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Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Because I'm in need of a hobby, I've been working on a Masters Almanac, in the spirit of Chris Downer's Crucible Almanac, only on a smaller scale.

It's still a work in progress, although the current version has quite a bit of information re. frame and match scores, total matches won for each player, centuries for each player, and other miscellaneous records and information.

If anyone has any feedback, please let me know.

link - version 26 December 2022.

(pdf format)
Last edited by Empire State Human on 26 Dec 2022, edited 13 times in total.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby James Bentley

This is pretty awesome. I especially enjoyed the sections on the origin and reputation of the tournament, lots of stuff there I didn't know. Great work. Many thanks for putting it together, must have taken absolutely ages!

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Thanks. Yeah, I probably had the most fun writing those sections you mention. The prose sections probably need better organisation - I just started adding stuff in a random order, so similar things could be grouped together to make them easier to find.

I want to add some sections on the seeding and selection of the players for the event, but I'm not sure I can really make sense of any of it. After 1977, they mostly used the world ranking list, although the players seem to be placed randomly in the draw. I'm not sure there's any logic behind it!

Yes, it took a fair bit of effort, although I only started work on it after the World Championships finished this year. But all the frame scores, century breaks, round performances (i.e. number of finals, SFs, QFs, appearances, etc.) have all been double-checked, so I'm pretty confident they're correct. (expects someone to post a list of glaring errors in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...)

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Prop

This is an insane amount of work! Seriously impressive. Have you thought about getting this to people like McManus? I’m not sure how you’d go about it, but I think a lot of people involved in the game would really appreciate this kind of resource.

Excellent stuff :hatoff:

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Reg Varney

Prop wrote:This is an insane amount of work! Seriously impressive. Have you thought about getting this to people like McManus? I’m not sure how you’d go about it, but I think a lot of people involved in the game would really appreciate this kind of resource.

Excellent stuff :hatoff:


Agreed. I downloaded this and was very impressed with it, the effort and the detail involved.

If Empire State Human is on Twitter, they could easily Tweet the download link to the likes of Neal Foulds, Dave Hendon etc. Deserves to be viewed but much more than us on the island.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

I was going to email Dave Hendon on the Snooker Scene podcast, as I'm sure his listeners would be interested. And I'm sure he could pass it on to other interested parties, as he sees fit.

At the moment, I'm basically having a rest for a few days, while I think whether there's anything obvious that I've missed, or whether there's a particular section or stat which you guys think should be included.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Andre147

This should have a lot more views, and by the higher authorities so to speak.

I downloaded it yesterday night and spent half an hour reading it, incredible piece of work and research. Some of those fun facts I already knew, others were really first time knowing them.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby KrazeeEyezKilla

Really like the parts about how the tournaments standing has changed over the years.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby mick745

Absolutely top stuff mate. Thoroughly enjoyed flicking through and will sit down and peruse properly at my leisure.

Great work and much appreciated.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Prop

If Nick Metcalfe’s intention of joining Snooker Island recently was to actually engage with the people of the game and not a simple means of plugging his podcast, I’m sure you’ll soon be hearing from him enthusiastically asking for your permission to use it.

I’m sure.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Prop

In other words, maybe Hendon is the better choice. And for many reasons other than that.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm working on a few extra sections at the moment:

- Most and Least frames conceded in winning the title.

- Most consecutive titles, finals, semi-finals, quarter-final appearances.

- Some more stats on age. Will probably create a table sorting winners from youngest to oldest. And I can do groups of players - i.e. combined age of the finalists, or semi-finalists, to find which years the youngest or oldest players did best.

- Maybe some general stats on how frequently debutants win their opening matches.

- I see there's something in the Crucible Almanac about frequency of most common results, i.e. how many matches go to 6-5, 6-4, etc. I'm not sure if that's particularly interesting, but I would have to divide things up into pre-1996 (best of 9s) and post-1996 (best of 11s) if I go down that route.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby mick745

Just be careful when calculating ages, it is not enough just to add the ages of the players together (24+26+28+31) and divide by the total, you'll need years and days old to work out averages.

