By Elliott West
Introduction
As snooker gradually opens its wings and flies further across the globe, Thailand hosts the latest tournament on the snooker calendar, the Six Red World Championship. Thailand like China knows how to put on a big event and treat the snooker players involved as if they were walking down the red carpet for an Oscar ceremony. All the stops are pulled out with handshakes, dancers and a whole host of Thai dignitaries in Pathum Thani near Bangkok, held at Thammasat University Convention Centre. They even put on a military parade, granted by the King of Thailand. Even the trophy had its own ceremony, a bright and golden trophy that had its own almost shrine at one end of the arena. With a total prize fund of one million Thai Bhat and a British sterling equivalent of £120,000 to the eventual winner, it’s not surprising that most of the familiar faces have decided to make the flight and compete including Ronnie O’Sullivan with Shaun Murphy dropping out at the last minute.
Six Reds is essentially the same as traditional snooker minus six reds from the pack. All the same snooker rules apply but of course, in a best-of-nine-frames format, the frames are much quicker and your opponent can quickly punish you for your mistakes. While we are on the subject of mistakes, I will strongly criticise the decision to omit Mark Davis from this year’s tournament. He has won this tournament three times. I know World Snooker, the WPBSA and the Thai event organisers want to showcase other players but this is a mistake and I am sure that Mark, although he wouldn’t say it publicly, must be very upset by the decision. Mark then decided to get in his car and drive to Bruges instead and spend two days with Chris Henry on an intensive two-day coaching course.
Grand Surroundings
I was most impressed by the World Six Red Wimbledon Championship venue, plush, bright and once you get used to the pre-match ritual of cotton garlands presented to the players, the protracted pause before the start of each match and the voiceover commentary from Eurosport, tinged with the Thai dialogue from their television network transmission, then this quite an exciting tournament. Thailand has had a strong association with snooker for many years and so it is fitting that there is at least one tournament here in the snooker calendar. The players love it because even if they are knocked out of the event at an early stage, they still get the rest of the week to soak up the sunshine and the culture along with a smattering of snooker.
Fast and Furious
This is an event that suits the fast players. Once you are in, you need to kill off the frame to freeze your opponent out. So it is not so dissimilar from the Shoot Out, except over a longer frame format and without the din of the audience participation. So expect good runs from the likes of Hossein Vafaei and the Thai local heroes Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Noppon Saengkham, Dechawat Poomjaeng and the reigning champion, Stephen Maguire is already out on Day 1, beaten 5-2 by Zhang Anda and Judd Trump seems to be settling in, producing a 5-0 whitewash over Ricky Walden.in Group D. Look out for Stan Moody. Other early match losses include John Higgins, Mink Nutcharut and Jimmy White.
The Big Four
It will also be interesting to see how the big four fair. With the elite of snooker being frozen out of most of the season, they really need a springboard to prepare them for the rest of the season including the looming World Championship. Perhaps this event will bring out their form even though it is non-ranking and a slimmed-down version of snooker. Time is running out for the likes of Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump with a strong possibility that all four players could be missing from the Tour Championship in Hull at the end of March. The cut-off point for qualification comes after the WST Classic, a new tournament that replaces the Turkish Masters, an event that may even be binned like the Gibraltar Open after UK and Turkish organisers failed to seal an agreement on funding. Long gone are the days when top players could instantly qualify for tournaments and so there will have to be a seismic shift to see these players once again ruling the roost, possible but not inevitable. Only O’Sullivan and Trump are in Thailand this week for the Six Red World Championship. Watch out for a situation in Thailand where the ultimate winner could even be a player who failed to qualify for the tournament but was brought back as a top-up player.
