Portal:Cue sports
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The Cue Sports Portal
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:
- Carom billiards, played on tables without pockets, typically ten feet in length, including straight rail, balkline, one-cushion carom, three-cushion billiards, artistic billiards, and four-ball
- Pocket billiards (or pool), played on six-pocket tables of seven, eight, nine, or ten-foot length, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball (the dominant professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly dominant pro game), one-pocket, and bank pool
- Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid, played on a large, six-pocket table (dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft), all of which are classified separately from pool based on distinct development histories, player culture, rules, and terminology.
Billiards has a long history from its inception in the 15th century, with many mentions in the works of Shakespeare, including the line "let's to billiards" in Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07). Enthusiasts of the sport have included Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Immanuel Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason. (Full article...)
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The 2015 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2015 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament which took place from 18 April to 4 May 2015 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 39th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and was the final ranking event of the 2014–15 snooker season. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event for the first time in three years, having previously done so from 2009 to 2012. The top sixteen players in the snooker world rankings were placed into the draw, and another sixteen players qualified for the event at a tournament taking place from 8 to 15 April 2015 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield.
Mark Selby was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2014 final. Selby lost 9–13 in the second round to event debutant Anthony McGill, and became the 16th first-time champion unable to defend his title at the venue. Shaun Murphy, the 2005 winner, met Stuart Bingham in the final. Bingham, who was given odds of 50–1 to win the tournament by bookmakers before the start of the tournament, defeated Murphy 18–15 in the final to win the first world title of his 20-year professional career. Aged 38, Bingham became the oldest player to win the title since Ray Reardon in 1978. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2021 Tour Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 to 28 March 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the third edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the third season of the Cazoo Cup. It was the 14th and penultimate ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season, following the conclusion of the WST Pro Series and preceding the World Championship.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, each match being played over two sessions. The winner of the tournament received £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by car retailer Cazoo. The defending champion was Stephen Maguire, but as a result of reduced earnings during the season he was unable to qualify and defend the title. In a repeat of the 2019 final Australian Neil Robertson played Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan. Robertson won the event defeating O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final. There were 26 century breaks made during the event, Barry Hawkins making the highest break, a 138. (Full article...) -
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The 2019 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2019 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 April to 6 May 2019 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 43rd consecutive year the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and the 20th and final ranking event of the 2018–19 snooker season. Qualifying for the tournament took place from 10 to 17 April 2019 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event.
The winner of the title was Judd Trump, who defeated John Higgins 18–9 in the final to claim his first World Championship. In doing so, Trump became the 11th player to win all three Triple Crown titles at least once. Defending champion Mark Williams lost 9–13 to David Gilbert in the second round of the tournament. For the first time in the history of the World Snooker Championship, an amateur player appeared at the main stage of the event—debutant James Cahill defeated world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first round, before being narrowly defeated by Stephen Maguire in a second round deciding frame. (Full article...) -
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The 2020 Masters (officially the 2020 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at Alexandra Palace in London, England, from 12 to 19 January 2020. It was the 46th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2019–20 season, following the 2019 UK Championship and preceding the 2020 World Snooker Championship. The event invites the top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings in a knockout tournament. It was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe.
Judd Trump was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final of the previous year's event. Trump lost to Shaun Murphy 3–6 in the first round. O'Sullivan was eligible to compete, but chose not to participate, so his entry was given to Ali Carter, next on the world ranking list. Carter reached the final, where he played Stuart Bingham; recovering from 5–7 behind, Bingham won the final 10–8 to claim his first Masters title. He became the oldest Masters champion at the age of 43 years and 243 days, beating the previous record set by Ray Reardon in 1976; Bingham remained the tournament's oldest winner until 2024, when O'Sullivan won the title aged 48 years and 40 days. (Full article...) -
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Snooker (pronounced UK: /ˈsnuːkər/ SNOO-kər, US: /ˈsnʊkər/ SNUUK-ər) is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
In 1875, army officer Neville Chamberlain, stationed in India, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. (Full article...) -
Image 6The 2019 Champion of Champions (officially the 2019 ManBetX Champion of Champions) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 4 and 10 November 2019 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England. It was the ninth Champion of Champions event, the first of which was held in 1978. The tournament featured 16 participants who had won World Snooker events throughout the prior snooker season. In 2019, the Women's World Champion competed at the tournament for the first time. As an invitational event, the Champion of Champions tournament carried no world ranking points.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion having defeated Kyren Wilson 10–9 in the final of the 2018 event. O'Sullivan lost 5–6 to Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. Robertson defeated reigning world champion Judd Trump 10–9 in the final to win the championship, having required foul shots in the penultimate frame to avoid losing the match. There were 20 century breaks during the tournament, eight of which were made in the final. Mark Allen compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, in his semi-final loss to Trump. The tournament's total prize fund was £440,000, the winner receiving £150,000. (Full article...) -
Image 7The 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship was a professional pool tournament for the discipline of ten-ball organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and CueSports International. It was the fifth WPA World Ten-ball Championship; the previous championship was held in 2015. After plans for an event in both 2016 and 2018 to be held in Manila fell through, a 2019 event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part of a three-year deal for the event to be played in the United States was agreed. The event was held concurrently with the Billiard Congress of America's National Ten-ball event from July 22 to 26. The event was sponsored by cue manufacturer Predator Group.
