2007 World Snooker Champion John Higgins will be competing against Matthew Stevens on the first round of the 2008 World Championship scheduled to begin on April 19, 2008 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Last year’s runner up Mark Selby is put up against Mark King and other interesting duos include Ronnie O’sullivan vs.  Liu Chuang, Steven Hendry faces Mark Allen and veteran Steve Davis will play against Stuart Bingham. The World Snooker Championship draw was broadcast live, for the first time at the sponsors’  website 888. 

"Matthew is one of the toughest I could have got" Higgins responded to the draw that placed him against two-times World Championship runner up whose World Snooker Championship record includes zero first round losses. Ronnie O’sullivan, who won the UK Championship title when he was only 17, gets a chance to revive his teen spirit in his first round match against 17 years old Liu Chuang. The latter was thrilled to find out he was drawn to play against his role model. Mark King who has drawn Jimmy White out of the competition will be challenging Mark Selby, who at the 2007 World Snooker Championship waived the title after losing 13-18 to the Wizard of Wishaw.

The 2008/9 World Snooker Championship draw will be broadcast live on the internet for the first time in snooker history. Starting on 11 PM (European Time) with the pre-draw build up, the online broadcast will enable snooker fans from across the globe to know, in real time, who will play against who at this year World Snooker Championship. 

The World Snooker Championship itself will take place on April 18 – May 5, 2008 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Unfortunately, this year’s World Championship will go without our Jimmy White, who has failed enter the top 16 players after losing 3-10 to Mark King. If won, it was Jimmy’s 26^th World Snooker Championship, which is an impressive achievement as it is.

New World Snooker Tour

Snooker champion John Higgins is launching a new World Series of snooker tournaments. Consists of 4 tournaments, the tour will be hosted by different European cities including Moscow, Warsaw, Jersey and Amsterdam and will be expand to other parts of the continent for the next season.

Asian Billiards & Snooker Championships coming up

The preparations to the 7th Asian Billiards and 9th U-21 Asian Snooker Championships Asian Billiards and U-21 Asian Snooker Championships are at their peak. The notable snooker championships will feature 5 world championships and competitors from 16 different Asian countries China’s Hong Kong, India, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, are among them Vietnam. The hosting country, Myanmar is also sending five representatives to the competition including the country’s best billiards player Kyaw Oo. Both championships will be held at the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel on April 5-12, 2008.

Pakistan’s Junior National Snooker Championship - Results

Local snooker players Muhammad Afzal and Sindh’s Ahad Ali Khan has counted their 3^rd win in a row on the second day of Pakistan’s Junior National Snooker Championship, which took place last week at the Amir Bakhsh Billiards Hall in Karachi. Among the young snooker talents was son of former World Amateur Snooker Muhammad Yousuf, Azeem Yousuf who lost to Tahir Abbas 1-3. Top 2 players from each of the groups will move forward to the quarterfinals.

We all know where Jimmy White is, and if you are following snooker you can probably track Steve Davis too. But where are Alex Higgins, Kirk Stevens and Ray Reardon? Where do the snooker stars go after the cue ball has stopped motionless on the table?

Some of the names that ruled the snooker table at the time snooker ruled the world continued their dominance, struggling with the younger, more focused and highly achieving next generation of snooker while getting used to the smoking and boozing ban during official matches. Others, however, have grown apart from the snooker game and disappeared from the spotlight.

Kirk Stevens, for example. Throughout the first half of 1980s, he was a rising star in the pro snooker circuit. With his all white suite, white shoes, flaunting blond hair and inherent talent for snooker, the Canadian player was the poster boy of snooker. After semi-finalizing the World Snooker Championship for the second time at the age of 25, Stevens drop to the oblivion of snooker hasbeens has begun. Confession of cocaine addiction, accusations of substance abuse during the 1985 Dulux British Open final were the immediate catalysts for Stevens early retirement from snooker at the beginning of the next decade.

Where is he now?

Kirk Stevens returned home to Canada in the beginning of the 1990s. He worked as a car salesman for a few years and then returned to play snooker in local amateur league and won in several Canadian Snooker Championships, most recently in 2002.

Ray Reardon and Alex Higgins were huge snooker stars in the era that preceded snooker’s boom. Reardon won 6 World Snooker Championship titles throughout the 1970s. He remained ranked at number 1 at 50 and continued taking part in ranking tournaments. But not for long, in 1992, aged 60, Reardon has retired, leaving the scene to the younger generation of snooker, headed by Steve Davis and his likes.

Ray Reardon’s name has recently come up connected with Ronnie O’sullivan. Reardon serves as a mentor, advisor and supplemental father figure for the troublesome yet gifted young snooker champion.

Alex Higgins has probably the most puzzling disappearance story in snooker. Apparently, his outstanding achievements in the game (which includes winning two World Championships, one of them on his first trial) and undeniable skill were unparallel to his self distractive urge. Nicknamed "Hurricane", Higgins was involved in numberless controversies and violent incidences (which included head butting a tournament official and threatening to kill snooker opponent) that topped his excessive smoking and drinking (and womanizing and gambling). Currently, struggling with throat cancer, Alex Higgins stays out of the public eye.

The popularity of the snooker game was at its peak throughout the 70s and 80s decades of the previous century. That time, when the World Championship final was on TV, the streets of London were empty, top snooker champs were millionaires and young kids were dreaming about a professional snooker career (on baize sheets, of course).

Why blubber about it when you can take a look at this TV documentary:

Apparently, it all begun in 1969, with the beginning of color TV. The televised snooker tournament "Pot Black" was broadcast by the BBC and the viewers were fascinated by the reds and color balls dropping down the baize-covered snooker table. Some of the best snooker players in history made their debut television appearance on the show. Some of them, such as Ronnie O’sullivan and Stephen Hendry, appeared as young snooker prodigies at the junior version of the TV show.

