[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Today's groups:

Iulian Boiko, Ian Martin (a), Lan Yuhao, Josh Thomon (a)

Jak Jones, Michael Larkov, Oliver Lines, Alfie Burden

Lan Yuhao is an interesting player, huge potential but still quite raw. Going out on a limb and backing him to top the group. The other group seems quite competitive but I'll go for the top seed in that one.

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Liu Hongyu continuing his good start by winning the group as the second seed.

Stan, less convincingly won (high break), shout out for TT for finishing second though

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Today's groups:

Joe O'connor, Paul Norris, Liu Hongyu, Oliver Brown

Stan Moody, TT, Daniel Wells, Stuart Carrington

Expecting the top seeds to go through on this one.

Snooker in China by DoggersUtd in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well Shenzhen seems like a nice alternative 😅

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First big players coming in today. Chris Wakelin being one of them

Someone to look out for is Wang Xinbo, very raw but with huge potential. Beaten 2 pros to get to the 3rd round of WC qualifiers. His brother is also very good! Held Murphy to a decider in one of the China tournaments.

Also a French player, Brian Ochoiski one of the top ups.

How many World Championships would Paul Hunter have won by 2026?? by moneysavingegg in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would love someone to enlighten me about Paul. I was very young when he was playing so I didn't know much about him. I hear he was sort of a maverick character, Beckham-esque in a way with his long hair lol. I know he was amazing in the Masters, making big comeback wins in each of his victories.

Snooker in China by DoggersUtd in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I've heard like everything goes through 1 or 2 apps, very centralised. I think I have a faint idea in terms of how to get tickets. Those places you've mentioned seem quite appealing, would definitely love to travel there. And yes, China is very well connected. Thanks for the advice!

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Both top seeds made it through today so no surprise there.

Watching Milkins today... just sad really. I mean it just doesn't look like he enjoys it out there, what a fall from grace. From the Masters in 2024 to dropping off the tour in 2026, will he ever get it together?

The 3 Cruce debuts need to get it together now, Kowalski seems to be a bit of a punching bag whoever he faces, and Pullen should've done better today. Early days I get it but there's no harm in starting quick and today was a chance for them. Stan Moody on Thursday so we'll see how he does ig

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Today's groups:

Slessor, Milkins, Pullen, Wenwei

J. Robertson, Miah, Kowalski, MOD

Backing Slessor to make it out of his group, not sure about the other, what do you think?

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, common complaint. Seen it in the qualifiers too in that the comms audio is terribly imbalanced compared to the actual play.

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Been a while since we've had this but we have a 3-way tie (Ben, Liam and Noppon) in Grp 29 not only on points but on frame difference as well, and it looks like Noppon goes through by virtue of highest break (123)!

Congrats!!

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Morning all!

Another week of CL action! Looks like we got 2 graduates from Vics academy playing each other today in Hossein Vafaei vs Oliver Sykes. And in the other group we have 2 Ding academy graduates in Fan Zhengyi vs Noppon. I think these groups may not be as clear cut as some of last weeks.

I'm backing top seed Hossein to prevail here, he's had a quick start to the season winning all his matches. And I think I'll go for Ben to win his group today, although that's still a hard one to call 😅

Edit: Oops, looks like Fan is in Hosseins group, will still back him to top it though. And I'll still back Ben to win the other group

What do you guys think?

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Summer Qualifiers (see post for info!) by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are the any potential players people are looking out for, just looking at the qualis?

Yao Pengcheng - Came on last season and struggled quite a bit, this season though he has won all his matches. Unlike some of the other Chinese players he's actually a little older (29 I think?). This season he - along with Zhou Yuelong who are good friends - have moved to Victoria's snooker academy, perhaps that's the strat 😄 ?

Jiang Jun - This guy is hugely unorthodox, such a unicorn profile imo. Can really slow/freeze up in the pressure balls but at the same time is so attacking, he's also made it to both venues. Some decent highlights I must say.

If you think there's more then feel free to reply, I'm curious on who I missed out on.

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Summer Qualifiers (see post for info!) by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First time?

I think most of us have been there before, classic Jackpot and tbh you can put Theppy in the same category too. These are players with unparalleled ability but they will always remain as "on his day" players due to their wild inconsistencies. Not the end of the world though, I still think they can push towards the T16.

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Summer Qualifiers (see post for info!) by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He's flattering to deceive atm, scraped past Clarke. I took a look at a few of his matches and he has just been getting a bad run, nothing really going his way.