The competition featured 64 participants, selected according to world and continental pool rankings as well as qualifying events. The tournament was played as a double-elimination bracket until 16 players remained, at which point it changed to a single-elimination format. Ko Ping-chung, representing Chinese Taipei, won the event, defeating German player Joshua Filler 10–7 in the final. Ko's brother Ko Pin-yi, who was the defending champion, lost to Filler 10–8 in the semi-final. The event featured a prize fund of $132,000, the winner receiving $30,000. (Full article...) -
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The 2018 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2018 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament held from 21 April to 7 May 2018 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Hosted by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the 20th and final ranking event of the 2017–18 snooker season and the 42nd consecutive time the World Snooker Championship had been held at the venue. The tournament was broadcast by BBC Sport and Eurosport in Europe, and sponsored by betting company Betfred.
Welsh left-hander Mark Williams won his third world championship and 21st ranking title, defeating Scottish professional John Higgins 18–16 in the final. Williams' victory came 15 years after his second world title in 2003; before the start of the season, he had not won a ranking event in the previous six years. In winning the event, Williams received the highest prize money awarded for a snooker event, £425,000 of a total pool of £1,968,000. Aged 43, he was the third oldest winner at the crucible after Ronnie O'Sullivan who was 44 when he won the 2020 World Snooker Championship and Ray Reardon who was 45 when he won the title in 1978. Defending and three-time world champion Mark Selby had won the world title for the previous two years, but lost in the first round 4–10 to Joe Perry. (Full article...) -
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The 2020 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2020 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 31 July to 16 August 2020 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible. The final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the tournament was originally scheduled to take place from 18 April to 4 May 2020, but both the qualifying stage and the main rounds were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was one of the first to allow live audiences since the onset of the pandemic, but on the first day it was announced that the event would be played behind closed doors for subsequent days. A limited number of spectators were allowed in for the final two days of the championship.
The tournament was organised by the World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. The event had a total prize fund of £2,395,000, with the winner receiving £500,000. Qualifying for the tournament was due to be held between 8 and 15 April 2020 but instead took place from 21 to 28 July at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, with a mix of professional and invited amateur players, 16 of whom reached the main stage of the tournament where they played the top 16 players in the snooker world rankings. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. (Full article...) -
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The 2017 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2017 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 2017 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 19th and final ranking event of the 2016–17 season which followed the China Open. It was the 41st consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible.
The winner of the event was the defending champion and world number one Mark Selby, who defeated John Higgins 18–15 in the final. Selby won despite having fallen 4–10 behind in the second session of the match. Selby defeated Ding Junhui 17–15 in the semi-finals whilst Higgins defeated Barry Hawkins 17–8 to reach the final. This was Selby's third World Championship win; he had also won the tournament in the 2014 and 2016 tournaments. (Full article...)
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Image 1The 2019 WPA World Nine-ball Championship was a nine-ball pool championship, which took place from December 13 to 17, 2019 at the al-Arabi Sports Club in Doha, Qatar. The defending champion was Germany's Joshua Filler, who won the 2018 event defeating Carlo Biado in the final 13–10.
Russian Fedor Gorst won the event, defeating Taipei's Chang Jung-lin in the final 13–11. (Full article...) -
Image 2Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend is a pool (pocket billiards) video game for the Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn. It was also released in Japan for the Saturn under the alternative title Side Pocket 2: Legend of Hustler (Japanese: サイドポケット2 伝説のハスラー, Hepburn: Saido Poketto 2 Densetsu no Hasurā). The game features famed player Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone. It was released as a sequel to Data East's earlier success Side Pocket. (Full article...)
