Online cue sports video done right!

What’s the deal with all the online pool?

Well, you may have noticed the new trend in 2008 of live streaming pool events. It all started with The Action Report challenge matches and live streaming gambling matchups at the DCC and Qlympics. Now they’ve been joined by a bunch of home brewed broadcasters.

If you want to see how streaming events should really be done, do yourself a favor and check out the UK Snooker Championships out of Telford, England. They’ve got nine days of high quality live programming in Europe. Some fellow in Western Europe has captured the feed and is relaying it to the rest of the world via JustinTV. This feed is currently allowing many Chinese snooker fans to follow their chap playing the English legend Steve Davis.

I’m here to tell you that the level of play is mind boggling, commentators are compelling, and the video production is of the likes we haven’t seen since the big IPT events of 2006. I watched a bit of it yesterday and saw an incredible exchange between Ding and Davis where the only way the former could win the frame was to snooker Davis two times with only the pink and black remaining. Ding properly hooked Davis several times and some were nearly airtight. Davis had to play swerve (masse’) kick shots on two occasions from about ten feet of cueball travel and hit the pink full in the face both times. Astounding!

Check out the streaming here.

It gets better. Look at the AZ like brackets only with tons of links to read up on the players.

Oh yeah, it gets even more sickening for American pool players. They are playing for a purse of £625,000 which is according to the currency converter $953,000! Due to the current economic meltdown this would have been more like $1.2 Million just five months ago. Don’t worry. The winner still gets the US equivalent of $150,000. This one tournament would plunk the victor just a notch above Ralf Souquet on the AZ money list.

Player Name Prize Money Totals
Ralf Souquet $150,514.00
Shane Van Boening $132,420.00
Darren Appleton $128,751.00
Niels Feijen $103,775.00
Mika Immonen $99,161.00
Dennis Orcollo $96,800.00
Francisco Bustamante $80,903.00
Alex Pagulayan $66,603.00
Chia-Ching Wu $66,250.00
Jian-Bo Fu $64,650.00
Karen Corr $61,000.00
Johnny Archer $60,745.00

Here are some screen shots to drive the point home.  This first one shows the high quality stream.  Smooth and clear video along with flawless sound.  Check out the viewer count.  I dare say that numbers like this have never been seen by one of the American streams.

The stream is near flawless.  Smooth video and perfect sound.

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Mike Davis winning $15k in a field of 167 yesterday in Reno.
Mike Davis winning $15k in a field of 167 yesterday in Reno.

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Playing for IPT-like money!
Playing for IPT-like money!

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Brackets and player links.
Brackets and player links.

Enjoy,

Mike


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