Shooting from the Hip
The Snooker Shootout has become a regular event on the snooker tour calendar with past winners including Nigel Bond, Michael Georgiou and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. The Watford based tournament is fast and frenetic as all 128 players are pitched against each other in a hybrid form of snooker and pool that attracts a noisy audience and produces an unexpected winner at the end of the few days played. The creation of this tournament has attracted praise and criticism, especially with the recent addition of it being classed as a ranking event with valuable points attached to the winner. Born out of the Pot Black and Power Snooker formats, the Shootout has managed to survive and has prevented the other two from making a comeback. As excitement builds for this competition next week, I would like to argue the case for this fixture and why it should remain part of the calendar. Having been a snooker fan for over thirty years, I have seen many changes in snooker with players and tournaments crash a