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Albin Alois Ouschan (born August 14, 1990, in Klagenfurt, Austria) is an Austrian professional pool player. Ouschan was the 2016 WPA World Nine-ball Championship winner, as well as the runner-up in 2014. He also won the 14.1 Continuous European championship the same year. Ouschan is a multiple time Austrian champion in 8-ball, ten-ball and straight pool. Ouschan alongside partner Mario He won both the 2017 World Cup of Pool, 2019 World Cup of Pool and reached the final of the 2018 World Cup of Pool. They would lose 10–3 to the Chinese team of Wu Jia-qing & Liu Haitao. He won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for the second time in 2021, beating Omar Al-Shaheen 13–9 in the final. He won the International Open in 2021, defeating Dennis Orcollo 13–6 in the final. (Full article...) -
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Ben Woollaston (born 14 May 1987) is an English professional snooker player from Leicester. His sole professional title came at the minor-ranking third Players Tour Championship event in 2011. Woollaston's only ranking event final came at the 2015 Welsh Open, in which he lost to John Higgins. (Full article...) -
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Shane Van Boening (/ˌvæn ˈboʊnɪŋ/; born July 14, 1983) is an American professional pool player from Rapid City, South Dakota. Van Boening is considered one of the best players of all time. Van Boening has won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and has won the US Open Nine-ball Championship on 5 occasions, along with over 100 other professional titles.
Van Boening has a hearing impairment and uses a hearing aid, but it does not affect his pool ability. He has received praise for his attitude towards the sport, particularly for his behavior during matches, and for eschewing alcohol. (Full article...) -
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Zhao Xintong (Chinese: 赵心童; born 3 April 1997) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who is currently serving a 20-month ban from professional competition after committing offences relating to betting on snooker.
Zhao attracted attention as a teenager, with a number of top players commenting on his potential in the sport. He joined the professional tour in 2016 and won his first ranking title and first Triple Crown title at the 2021 UK Championship, defeating Luca Brecel 10–5 in the final. With this win, he entered the top 16 in the world rankings for the first time and became eligible for his first Masters. He won his second ranking title at the 2022 German Masters when he whitewashed Yan Bingtao 9–0 in the final, becoming only the third player, after Steve Davis and Neil Robertson, to win a two-session ranking final without conceding a frame.
In January 2023, the sport's governing body suspended Zhao as part of a match-fixing investigation involving ten Chinese players. He was subsequently charged with being concerned in fixing matches on the World Snooker Tour and betting on snooker. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, Zhao was banned from professional competition until 1 September 2024. However, the end date for this ban is uncertain, when the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (the CBSA) upheld the original ban length of 30 months for domestic tournaments: the WPBSA later confirmed that players not in good standing with their local association cannot rejoin the World Snooker Tour. (Full article...) -
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Rodney Morris (born November 25, 1970, in Anaheim, California) is a professional pool player, nicknamed "the Rocket". In 2016, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. Morris won the 1996 U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship, 2003 World Pool League, 2006 UPA Pro Tour Championship (nine-ball), and 2013 U.S. Open Ten-ball Championship, among many other individual titles. In doubles play, he and Shane Van Boening took the 2008 World Cup of Pool. He has also been a member of the winning Team USA in the Mosconi Cup events of 2003–2005, and was the Mosconi Cup MVP in 2004. (Full article...) -
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Jak Jones (born 29 July 1993) is a Welsh professional snooker player.
Jones is from Cwmbran, Torfaen in South Wales. He became a professional in 2010 at the age of 16 after winning the 2010 European Under-19 Snooker Championship in Malta.
He reached the final of the 2024 World Snooker Championship as a qualifier, losing 18–14 to Kyren Wilson in the final. (Full article...) -
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Li Hang (Chinese: 李行; pinyin: Lǐ Háng; born 4 October 1990) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who, in 2023, was permanently banned from the sport after committing a range of match-fixing offences. Li first competed professionally during the 2008–09 season. His best performances during his professional career were reaching two ranking semi-finals. He reached a career high of 28th in the snooker world rankings in 2019.
In December 2022, the WPBSA suspended Li from the professional tour amid a match-fixing investigation. In January 2023, it charged him with fixing a match, being concerned in fixing matches, approaching a player to fix a match, seeking to obstruct the investigation, and betting on snooker matches. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, Li received a lifetime ban from the sport. (Full article...) -
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Michael Massey (born April 9, 1947), professionally known as Mike Massey, is an American professional pool player From 1989 to 1991 he served as a contributing editor of The Snap Magazine. Massey was born in Loudon, Tennessee, and for several years lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he owned a pool hall. He has the nickname of "Tennessee Tarzan", but he now lives in Midway, Utah.
