Mark Allen hates Barry Hearn. Mark Allen hating Barry Hearn is one of the things I like about Mark Allen. I still fail at disliking Mark Allen as much as I sort of feel I should. I think he’s quite good at snooker, I think that’s what throws me.
Yesterday was basically awesome. How lovely is Joe Jogia, NEARLY ENTIRELY LOVELY. But let’s start with the beginning:
Trump 6-4 Dale
Allen 6-3 Gunnell
I didn’t watch Mark Allen playing snooker.
I watched Judd Trump and Dominic Dale playing snooker, and it was just hilarious and ridiculous and I’m so sorry for Dominic Dale and I like so much seeing Judd Trump being a bit young and understanding frustration, and he kind of fell apart, and Dale is playing better than I’ve ever seen him play and Trump was missing stuff and being annoyed that he couldn’t pot anything and to be fair to him he wasn’t changing his game and was still going for everything, and the commentators COULD NOT BELIEVE he was taking this on, because they still don’t understand YOUTH, even though they lived through it with Ronnie and various others. “Why play it at such pace?” “He doesn’t need to play for position there.” HE IS JUST PLAYING SNOOKER WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT. LEAVE HIM BE.
Anyway, it wasn’t working. Until the gods of snooker looked down on him and appreciated his hair and potted a pink for him for NO REASON. And then a red, and then nudged some things out of his way, and LITERALLY he just had a frame where he could do anything and the balls found pockets. And Dominic Dale sat in his chair and watched the whole match turning around in front of him for NO REAL REASON. And then Judd Trump remembered snooker, and Dominic Dale went ‘EVERYTHING IS MISSABLE SUDDENLY’ and Trump won that match. Because snooker is the weirdest luckiest thing.
Williams 6-4 Jogia
Lee 3-6 Walden
I didn’t watch Lee playing snooker because the bbc wouldn’t let me. But apparently he wasn’t super, and that’s quite a shame, but I don’t hate Ricky Walden, so it’s an okay shame.
Things:
1. I still find it weirdly impossible to stick up for people when they’re playing Mark Williams.
2. Except I found myself accidentally sticking up for Joe Jogia quite a lot, but only when he was at the table and I had forgotten who he was playing. I sort of wanted him to miss but kept willing all the balls into the pockets anyway.
3. Terry Griffiths is still BEST when he’s talking about Mark Williams, he just tries to sound normal, but he sounds like a proud owner talking about their beautiful horse. At one point there was a replay, and he just said “Just look how *well* he strikes this”, which is a totally normal thing to say, but he said it like he was a dad proud of his baby for, I don’t know, turning over or something, and forcing people to go ‘yes, that’s lovely, truly he is amazing’. And MJW is a bit amazing, don’t gt me wrong. But Terry’s brilliant.
Joe Jogia had a bit of a talk to the camera man who runs up and crouches in front of them during breaks. Also he had an amazing smile.
Mark Williams went shaky and couldn’t pot anything, and Terry Griffiths started talking about how MASSIVE his heart is. Mark Williams is better now at dealing with the not potting anything, after it happened for those few years all at once, and Joe Jogia was great but Williams gathered himself back together and eventually got on.
What I’ve noticed from this tournament so far is how the people I don’t like or care about have been winning their matches kind of easy, and the people I love have been a bit of a trial. Except Matthew Stevens, but that hardly counts, because he plays Ding today, so either way he is going to make me a little bit sad, he was just saving his sadness for now.
How nice is a tournament without Ebdon in it? That’s mean, but it is. I’m kind of a little bit sad Jamie Cope isn’t there, though. I don’t want him to stop being up and coming just because I don’t hate him. My not hating people should not put an instant kill on people’s careers.
Let’s have a look at the second round and how terrible it will probably be, and what quarter finals we will get:
Higgins/Maguire vs O’Sullivan/Trump
I actually hate NONE of these people. Obviously I want O’Sullivan to beat Trump because I side with old people nowadays, and obviously whichever of them win I want to lose to the scottish side in the quarters. I do not stick up for Maguire. And I don’t stick up for Higgins. But CLEARLY I am sticking up for Higgins through all of this.
Ding/Stevens vs Dott/Robertson
I want either Ding or Stevens to win, depending on which of them has ANY INTENTION of beating someone in the quarter final. I don’t want one of them to knock out my other favourite and then just go ‘oh no, Neil Robertson, just have this, I’ll sit over here and look sad.’ I want Dott to beat Robertson and he might, because he’s really good, secretly, still hardly noticeably, but yeah.
Williams/Walden vs Gould/Murphy
I want Williams to win his match without a care. And Gould also. PLEASE. Then I would like Williams to win his quarter final because I would like him to be god of the uk this year.
Carter/Allen vs Fu/Selby
My non hatred of Mark Allen will disappear if he goes around beating the young lovely Ali Carter. And then I would like Selby to piss right off quietly. And then I don’t actually mind if Fu or Carter win their quarter, probably I would slightly edge towards Carter. I like the pretence that Carter/Fu are going to be the ones who make it to a quarter.
