2007 Northern Ireland Trophy draw

[rivercard]

..can be viewed on GSC:

http://www.globalsnookercentre.co.uk/files/Results/2007-8/07-8-Professional/2007-NItrophy-draw.htm

[Semih_Sayginer]

cheers river

:cool:

[Alex0paul]

Possible Day/Dale rematch in round 2 and Selby/Higgins in the round of 16.


Interesting

[rivercard]

It's also interesting that Kachaiwong was drawn against Tony Drago again. They played against each other in last years UK Championship qualifiers, and they should have played again in the Shanghai Masters qualifiers..
This is only Kachaiwongs second season on the tour and this will be the third time he will be up against Tony.

[PaulTheSoave]

Is it not because of the rather static ranking system which is in use? Having the last 2 seasons counting, the chance playing the same opponent is more obvious than having a ranking updated after every tournament. Maybe it is another argument changing the ranking system. New players would like to play different players in ranking tournaments to get more experience. Its also odd Day and Dale playing in such an early stage of the tournament as they were the last tournament finalists. Present form should be rewarded a bit more. Shake it up!

It's also interesting that Kachaiwong was drawn against Tony Drago again. They played against each other in last years UK Championship qualifiers, and they should have played again in the Shanghai Masters qualifiers..
This is only Kachaiwongs second season on the tour and this will be the third time he will be up against Tony.

[Monique]

To come up with a new system they would have to THINK Paul! And changing for a more flexible approach would probably cost them more work :eek:

While now we are in for yet another possible ROS vs Higgins quarter. Habits are quite reassuring :D

[snooky147]

Is it not because of the rather static ranking system which is in use? Having the last 2 seasons counting, the chance playing the same opponent is more obvious than having a ranking updated after every tournament. Maybe it is another argument changing the ranking system. New players would like to play different players in ranking tournaments to get more experience. Its also odd Day and Dale playing in such an early stage of the tournament as they were the last tournament finalists. Present form should be rewarded a bit more. Shake it up!

The present ranking system is fine in my opinion. Players are rewarded for consistency or lack of over the two seasons. Both Day and Dale will benefit if they keep producing the goods.
Leave as is!

[Semih_Sayginer]

would it not be possible to do similar to what PTS suggests and update rankings after each tournament, and use these updated rankings for each draw......but have the World championship draw for the end of the season (into the next year but same season) done at the start of the season


that way, wed know the worlds draw, or at least who is placed where, and where qualifiers are, and also get draws done on updated form for the rest of the tournaments

no/yes?

[Monique]

Do you think they would have enough time to organise that properly? Some tournaments are quite close to each other like the Grand Prix and NIT this year (2 weeks between the two and the qualifiers of the NIT start only 2 days after the GP)

[Semih_Sayginer]

Do you think they would have enough time to organise that properly? Some tournaments are quite close to each other like the Grand Prix and NIT this year (2 weeks between the two and the qualifiers of the NIT start only 2 days after the GP)

if the qualifying venues and dates are booked, then i dont see why not, if they get their bottoms in gear... ?

[snooky147]

Cant have your cake and eat it Semih, The whole idea of the rankings is to rewards consistency over a period, not to reward possible flash in the pan results and before everyone jumps on me I'm not suggesting for a second that Dale's win was a flash in the pan. In the terms of rankings however consistency over the season is what should be the number one priority not shuffling rankings after every tournament.

[Robert602]

It would still reward consistency just as much though as they could still be compiled over two years. They'd just be updated after every tournament rather than annually, like (I think) tennis. I'd quite like to see it happen, but at the moment I doubt it would be possible to schedule it. It'd be particularly difficult given that ranking tournaments (if you include qualifiers) often overlap.

At the moment, Dale's win last week counts for nothing, but his performance in the 2005 GP will continue to affect his seeding for the rest of this season, a factor that by the end of the world's will be nearly 3 years old. On the other hand Mark Williams' most recent semi final may be a distant memory and his top 16 place a lost cause when he walks into the crucible 2008 as 12th seed (he's yet to win a single match in 2007).

