A New Maximum For Snooker

Global Snooker has ‘unofficially’ launched an exciting new tournament that many believe will put the Twenty20 factor into the sport.

ONEFORSEVEN is being branded as Snooker’s ‘New Maximum’, an innovative incarnation of tournament snooker that can condense all of the action of a major snooker event into one-day.

A player will take on seven opponents, each for twenty-one minutes. At the end of the allocated ‘147-minutes’, the player with the highest score will be deemed the winner.

Two-times world champion, Mark Williams MBE is backing the idea and will be one of the stars competing in the first event at the Welsh Institute of Sport on December 21.

Williams was at the rehearsal event to see his practice partner, Andrew
Pagett lift the first ever ONEFORSEVEN title and set a new ‘world record’ in the process.

Pagett amassed 558 points in seven frames winning by over 60 points despite losing three of his four frames.

“It’s a great idea,” said Williams. “It’s really different, and I am looking forward to challenging for the first ONEFORSEVEN title in Cardiff.
“Other sports have different style of scoring; golf has stroke-play, match-play and stableford so this is our equivalent. I think it could really catch on in the clubs too”.

ONEFORSEVEN cleverly combines the essence of pure snooker with the
demands of a twenty-first-century sporting event, where people don’t want to wait two-weeks to know the result.

The major change from events like The Crucible’s world championship is that the points will be the commodity most valued by its competitors and not frames.

Neil Tomkins, a former professional and Managing Director of Global-Snooker said, “The revised scoring system will encourage an attacking style of play, which will make for an attractive viewing spectacle. We have also tweaked the rules a little, but only to ensure the continual flow of play”.

The action will centre on a four-table, open plan arena providing the
audience with the opportunity to see eight of the world’s best players at once.

The atmosphere will be different from the hushed silence normally associated with top-class snooker. At last nights event, spectators were encouraged to ‘turn their mobile phones on’

Global-snooker’s intention is to make ONEFORSEVEN as much about the audience experience as that of the player’s.

Snooker was once the most popular on television with over 18.5 million
famously tuning into the final of the world championship to watch as Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis in 1985.

However, earlier this year there were calls from the likes of world number one, Ronnie O’Sullivan for Simon Cowell to put the X-Factor into the game.

Twenty20 came along in 2003 at a time when cricket was struggling to attract live audiences to county and international matches, but before long the shorter matches were filling stadia around the country.

“We have looked at existing events and witnessed that the latter stages of World Snooker’s tournaments and events like Matchroom Sport’s Premier League are well attended. We listened to what the fans were saying and decided to try to develop a format that could essentially provide a one-day version”, said Tomkins.

Global Snooker believes that ONEFORSEVEN can sit alongside the purist form of the game and help to introduce snooker to a brand new audience.

The Cardiff date will involve some of the world’s best players competing for a prize pot of twenty five thousand pounds.

Home favourites such as Williams, Matthew Stevens and Ryan Day were all at the launch and have already agreed to play with further players to be announced in the coming weeks

Another example of ONEFORSEVEN putting the X-Factor into the sport is
through its series of satellite events or ‘auditions’ with places at the Live Show up for grabs.
For more information on how to enter see
www.globalsnooker.com