Massey was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Billiard Congress of America on April 7, 2005. For 2007 he was ranked as #8 in Pool & Billiard Magazine's poll of the "Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players". (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that the 1810s reign of Ioan Caragea introduced Wallachia to carom billiards, sugar sculptures, and an eponymous plague?
- ... that both finalists at the 2008 World Snooker Championship made maximum breaks during the tournament?
- ... that during a match at the snooker 2021 UK Championship, player Mark Williams fell asleep?
- ... that Turkish carom billiards champion Güzin Müjde Karakaşlı grew up playing volleyball for about 12 years?
- ... that Fraser Patrick likened playing in the 2019 Q School to being in a boxing match with Anthony Joshua?
- ... that John Spencer "exploded two myths" by winning the 1977 World Snooker Championship with a two-piece cue that he had only been using for a couple of months?
- ... that the final of the 2009 IBSF women's snooker championship was interrupted so that drug tests could be conducted on the players?
- ... that Mark Williams travelled for more than 13 hours to be a last-minute replacement at the 2022 Hong Kong Masters?
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Image 1The 1979 UK Championship (officially the 1979 Coral UK Championship) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 19 November and 1 December 1979 at the Guild Hall in Preston, England. This was the third edition of the UK Championship that would later become part of snooker's Triple Crown. The event was sponsored by Coral for the second year in a row.
John Virgo won the championship, in his only major tournament win, by defeating Terry Griffiths 14–13 in the final, despite being deducted two frames for arriving late. The defending champion, Doug Mountjoy, was defeated 5–9 by Steve Davis in the opening round. Griffiths compiled the tournament's highest break of 119 in his semi-final win over Bill Werbeniuk. The last session of the final was broadcast by the BBC on their Grandstand programme; however, due to a strike by BBC personnel, the final frames of the match – including Virgo being awarded the championship – were never broadcast or recorded. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2007 Malta Cup was the 2007 edition of the Malta Cup snooker tournament, held from 28 January to 4 February 2007 at the Hilton Conference Center in Portomaso, Malta. The tournament was the fourth of seven World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) ranking events in the 2006/2007 season, the 200th world ranking tournament and the 16th edition of the event. It was the third time that the competition was called the Malta Cup, which was renamed from the European Open, first held in 1989. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom and Europe by Eurosport.
Shaun Murphy defeated first-time ranking finalist Ryan Day by nine frames to four (9–4) in the best-of-17 frames final to claim the second ranking-event title of his career. Murphy beat Ricky Walden, Stephen Lee, Graeme Dott and Ali Carter en route to reaching the final. Anthony Hamilton compiled the competition's highest break of 136 in the first round of his match against Tom Ford, whilst Stephen Hendry was the first player to compile a 700th career century in his game over Robert Milkins. The Malta Cup followed the UK Championship and preceded the Welsh Open. (Full article...) -
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Ding Junhui (Chinese: 丁俊晖; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport and widely regarded as the greatest Asian player of all time. Throughout his career, he has won 14 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005, 2009, 2019). He has twice reached the final of the Masters, winning once in 2011. In 2016, he became the first Asian player to reach the final of the World Championship.
Ding began playing snooker at age nine and rose to international prominence in 2002 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championship and the Asian Championship. At age 15, he became the youngest winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. In 2003, Ding turned professional at the age of 16. His first major professional successes came in 2005 when he won the China Open and the UK Championship, becoming the first player from outside Great Britain and Ireland to win the title. (Full article...) -
Image 4Wii Play is a party video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii console. It was released as a launch game for the console in Japan, Europe, and Australia in December 2006, and was released in North America in February 2007. The game features nine minigames, including a Duck Hunt-esque shooting range, a fishing game, and a billiards game, each of which are designed to showcase the features of the Wii Remote controller.
Developed as a compilation of prototype games originally shown off at the E3 expo in 2006, Wii Play was developed by Nintendo EAD simultaneously with Wii Sports, which also contained tech demos from E3. The featured games make use of several aspects of the Wii Remote, such as its detection of rotation and depth movement through motion sensing and its infrared pointer. (Full article...) -
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Marcus Chamat (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈmǎrːkɵs ɧaˈmatː]; born 6 May 1975) is a Swedish professional eight-ball and nine-ball pool player. He was nicknamed "Napoleon" due to his personality and standing at 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) tall. He is a two time European Pool Championships winner and one of the most successful players on the Euro Tour, winning four events and finishing runner-up twice. Chamat reached the semi-finals of the 2004 WPA World Nine-Ball and the 2008 WPA World Eight-Ball Championships but did not reach the final of a world championship event.