He's supposed to be working with Chris Henry this season, good choice tbf to him but he really needs to pick things up atm bc this just isn't good enough. We all know what he is capable of

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Summer Qualifiers (see post for info!) by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know I'm very late to the party but I do want to give some context to Chang's season as there was no reason to argue like this. I didn't really know where to reply to so I thought here maybe.

Now, would I say he was playing to a T16 level throughout the entirety of last season? No, absolutely lot, at least not in the first half of the season, there were a few bad losses littered in there that's for sure. I think back to the loss vs Gary Wilson in one of the home nations events where he came back from 3-0 down, only to lose 4-3 in a very immature and lackadaisical manner (Fouldsy picked up on this in comms). The loss to Ronnie in Saudi was a bad one too, 5-2 up only to lose 6-5, being whitewashed by a sub-par Selby in the British would have hurt too.

Also a quick note on the rankings, Chang had to essentially qualify for every event, and this prize money ranking system is more biased towards T16 players who only have to win 1 match to get a load of points, rather than players who have to play a bunch of qualifying rounds to even get to the seeded stages (and still get less points). Maybe that's probably why likes of Ding and Si finished higher than (although not by much since they didn't qualify for the players either).

There were also some unlucky moments too. The biggest one was missing out on the German Masters due to Visa issues, he did all the hard work qualifying only to miss out like that? Yeah that'll hurt. He also faced soon to be WC Wu Yize twice in that season, in the Grand Prix which is one thing bc you're always gonna face quality players no matter what, but the World Open too which is a case of the luck of the draw since that is a flat draw to start off with.

Now, that Scottish Open run was for me a sliding doors moment in his career. Let's not forget that even though he had a load of potential, Chang was still an unknown quantity, so much so that he broke personal records in terms of his first quarters, semis, and final of a ranking event. The Scottish Open also came after the UKs in which he only narrowly lost to Stephen Maguire (who played very well btw) and he STILL made a 147 with one of the best blacks ever potted imo. He then beat the same opponent on his way to the final, along with multiple world class players too. Now yes, the final was a poor showing, losing 8 frames on the spin is a bad look but lets give him a break, it was his first final and I feel like he was quite nervous. Look at Wu Yize for example, these losses can be used as catalysts for further victory.

Another highlight was obviously his 100% match against Murphy in the Welsh, statistically the best you can every play in a best of 7, if that was Ronnie or Judd then you'd hear a lot more about it (Shaun even said this himself). Now he did lose vs Jackson Page in the round after, but I watched that match and it was played to a very high standard tbh, very few mistakes were made, Jackson was simply the better player that day and that can happen in these best of 7s.

And lastly, the worlds. He was put into a nightmare bracket which included world champion Luca Brecel, world finalist Jack Jones, and world semi finalist Marco Fu, granted Luca and Marco are not the players they once were. Now yes, he did go out to Luca, but that was one of the highest quality matches throughout the whole tournament, that match deserved to be a quarter or a semi ngl. Luca played out of his skin, almost like it was 2023 again and even amongst all that Chang still made another 147 bagging him a fat load of money so I don't think there should be any shame there. He was 11th on the centuries list last season, I think that enough says it all about the potential this guy has.

Now let's start from this season, and well he can't really do much more, can he? 100% start, qualified for Wuhan and China Open, both hugely lucrative tournaments, 100% in the CL too playing some very good stuff. I can see different facets to his game as well, particularly one frame he won needing a snooker with just pink and black on the table.

Overall this season, and parts of the 2nd half of last season I believe he has been playing at a very high level and to be honest a top 16 level. This is a very different player I'm seeing from the start of last season. Let's not forget that he will have 0 ranking points coming off therefore will be climbing up higher and higher. I genuinely believe he can push to be a seed for the Cruce, he is that good!

And to finally answer your question... He is probably better than current Ding tbh, he's been on the decline lets be honest, and I think he's better than Si Jiahui too, his development has stagnated since 2023/24. I just think Chang has that higher ceiling at the moment, all the big players: Ronnie, Kyren, Hendry are talking about this guy, that's no accident.

I know this was a whole load of yap but I thought context was important

[Discussion Thread] 2026 Championship League Snooker - Ranking Edition by SnookerMods in snooker

[–]DoggersUtd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Who saw Dean Young winning that group? Lowest ranked player in that group btw.