By the time of the world's the official rankings fail to take into account the 6 or 7 most recent ranking events and they fail to give us realistic seedings. By all means calculate rankings over a long enough period, but if they're that far out of date they lose a lot of credibility.

(If people want to continue this discussion feel free to do so here for now, don't worry about off-topic, I'll move the posts into a new thread if there's much more to be said)

[Sabina]

thanks for the draw, river!;)
Robert, I agree with you, the rankings are not properly updated and I think it's a big disadvantage for most of the players!

[snooky147]

Sorry Sabina and Robert, I tend to disagree lol. All these players worked hard over the years to establish a ranking based on consistency over two seasons. How is it just for someone say at number 6 to have 2 bad tournaments to fall out of top 16 and have to qualify when someone who has done very little over the period suddenly comes good and jumps up the rankings. It's done the way it is now because it's these guy's way of making a living, it's not a hobby. Rankings have to be over a period of time. If the Dales of this world keep up with the results they will be rightfully rewarded and if the top 16 dont perform they will be out. Simple as that.

[Sabina]

I can see your point of view, Snooky and I can see that there is a an advantage of this rankings based on the 2 years. However I still think that this has its disadvantages too.....

[PaulTheSoave]

Very good point! It takes them 8 months to develop the booking form for The Crucible. Impossible task!

Do you think they would have enough time to organise that properly? Some tournaments are quite close to each other like the Grand Prix and NIT this year (2 weeks between the two and the qualifiers of the NIT start only 2 days after the GP)

[Robert602]

Firstly, I don't think Dale would be top 16 even on a rolling system. He's just barely top 16 provisionally and I'm not suggesting provisionals become official, they're only compiled over a year and a bit and in present day snooker that's not long enough. I don't think an early Day-Dale or even Higgins-Selby meeting is something that could or should be deliberately avoided, and I probably disagree with Paul in that respect.

A 2 year rolling system wouldn't be significantly more volatile than the current system, it'd just shift gradually over a season rather than one big shuffle at the end. For argument's sake say NIT 2005 was a ranking event. Both the current system and a rolling system would take into account every tournament from the 2005 GP to the 2007 WC inclusive, thus recognising consistency, but the proposed rolling system would also consider Shanghai, and the current official system would consider instead NIT 2005. In my eyes the proposed system is truer to the ideals of the rankings, its only relative disadvantage being the practicality of scheduling.

It's still a two year system, so there'd be no danger of a no.6 dropping out after a couple of bad losses or of a flash in the pan getting into the elite group, but half a dozen good/bad tournaments would have an impact instantly rather than hitting at the end of the season.

This may be an aside but I suppose I disagree also that the rankings are there to reward the players. Ideally I think they're about putting the players in order of present overall ability, which should be a well defined mixture of current form and long term class (likelyhood of short term form coming back). Then the seedings are there to try to save the high powered matches until later in a tournament (for the good of players and fans).

[rivercard]

This may be an aside but I suppose I disagree also that the rankings are there to reward the players. Ideally I think they're about putting the players in order of present overall ability, which should be a well defined mixture of current form and long term class (likelyhood of short term form coming back). Then the seedings are there to try to save the high powered matches until later in a tournament (for the good of players and fans).

I like Robert602s idea in general (the rolling system), and I absolutely agree with this part.
I must say however that I can't see a real change in the current system, as it seems to me that the WSA is only interested in keeping as many ranking events as possible (which is a good thing) and changing the format of the Grand Prix every year (which I don't really like). A real reform like this is beyond them, I'm afraid.. I would be happy if they would prove me wrong though.

[missneworleans]

This draw look not bad, hope for an interesting tournament!

[peggy]

I think its going to be exciting :)

[PaulTheSoave]

Put it on then! Now I have got to browse and surf again!!

This draw look not bad, hope for an interesting tournament!