anthony hamilton

Hamilton is going to be the missing out because of this so it's clearly not a decision he made lightly.

Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

Lucky wrote:Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

If all goes well a lot has been gained.

Why should Hamilton be on a ventilator for 2 months and then die just to please Barry 'Earn?

Just my thoughts

I've got every sympathy for Hamilton here and certainly think he's justified in his decision to withdraw. It must be so gutting for him to have qualified for the first time in 12 years and have had to take this decision. Whatever decision he would have made would have been the right one for him. Given his well known opinion about allowing fans to attend, if he had played then I'm sure there would have been someone making a comment about him playing despite his concerns.

Should he have withdrawn earlier (given the announcement on fans was made before he played his first match of the qualifiers). I can understand those who hold the view that in withdrawing after qualifying he has taken an opportunity away from those players who he played and knocked out. That said, Hamilton has said that he genuinely entered the World Championship with the intention of playing and I don't have any reason to doubt that.

The last point is whether Wilson should have had the bye to the last 16 or should there have been a player knocked out in the last round reinstated. To be fair, awarding Wilson the bye is consistent in how snooker has always operated in these circumstances. That said, personally if its the first round of an event, (whether that be qualifying or main draw) then they should try the Lucky Loser route to have a balanced field.

Badsnookerplayer wrote:

Lucky wrote:Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

If all goes well a lot has been gained.

What will have been gained? A few extra quid, bit of kudos? Reckless decision made with little regards for any of the people actually involved. Could of been easily played behind closed doors, or postponed. This is a neither here or there decision with only negative outcomes. The guinea pig analogy is a good one.

Lucky wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:

Lucky wrote:Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

If all goes well a lot has been gained.

What will have been gained? A few extra quid, bit of kudos? Reckless decision made with little regards for any of the people actually involved. Could of been easily played behind closed doors, or postponed. This is a neither here or there decision with only negative outcomes. The guinea pig analogy is a good one.

Hurn has rolled the dice in a big way here, and there isn't that much to gain. Over the coming days, the fact we've a fella who's been in Portugal in the last week ACTUALLY PLAYING IN THE bucking THING is going to attract a lot more headlines than it has so far. We've already had a player pull out. This ain't a good start.

Lucky wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:

Lucky wrote:Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

If all goes well a lot has been gained.

What will have been gained? A few extra quid, bit of kudos? Reckless decision made with little regards for any of the people actually involved. Could of been easily played behind closed doors, or postponed. This is a neither here or there decision with only negative outcomes. The guinea pig analogy is a good one.

Losing the point of what Badsnookerplayer said.

If everything goes right then there is away a lot of business wont go bust Theatres are closing all over the country and a lot losing their jobs.


I Personally think its a massive risk playing the tournament at all and using the WC as a test event is stupid by Hearn but potentially it could pave the way of saving jobs and lives because when you take away peoples livelihoods then we could get spikes in mental health and suicide.


Ultimately there is no safe way to deal with Covid we will have to take risks or just wait and wait for a medical breakthrough that might never come.

Pink Ball wrote:

Lucky wrote:

Badsnookerplayer wrote:

Lucky wrote:Top flight soccer, Cricket, NBA, Rugby, MLB..........all played behind closed doors, all outdoors. Why snooker feels it can deliver safe, indoor sport is beyond me. Hearn just wanted to be first and has put the players and spectators well being on the line. If all goes well then what was gained? If it goes pear shaped.....

If all goes well a lot has been gained.

What will have been gained? A few extra quid, bit of kudos? Reckless decision made with little regards for any of the people actually involved. Could of been easily played behind closed doors, or postponed. This is a neither here or there decision with only negative outcomes. The guinea pig analogy is a good one.

Hurn has rolled the dice in a big way here, and there isn't that much to gain. Over the coming days, the fact we've a fella who's been in Portugal in the last week ACTUALLY PLAYING IN THE bucking THING is going to attract a lot more headlines than it has so far. We've already had a player pull out. This ain't a good start.

OMG - somebody who has been to Portugal ACTUALLY PLAYING IN THE bucking THING!!

I await the headlines.

It's going to cause a stir. It won't help the tournament.

Best case scenario is nothing happens and the tournament passes under the radar and runs at a loss, little media coverage and a low key winner announced. Worse case scenario......who knows.

Lucky wrote:Best case scenario is nothing happens and the tournament passes under the radar and runs at a loss, little media coverage and a low key winner announced.

To be fair, that's not best-case scenario. It'll get as much if not more coverage than it ever has before. But that's a double-edged sword.

Pink Ball wrote:

Lucky wrote:Best case scenario is nothing happens and the tournament passes under the radar and runs at a loss, little media coverage and a low key winner announced.

To be fair, that's not best-case scenario. It'll get as much if not more coverage than it ever has before. But that's a double-edged sword.

What will garner the greater coverage? A positive or negative outcome?

Hmm.. not sure why anyone thinks it’ll be a great gain for snooker if it’s a success. Will the mighty snooker WC go down in history as having paved the way for the safe return of indoor sports, rather than some other event a few weeks / months later?

A player could lift the trophy on August 16 and then go home and give his mother Covid 19!!

Lucky wrote:

Pink Ball wrote:

Lucky wrote:Best case scenario is nothing happens and the tournament passes under the radar and runs at a loss, little media coverage and a low key winner announced.

