Snooker Shoot-Out - Day 1

It was the first night of the inaugural CaesarsCasino.com Snooker Shoot-Out tonight at the Tower Circus Arena in Blackpool. All in all there were 30 players on display and 15 matches. The highlights included: Ronnie O'Sullivan v Marco Fu and John Higgins v Mark Williams.

Tournament rules from the Snooker Shoot-out can be found here.

Many top players were in action, one of which has to be Ronnie O'Sullivan, who once again impressed. At the start of the event, Stephen Hendry said "I doubt there will be any centuries in this tournament" and he was eating humble pie by the end of the night as Ronnie performed a magnificent 113 break under the shot clock against Marco Fu, demonstrating that he is still the master of this type of event.

No one else made a century, but a few came close, one of which was John Higgins. After some terrific potting he nearly had made the century but just ran out of position in the end and missed a very tricky black, but still was a great break of 93 against Mark Williams. More of a surprise came in the shape of Leicester player Tom Ford in his victory over Stephen Maguire who he beat with a lovely break of 82, not even giving Stephen a look-in throughout the frame.

Quite a few of the matches went scrappy, none more so than Marcus Campbell against Jimmy Michie (32-21 to Marcus) and Andrew Higginson against Jamie Burnett (27-16) but to see so many players in one night was a good experience and it was nice to see young Jimmy Robertson making his television debut even though he lost 79-0 to Mark King.

Overall I probably enjoyed the format of this tournament over Power Snooker. The shot clock is quicker, the matches are quicker and you get to see so many different players in action. Sometimes the crowd were a bit over the top, but still nowhere on the level that they were for Power Snooker which was nice. What I did like was that the crowd were allowed to take photos and interact with the players whilst the match was progressing, to get more spectators into Snooker matches this must be allowed more often.

Top matches for tomorrow's session include Neil Robertson v Barry Pinches, Jamie Cope v Ken Doherty and the television debut of young Scottish prospect Anthony McGill against namesake Anthony Hamilton. Television schedules and full list of matches can be found here.

Behind the scenes and an interview with Ian McCulloch can be found here.

Full Results from Snooker.org:

	Ryan Day	71-34		Mark Allen
	Stephen Lee	62-34		Michael Holt
	Nigel Bond	46-24		Joe Jogia
	Fergal O'Brien	55-29		Stephen Hendry
	Robert Milkins	82-6		Martin Gould
	Andrew Higginson	27-16		Jamie Burnett
	Tom Ford	84-0		Stephen Maguire
	Dominic Dale	71-15		Ding Junhui
	Allister Carter	62-28		Jimmy White
	Alan McManus	72-26		Michael Judge
	John Higgins	93-7		Mark J Williams
	Ronnie O'Sullivan	113-0		Marco Fu
	Steve Davis	69-24		Peter Ebdon
	Marcus Campbell	32-21		Jimmy Michie
	Mark King	79-0		Jimmy Robertson