a) I believe the bbc are CGI-ing children into the snooker, because we know children don’t like snooker, nobody likes snooker, but especially not the young little ones, so WHY ARE THEY THERE? Nigel Bond isn’t even there for them to love and admire.
b) The WPBSA people are going to try to discipline Mark Allen for being grumpy. Hah! Wankers.
c) The bbc are paying John Parrott to whine on about how nice the short matches are, and isn’t it great that crowds get to see a result, how amazing. I AM SORRY. You are not increasing the number of results by making the match shorter. So the same number of people can come and see the RESULTS BITS, JOHN PARROTT. You’re just taking away the nice first sessions from the people who love them. Also it’s pants. Also, stop lying.
d) I love snooker. Despite that thing that happened today. And that other thing.
O’Sullivan 5 – 6 Trump
Stevens 5 – 6 Ding
OH SNOOKER, LOOK WHAT YOU DID THERE.
I love Ding. Which is just as well. I love the way he plays, I love the way he sits, I really really like the way he pots stuff as if you don’t need to worry, he’s got this. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Matthew Stevens didn’t win snooker, it was a shame, but there you go. He got in in the deciding frame and he was fine, all the balls were lovely and he could have just potted everything, but, and you’ll never believe this, it’s UNIMAGINABLE, but INSTEAD OF THAT, he MISSED A BLACK OFF THE SPOT!!!!! I know! It happens soooooo rarely in the game of snooker, especially at this top level, you’ve probably NEVER SEEN IT HAPPEN, the commentators certainly haven’t. (They weren’t that bad this time, I’m just being bitchy. And giving Terry his due, he’s usually fine about it, he’s more ‘well they do do that’.)
I didn’t listen to O’Sullivan playing Trump, I’m sure it was very exciting, the crowd seemed excited, twitter seemed excited. It looked fine and everything.
Mostly I’m excited because O’Sullivan wants to maybe probably resign actually. I’m not just a horrible terrible person, it’s just THE NOSTALGIA HE BRINGS ME. It’s a bit glorious. Snooker’s not his life, snooker’s the problem in his life. That’s what he thinks now. And he knows his psychologist will hate him for saying it. If he leaves snooker he’s going to have a horrible surprise when his depression doesn’t just disappear. I hope he’s okay, obviously. But constant resigning is my favourite thing about him, I can’t help that. I think it’s quite a lovely coping strategy.
Higgins 4 – 6 Maguire
Robertson 6 – 3 Dott
Higgins didn’t win the first two frames. He didn’t want to. They were stupid frames and John Higgins was ABOVE THEM. (Maguire played snooker like he knew what it was. But I don’t care, because second rounds are ALL VERY WELL, STEPHEN MAGUIRE, call me when you bother to win a semi.) Higgins pretended to be interested in the third frame and scraped about a bit for thirty odd points then became tired. So yeah, he gave that one away too, whatever.
So it’s 3 frames down, so I start bothering to care. And Willie Thorne starts FUCKING LYING. John Higgins will have to be worrying. No he won’t. He’ll be panicking. No he won’t. “If it was normal he’d pot this” (no, he wouldn’t) “but three frames behind, things are not normal at the moment”. YES THEY ARE.
YES THEY ARE. JOHN HIGGINS PLAYS MOST OF HIS SNOOKER FROM THREE FRAMES BEHIND. I know that statistically that can’t be true, but SPIRITUALLY it is true.
Anyway. He won a frame. And then he lost some more frames, because Maguire pretended to know what he was doing and he is wearing blue, and I really like his shoulders, shut up.
So Higgins is 5-1 down, and Dennis Taylor is all “Surely he can’t win five frames in a row again” when he hasn’t even won ONE IN A ROW YET. SHUT UP, DENNIS, SHUT UP.
Higgins totally did win a frame to go to 5-2, and then Maguire didn’t understand the RULES OF HIGGINS’S BRAIN, so he got 60 odd points in the next frame. But Higgins just came and tidied up the rest of the points, and went to 5-3. I do love him. Despite EVERYTHING HE EVER DOES.
Then he won another frame as well. Mostly because Maguire is scared about winning things. But he (John) doesn’t deserve to win this, you can’t win EVERYTHING by just being rubbish and leaving it to the last minute. Someone eventually has to start teaching him that. Although Maguire doesn’t deserve ANYTHING if he lets this slip, so all my policies of not sticking up for anyone came into effect and I kind of collapsed. 5-4.
Then Maguire did a weird weird thing, and just won a frame of snooker. Against John Higgins. For the match. People don’t usually do that, do they John? But it is PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE, which is why some people – fools, I know – PLAY SNOOKER EVEN BEFORE THEY ARE THREE FRAMES DOWN. It’s just a SUGGESTION. It’s just a POSSIBILITY YOU COULD CONSIDER. I don’t care, you understand. It’s just a thought.
Anyway, yes. I am having a policy of being quite glad that someone bothered to beat John Higgins, and I like that it wasn’t Judd Trump, and I don’t believe Maguire has any intention of winning this tournament, but if he proves me wrong that’d be nice.
Dott and Robertson was a pretty good match I think from the corners of my eyes. It was sad. Dott didn’t manage a coming back thing any better than John did, and Robertson potted things and generally didn’t lose. I’d like him so much better if he lost things.
So yeah. Higgins and Stevens out on the same day. Snooker’s so loving.