To be fair, that's not best-case scenario. It'll get as much if not more coverage than it ever has before. But that's a double-edged sword.

What will garner the greater coverage? A positive or negative outcome?

Snooker is up against virtually no sport in Britain and Ireland this year. That's the plus, and it's a big plus.

Ding Junhui will win the tournament, garnering a massive international audience.

The downside of all that, and it's massive, is we'll also get more coverage than ever if something goes wrong. Which would have been far less likely to happen if we weren't leaving fans in. Needless risk. Reckless, in my view. We're already down a player.

Pink Ball wrote:

Lucky wrote:

Pink Ball wrote:

Lucky wrote:Best case scenario is nothing happens and the tournament passes under the radar and runs at a loss, little media coverage and a low key winner announced.

To be fair, that's not best-case scenario. It'll get as much if not more coverage than it ever has before. But that's a double-edged sword.

What will garner the greater coverage? A positive or negative outcome?

Snooker is up against virtually no sport in Britain and Ireland this year. That's the plus, and it's a big plus.

Ding Junhui will win the tournament, garnering a massive international audience.

The downside of all that, and it's massive, is we'll also get more coverage than ever if something goes wrong. Which would have been far less likely to happen if we weren't leaving fans in. Needless risk. Reckless, in my view. We're already down a player.

They will be dancing in the streets of Wuhan when Junhui wins.....

If its a success then Barry Hearn will be triumphant if Covid is rife Barry Hearn will have egg on his face either way it will be the most watched World Championship ever because theres a lot of people relying on this working to get back to work and start selling tickets to survive in the entertainment buisness sport or showbiz..

vodkadiet1 wrote:They will be dancing in the streets of Wuhan when Junhui wins.....

And no doubt in Wuxi, where Ding is from.

Wildey wrote:If its a success then Barry Hearn will be triumphant if Covid is rife Barry Hearn will have egg on his face either way it will be the most watched World Championship ever because theres a lot of people relying on this working to get back to work and start selling tickets to survive in the entertainment buisness sport or showbiz..

Hearn will act triumphant, because that's this nature. But I don't really see that it's his achievement. The government have allowed snooker to do this in to test the waters.

I'm sure they've done a lot of work to comply with government procedures, don't get me wrong. But if uncle Boris had said no, there's nothing Hearn could've done about it.

SnookerFan wrote:

Wildey wrote:If its a success then Barry Hearn will be triumphant if Covid is rife Barry Hearn will have egg on his face either way it will be the most watched World Championship ever because theres a lot of people relying on this working to get back to work and start selling tickets to survive in the entertainment buisness sport or showbiz..

Hearn will act triumphant, because that's this nature. But I don't really see that it's his achievement. The government have allowed snooker to do this in to test the waters.

I'm sure they've done a lot of work to comply with government procedures, don't get me wrong. But if uncle Boris had said no, there's nothing Hearn could've done about it.

yea he had very little to do.


Boris has had a lot of pressure from theatres they want to get back to work and Barry gave him a way where he can test things out hate the idea of this event testing anything it's the World Championship ffs

I dislike Barry Hearn the more I see him or hear him talk.

I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and no mention of snooker starting. It seems to me that snooker is still under the radar no matter what Hearn says. All we need now is someone mediocre like Murphy or Bingham to win and Snooker will have played this years WC without anybody noticing or changing anything.

The_Abbott wrote:I dislike Barry Hearn the more I see him or hear him talk.

I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and no mention of snooker starting. It seems to me that snooker is still under the radar no matter what Hearn says. All we need now is someone mediocre like Murphy or Bingham to win and Snooker will have played this years WC without anybody noticing or changing anything.

I was mentioned on the ITV news briefly. They were mentioning crowds coming back to sporting venues and announced that The Crucible started today. It was one sentence, but we were mentioned.

SnookerEd25 wrote:

The_Abbott wrote:I dislike Barry Hearn the more I see him or hear him talk.

I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and no mention of snooker starting. It seems to me that snooker is still under the radar no matter what Hearn says. All we need now is someone mediocre like Murphy or Bingham to win and Snooker will have played this years WC without anybody noticing or changing anything.

Really? I haven't watched Breakfast TV for years (life's too short), but don't they have regular sports bulletins?

If so, how could they NOT mention it?

No they just talked about Silverstone and Sergio Perez has Covid. Thats all the sport today. Nothing else. No major sporting event is happening today is it?

The_Abbott wrote:

SnookerEd25 wrote:

The_Abbott wrote:I dislike Barry Hearn the more I see him or hear him talk.

I was watching BBC Breakfast this morning and no mention of snooker starting. It seems to me that snooker is still under the radar no matter what Hearn says. All we need now is someone mediocre like Murphy or Bingham to win and Snooker will have played this years WC without anybody noticing or changing anything.

Really? I haven't watched Breakfast TV for years (life's too short), but don't they have regular sports bulletins?

If so, how could they NOT mention it?

No they just talked about Silverstone and Sergio Perez has Covid. Thats all the sport today. Nothing else. No major sporting event is happening today is it?

They sometimes mention snooker on the BBC news. Though only when they feel like it.

You'd think they'd want to promote one on their channel.

SnookerFan wrote:https://mobile.twitter.com/snookerbacker/status/1289146220657737729

My thoughts exactly.