Doubling Up · Issue 872, by Jon Hillard

Neil Fairbrother adds the Cuefactor title to his growing trophy cabinet

CLUB CHAMPION Neil Fairbrother added more silverware to his trophy cabinet by winning the Snooker Club’s inaugural Cuefactor League. Fairbrother topped a very tight Premier Division by just a single point, beating talented fresher David Blake into second place.

The Cuefactor League was new for 2008 and started in February when the 24 entrants were drawn into four random groups of six for phase A. The players would then play everyone in their group over four-frame matches using the Cuefactor handicap system. Points were awarded for each frame won, with a further bonus point for winning a match outright. After these group matches were finished, the players were split into three divisions for Phase B depending on where they finished in their respective groups.

Red Group winner Ben Chung set the early pace in the Premier Division, recording 3 – 1 wins over Blake and Ben Davies and 2 – 2 draws with Fairbrother, Rupert Taylor and Masters Champion Shaun Hill. These results, together with a 3 – 1 loss to Blue Group winner Dev Chadha, saw Chung finish with a decent total of 15 points. All those 2 – 2 draws would ultimately cost him in the end.

Chung scored breaks of 55 and 39 against Chadha and Davies respectively, while Chadha notched up breaks of 33 and 31, and Hill a break of 44 against Chung. Hill would add further breaks of 39 and 30 during a 3 – 1 victory over Chadha. Despite losing 3 – 1 to Fairbrother, Blake would move into the lead on 16 points after impressive 4 – 0 victories over Taylor and Chadha and 2 – 2 draws with Hill and Davies, with Blake recording breaks of 43 and 32 against Taylor and Hill respectively.

Hill would dent Fairbrother’s hopes, beating him 3 – 1 before adding a 2 – 2 draw with Taylor to move onto 14 points with just one game remaining. Fairbrother moved on 15 points after 3 – 1 wins over Chadha and Taylor meaning it would all come down to their results against Davies.

Hill would lose his unbeaten record by falling to Davies 3 – 1, leaving Fairbrother needing just two frames to overtake Blake, and it would go right down to the wire as Davies took a 2 – 1 lead against Fairbrother. Then when Davies scored a break of 33 early in the final frame it looked like Fairbrother’s hopes were fading fast but he used his trademark safety game, remarkably stopping Davies from scoring another point, to win the frame and the title. Blake still looks set to pick up the highest break prize for his 67 against Jason Baxter in the Green Group of Phase A.

In the First Division, Dan Peacey and Huw Davies both finished on 20 points and will have to play a best-of-five play-off for the title. Both matched the other’s results, both beating Bikram Banerjee and Richard Jones 4 – 0, Matt Cheng 3 – 1 and recording 2 – 2 draws against Joe Merola and Andy Kusiak, and drawing 2 – 2 with each other. Merola finished a narrow third on 18 points, again matching the results of Peacey and Davies except for a costly 2 – 2 draw with Cheng.

Dom Osborne was crowned Second Division champion as he swept aside his opponents, recording four 4 – 0 results before finally dropping two frames when drawing 2 – 2 from a 2 – 0 lead against title rival Jon Hillard. Hillard was also unbeaten but the odd dropped frame cost him in the end.