The rest was history; snooker was so popular that even Steve Davis, the least colorful figure of all the 1970s-1980s snooker stars (but probably one of the most diligent and devoted pros) was said to appear on TV more than the prime minister. Hey, he even got a spitting image!

Next up: the inevitable decline of snooker and where are the 1980s snooker stars now?

Snooker history is short comparing to the history of billiards. According to the most accepted version of snooker history, the invention of snooker dates back to the end of the 19th century and referred to a British army officer who was stationed in India.

Snooker Ancestors

Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain is credited for the invention of the snooker game and for its distribution in England. Joe Davis is responsible for turning snooker into a professional sport and for forming the first World Championship (in which he also won).

Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain

By suggesting that the then popular game called black ball will be played with an addition of colored balls to the set of 15 red balls and a higher point value black ball, Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain has brought to life the game of snooker. Back then, snooker used to be played with 15 red balls, black ball, yellow ball, green ball and pink ball and the player who potted the colored balls had gained a higher score. The name ’snooker’ was borrowed from an English army slang used as an insult for young recruits. The snooker game was brought to England by the billiards player John Roberts who had met Chamberlain in India in 1885.

Joe Davis

About 30 years after the English billiards circle was introduced to the snooker game, the first amateur snooker championship was held. About a decade later, in 1927, the first professional world championship was organized by Joe Davis, until then an English billiards player. Joe Davis came to the first place in the 1927 World Championship and in the next consecutive Championships, until retired from the game in 1946. On the first world championships, the highest snooker break was 33. In 1955, Joe Davis was the first snooker player to achieve 147 maximum break.

More to come on the ups and ups in snooker history

Speaking of Jimmy White - the legendary snooker player who is about to play on Play89 online snooker tournaments is back on the news. This time, his luxurious car is making the headlines. White’s £120,000 blue Flying Spur Bentley was intentionally damaged: the brakes and suspension were badly damaged. The Surrey police are still investigating the case.

Two years after his involvement in an almost fatal car explosion, a routine service, which revealed torn and broken car brakes, saved Jimmy White from involving in another car accident. Though the result shows that the whirlwind’s car brakes were deliberately and thoroughly damaged, talking with People.co.uk, the world’s most popular snooker player said he cannot think of one enemy that can be responsible for this sabotage.

Snooker is played with a set of 15 red balls, 6 colored balls (yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black) and the cue ball. The object balls are unnumbered and each color has a different point value starting from the red=1 point, yellow=2, green=3, brown=4, blue=5, pink=6 and black=7 points.

The object of the snooker game is to get the higher score. The game ends when all the balls on the table have been potted legally, and the player with the highest score wins the game. That unless the game ended with even scores, in that case one of the players plays the black ball with the cue ball in hand, and the first foul or score ends the game. The snooker players scores points for legally potting the balls and for their opponents’ fouls.

How to Play Snooker on Play89?

When playing online snooker, the balls are already placed in their spots, so you don’t have to care about it too much. The same goes for the lag – the system names the first player randomly.

So, the online snooker game begins with the opening break shot, taken with the cue ball in hand within the half circle. The striker needs to cause the cue ball to hit a red ball (any red ball). If he succeeds, his turn continues. If fails, the incoming player can either continue shooting from the current position or ask the first player to strike again.

While the reds are still on the table, the players have to strike a red ball and a color ball alternately. The first ball in a turn must be red, and then color, and so on. Before playing a color ball, the striker must designate a specific ball and then cause the cue ball to hit the same ball.

Once all the reds have been pocketed, the rules change. From this phase and until the end of the game, each player on his turn has to strike the color balls in ascending order – from the lowest numbered ball still on the table and up.  

Snooker is an entirely different Olympic sport than pocket billiard games such as 8-ball and 9-ball. Played on a baize-covered table (12 footer on official tournaments) with 6, slightly narrower pockets, snooker is a rotation game, in which the players have to gather more points to win, by potting (=pocketing) the red balls and the color balls alternately, following specific game’s rules. 

In snooker, the cue ball is still the cue ball but the legal object ball is called  "ball on" and it can be "red" or "color", which has to be "potted" instead of pocketed. 

Ball on/On Ball – the color ball designated by the striker 

Break – the total score accumulated by one player. The highest snooker break is 147 

Color – any of the 6 unnumbered object balls: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. 

Cue ball in hand within the half circle/ Cue ball in hand within the D – the area defined by the half circle marked at the head of the table where the cue ball is placed on the opening break shot or after a foul 

Frame – one game of snooker 

In-off – when a player pots the cue ball (same as scratch in pool) 

Pot (v.) – to sink an object ball to a pocket 

Red/Reds – the group of 15 red, unnumbered object balls 

Snooker – not only the name of the most popular billiard game in the UK; the term snooker refers to situations when the cue ball is blocked (=snookered) by another ball therefore, the striker cannot play the ball on directly. 

Striker – the snooker player whose turn is to play at the table

You can start reciting these terms cause snooker is coming soon to Play89!

Next up, introduction to snooker rules

Play89 is happy to announce that the launch of its snooker platform is expected by the end of this week… 

• 4 different types of games:
  • Mini snooker – instant game played with 3 balls  
  • 6-ball snooker – fast paced snooker
  • 10-ball snooker – similar to 10-ball pool
  • Classic snooker – play 15 red balls and 6 colored balls 

• New and realistic snooker table and the same real-life physics we all have met when playing 8ball and 9ball pool on Play89 
• Weekly tournaments with Jimmy White… yes, yes, every Monday 20:00 GMT sharp, Mr. Whirlwind himself will compete against Play89’s most exquisite snooker players…