He first represented Europe at the Mosconi Cup in 2000 and played for the continent six times. After retiring in 2015, he became the non-playing captain of the side, winning the event in 2015, 2016, and 2017. (Full article...) -
Image 6The 2020 World Grand Prix (officially the 2020 Coral World Grand Prix) was a professional snooker tournament which took place from 3 to 9 February 2020 in the Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse in Cheltenham, England. It was the eleventh ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, and the first of three Coral Cup tournaments. The 2020 edition of the World Grand Prix was sponsored by the betting company Coral. The event had 32 participants, with players qualifying by virtue of their ranking points during the 2019–20 season. It had a prize fund of £380,000, with £100,000 going to the winner.
The defending champion was Judd Trump, who had beaten Ali Carter 10–6 in the 2019 final. Trump was defeated, 3–4, in the second round by Kyren Wilson. Neil Robertson won the tournament for the first time (his 18th ranking title) with a 10–8 victory against Graeme Dott in the final. It was the third consecutive final in the season for Robertson, who lost just one match in the event. It had 32 century breaks, with the highest a 142 by Robertson in the final. (Full article...) -
Image 7The 1932 World Snooker Championship, known at the time as the Professional Championship of Snooker, was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 14 to 20 April 1932, with the final being held at Thurston's Hall in London, England. It is recognised as the sixth edition of the World Snooker Championship. The defending champion, Joe Davis from England, won the title for the sixth time by defeating New Zealander Clark McConachy by 30 frames to 19 in the final. The score when Davis achieved a winning margin was 25–18, with dead frames played afterwards. Davis set a new Championship record break of 99 in the 36th frame of the final. McConachy had become the first player from outside the British Isles to enter the championship. The only other participant was Tom Dennis, who was defeated 11–13 by McConachy in the semi-final at Skegness. (Full article...)
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Image 8Irving Crane (November 13, 1913 – November 17, 2001), nicknamed "the Deacon", was an American pool player from Livonia, New York, and ranks among the stellar players in the history of the sport. Widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time, and a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, he is best known for his mastery in the game of straight pool (14.1 continuous) at which he won numerous championships, including six World Straight Pool Championship titles. (Full article...)
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Image 9The 2019 Antalya Open (also known as the 2019 Dynamic Billiard Antalya Open) was a professional nine-ball pool tournament held from 7 to 10 November 2019 in the Limak Atlantis Resort in Antalya, Turkey. The event was the sixth and final Euro Tour event of 2019, following the Klagenfurt Open. The men's event was won by Estonia's Denis Grabe, who won his third Tour win, defeating Eklent Kaçi 9–2. The women's event was won by Poland's Oliwia Zalewska, who won her first Tour event. She defeated Tina Vogelmann in the final 7–6. (Full article...)
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Image 10The 2002 Irish Masters (known as the 2002 Citywest Irish Masters for sponsorship reasons) was a professional invitational snooker tournament which was held at the Citywest Hotel in Saggart, Dublin, from 19 to 24 March. It was the 25th edition of the Irish Masters and the fourth and final World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) invitational event of the 2001–02 season; it followed the third invitational event, the 2002 Masters, held in February. The tournament was co-sponsored by the Citywest hotel group and the Department of Health and Children and broadcast by RTÉ.
Third-ranked John Higgins won the competition, defeating the world number seven Peter Ebdon ten frames to three (10–3) in the final. It was Higgins' second Irish Masters victory, his fourth in a tournament that season and the 24th of his career. In the semi-finals Higgins defeated Matthew Stevens 6–5 and Ebdon won 6–3 over Ken Doherty. Higgins produced the tournament's highest break of 140 in the eighth frame of his semi-final match against Stevens to earn €5,000 and a further €100,000 for winning the event. (Full article...)
General images - load new batch
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Image 1A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from Snooker)
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Image 2A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 3The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
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Image 5Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 6A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
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Image 8A close-up view of a cue tip about to strike the cue ball, the aim being to pot the red ball into a corner pocket (from Snooker)
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Image 9A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from Snooker)
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Image 10Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
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Image 11alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 12alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 13Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards)
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Image 15alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 16Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
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Image 17alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 18alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 19A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponent (from Carom billiards)
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Image 21A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 23alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 24Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
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Image 27Illustration A: Aerial view of a snooker table with the balls in their starting positions. The cue ball (white) may be placed anywhere in the semicircle (known as the "D") at the start of the game. (from Snooker)
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Image 28alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Knock-outs | |
Crucible era | |
Related articles | |
Tournaments | |
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Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
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Ranking events | |
Non-ranking events | |
Seniors events |
|
Tours and series | |
Related lists | |
Categories
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Collection of quotations -
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Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
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