And stick to when in the tournament you are calculating ages for, the first day of the tournament, the date of the final, or whatever, so the comparisons are consistent.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Slightly updated version. I've added the link to the original post. It's also here:

https://www.filemail.com/d/jkvpdhawpnmhqac

I've taken screenshots of the new sections.

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The final section on youngest and oldest appearances might be missing people. I don't really have a system for calculating this except plugging in likely candidates into a date calculator and seeing whether the results are good. However, the dates/ages of the winners/finalists/semi-finalists have all been checked. It's just that finding the exact dates of everyone's debut match would be a colossal pain.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Thanks Holden!
Empire State Human wrote:The final section on youngest and oldest appearances might be missing people. I don't really have a system for calculating this except plugging in likely candidates into a date calculator and seeing whether the results are good. However, the dates/ages of the winners/finalists/semi-finalists have all been checked. It's just that finding the exact dates of everyone's debut match would be a colossal pain.

Yeah, straightaway I've noticed I've missed off Paul Hunter in the youngest appearances section. He appeared as a wild card on 3 Feb 1997 at 18 years 112 days. He didn't appear again until 3 years later. That will have to be updated in the next version!

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TX077P ... sp=sharing

I've redone the section mentioned above because it was bugging me. I'd missed out Matthew Stevens and Chris Small as well, along with Rex Williams on the oldest appearances. Probably shouldn't have tried finishing that off at 1am last night. :zzz: I've added Pulman on to the end as he was close enough to merit a mention. I think these are probably correct now:

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New section on matches / frames won, along with players' highest breaks for those who never made a century:
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Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Iranu

Dave Hendon and Michael McMullen were absolutely gushing over this on the Snooker Scene Podcast. And well-deserved :hatoff:

The Island should have sponsored you and maybe we’d have got a plug on the podcast <laugh>

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

Yeah, it was cool that they devoted quite so much time to it. It was a slow news week, but it was great that they genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

Got to smuggle some Snooker Island references into the next editions. Maybe a section called 'The year Yan Bingtao was one to watache'. Or the 'Top 10 times Ronnie was Disrespectful'.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Reg Varney

Dave has also been plugging this on Twitter and Neal Foulds replied to one of the tweets, so he has now seen this too.

Excellent stuff ESH.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby SnookerFan

A lot of work has gone into this ESH.

Good to see Dave Hendon mention it on Twitter. <ok>

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRC-Jo ... sp=sharing

Small section on comebacks in finals:
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New record found for least attended match:
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Referees for each final. Meticulously researched (i.e. copied directly from the World Snooker site, which just so happens to have such a list). Also a full list of session times for each match (actually properly researched - this is what I've spent the last 2 weeks doing.) I should've probably double-checked the match scores, which I typed rather quickly, but it's midnight already.

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Re: Masters Almanac

Postby badtemperedcyril

Interesting, I can't ever recall John Williams ever refereeing at the Masters inspite of taking charge of a record number of World Championship Finals (well into double figures). Presumably as the Masters is a "one table" set up, two refs is enough to see through the entire event. It seems that for many years, John Smyth (who was a Londoner anyway so that made sense) and John Street (Exeter) pretty much ran the show. Williams was miles away in Wrexham.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Andre147

Neither John Williams or Len Ganley ever reffed at The Masters, and they were the top referees at the time. I don't know exactly why was that.

John Street, Alan Chamberlain and Jan Verhaas have done the most Masters Finals between them.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby badtemperedcyril

I can hear in my head the voices of Messrs Street, Smyth and Chamberlain calling the scores at the vast Wembley Conference Centre - it echoed around the whole place much louder than at, say, the Crucible, which is a far smaller arena and thus a softer atmosphere.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Empire State Human

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vXmBYM ... sp=sharing - new link 28 July 2021

Added prize money. Unsurprisingly, O'Sullivan is miles ahead, nearly double his closest competitor, Stephen Hendry.

Patsy Fagan is at the bottom of the list. Just £300 won on two appearances.

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In 1985, the first round losers won £3843.75. I've just rounded this to the nearest pound.
Last edited by Empire State Human on 28 Jul 2021, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Masters Almanac

Postby Prop

NickMetcalfe wrote:Bit harsh from you Prop, you rascal. I thought people would appreciate me plugging the pod, particularly when it was new.


Fair call. You have a PM :-)