ITV4 currently showing the inaugural Powersnooker tournament.
To be honest, for something meant to be fast paced and appealing to the youth, half an hour hasn’t dragged so much for a long time.
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ITV4 currently showing the inaugural Powersnooker tournament.
To be honest, for something meant to be fast paced and appealing to the youth, half an hour hasn’t dragged so much for a long time.
Incidentally, I found myself watching all two or three episodes of Big Break that are on YouTube recently. Wish there was more up, it’s quite fun to watch (if for no other reason, I like Jim and John’s constant banter). It’s a bad show to watch right before bed though, that theme song gets embedded in your brain way too easily.
Ding Junhui talking in English, though! Bless; I hadn’t seen that before.
Great episode of You Bet! repeated on Challenge this morning. One challenge saw a 17-year-old memorise the identity of every UK top 20 chart hit in a chart published in the 1980s, then supply the name of a hit and its singer based on the date at which it peaked and the position at which it peaked. He had to identify a number 1 hit, a number 2 hit and so on through to a number 20 hit.
The final stunt was one of the most spectacular I can remember seeing on the show. A hot-air balloon ascends to 15,000 feet, containing two parachutists. The hot-air balloon starts descending and the parachutists jump out. The parachutists quickly open their parachutes and start descending in long, loopy circles, trying to descend as slowly as possible. The hot-air balloon then descends quickly to try to overtake them on the way down, then tries to control its descent to match that of the parachutists. The bet was that the parachutists could get back in to the hot-air balloon basket in mid-air. One managed it, though he collided with the basket with a hell of a whack. The other was a few feet out, and managed to get his parachute tangled up in the basket. This was scary… well, at least it scared me; the parachute could have got tangled up with the burners and caused a baleful fire which would have been very difficult to manage. (I’m sure they all had reserve parachutes, though.) An extremely expensive-looking and spectacular stunt, though – in truth – not quite as spectacularly presented as perhaps it might have been.
The other unusual aspect of today’s repeat was that of the five stunts, four failed. I’d rather see a stunt succeed than fail, but there’s always the suspicion that the contestants are challenging themselves to succeed at a level lower than their absolute personal best. (Any time limit ending in 15 or 45 seconds seems suspiciously safety-margin-y to me in this regard.) Clearly no issue in this regard on today’s show.
Power snooker doesn’t go far enough. It needs to borrow some more features from pinball and introduce…
…MULTI-BALL.
(Lock the yellow and green in the far two pockets to open up the hitherto covered-up central hole in the middle of the table, then pot the black for the SUPER JACKPOT and every shot made wrong-handed scores three-and-a-half times points.)
It’d be a great day for snooker, and a great day for pinball.
That headline looks mighty familiar… 🙂
Having watched a bit (alternating with the darts) it just feels like doing something different for the sake of doing something different. The rules aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but it’s nothing that’s critically unsound. Though as Ali Carter proved there will often be a time reached where it’s impossible for the other guy to win so you’re just passing the last few minutes because you have to. Not that that’s any different to, say Uni Challenge of course.
The problem is the presentation. It should be 30 minutes of action, not 7 minutes of action then an ad break, then another 7 minutes of action then an ad break. The bright red carpeting in just part of the floor from the regular camera shot needs a serious rethink, as does the relatively indistinct colouring of the powerball. I stand by my smeared with tippex comment.
It’s probably got a place, given a bit more thought about the presentation, but certainly not as a ranking event.
I am loving the audience yelling though. It’s nothing you’d see in the Crucible, and the fact they let them do it is brilliant.
How to improve Snooker was one of the rounds discussed on the very first editions of Five Live’s Fighting Talk – when it was hosted by Johnny Vaughan. The two that scored the most points where make one random red in each frame slightly oval, so it rolls around oddly – or use hampsters as goalkeepers for the pockets.
My thoughts on Power Snooker. I find the shouting more noticable tonight, and it’s getting annoying, to the point that good shots are not even being applauded that much. That though may have more to do with ITV Sport kicked a few extra decibles into the ambient mics during the 5-6pm break in play.
The format isnt that bad. I’ve always liked the idea of accumulated scores to decide a game. Couple of extra tweaks for the next time I would introduce.
* Points for fouls on the white should be deducted from the foulers score and added to the opponent.
* Points scored from when the white is in the Powerzone during a Powerplay should be trebled.
* Any player who pots all the colours to close out the frame should be rewarded with 20 point bonus.
I’ve just got round to watching the rest of Power Snooker. It definitely got better. I enjoyed the way that the audience developed their own oooooOOOOOOOHHHHHs for not just the powerball, but also the brown. Didn’t particularly enjoy the way people chanted “cheat, cheat, cheat” at anyone who used a rest or an extension.
Am not completely sure about the audience shouting. There’s a part of me that thinks I’d really enjoy it and a part of me that thinks it would feel disrespectful. But if everyone knows to expect rowdiness, what’s not to like?