Unbelievable. It wasn't until 2003, I think, that Machaela Tabb became the first female to officiate in a ranking event, and not until 2007 that she officiated a ranking event final match.

[William Seger]

11. Hmm, looks like matchroom.live changed their schedule?

I thought they had events scheduled for the rest of this week, but now they're not showing any more matches until Saturday. Bummer.

Anyway, they do have a lot of snooker and pool videos available with the OnDemand link, and they don't have annoying ads. They also have a "matchroom pool" YouTube channel with different stuff. A few weeks ago, they put up some videos from the 1996 Mosconi Cup, the yearly 9-ball tournament between 5-man teams from the USA and Europe. This was only the third Mosconi Cup, I think, and back then there weren't a lot of European professionals playing 9-ball, so a lot of the European team members were snooker players. In 1996, Jimmy White was supposed to be on the team but had to drop at the last minute, and Ronnie O'Sullivan took his place. In the singles competitions, Ronnie drew the legendary Earl Strickland, widely regarded as the greatest American pool player of all time, and probably the most temperamental. Now, playing on a huge 12x6 table with narrow pockets makes snooker players exceedingly accurate, which is an advantage when they play on a 9-foot table, but the American pool balls are larger and heavier than snooker balls and the table cloth is different, so the "feel" for pocketing balls and controlling the cue ball is completely different. Also, snooker players rarely shoot combos (plants) or banks (doubles), which are very difficult in snooker because of the tight pockets but are vital in 9-ball. Ronnie had only played a few games of 9-ball, apparently, because several times he had to ask the ref about 9-ball rules, but nonetheless he defeated Strickland! Incredible! He was on the team again in 1997, but that year he lost to another legend, Nick Varner, who essentially outplayed him with a better defensive game.

[ZZenith]

12. This is awesome!

We came to snooker in exactly the same way - if I hadn’t clicked on YouTube’s “suggested videos” on the right side of a nine-ball video I was watching I might never have known of the sport’s existence and my life would have been poorer for it.

If you want to hang out with some hardcore snooker fans you can find them here:

https://www.snookerisland.com/forum/index.php?sid=33ad488e7e7cdde4ad5682ab6ba587f9

I have yet to join in on the conversation but find their British humor to be absolutely top shelf.

Also, “Snookergodz” channel on YouTube is really quick with the uploads if matchroom.live isn’t coming through for you.


Also also, I find it very telling that one often sees the snooker guys enter nine-ball tournaments but never the other way ‘round. Tried to play on a snooker table several years ago and gained enormous respect for what these guys do - the pockets aren’t just narrow, their curved shape rejects all but the cleanest of shots. Playing regular pool afterwards felt like bowling with the “kiddie rails” covering the gutters!

[Blue Owl]

9. Judd Trump? Is there a Jethro Trump?

I always thought 45 should have been named Jethro instead of Donald...

Nevertheless congrats to Judd -- being a ranked snooker player takes a LOT of skill. More than what is in the Donald Trump gene pool...