Prestatyn When you travel to Prestatyn in North Wales, don’t be surprised if you see a professional Snooker player or two wandering around looking a little dazed. Especially if the nights are drawing in and the weather has developed a bit of a chill to it. You see you will be in the midst of the Snooker season and these players are fighting for survival as a professional sportsman, points equal pounds and can mean the difference between seeing yourself as a pro and needing to find alternative work to feed the family.

Shanghai Masters - Dale v Day Cues n Views congratulates Dominic Dale on his stirring fight back from 6-3 down to win the 2007 Shanhai Masters 10 frames to 6.

The highligh of the final was a high quality 143 break from Dominic which gave him the impetus to take the frames needed to clinch his victory.

To sum up Dominic's week; he managed to get beyomd our ken (Doherty) in the first round from then on he went gunning for Gunnell, targeting a comfortable win. He then went on to face Dave reminding us of Harold (our old) times. In the semi he proved himself far from beyond his Selby (sell by) date cruising into his first ranking tournament final for ten years beating his practice partner making it a red letter Day for Dale's diary.

Billiards, a personal peep into the past I am now retired and live in Spain and have plenty of time to reflect upon nearly 60 years association with Billiards and Snooker and the opportunity to share some of my reminiscences with the readers of Cues n Views.

The origin of the game of Billiards The origin of the game of Billiards is very obscure, although many efforts have been made to trace its history, always without success. There are in existence a number of "theories" or "anecdotes" which endeavour to explain the origin of the game and the reader must choose whichever 'story" is preferred. One thing however is absolutely definite, it is an extremely old game which has gradually developed so that the present day game is completely unrecognisable from the original.

Collecting books on Carom Billiards Most British Billiard Book collections stick to English books, because apart from the odd Canadian, Indian, Australian and American (Phelan's game of Billiards, for example) books. All others are about the Carom or cannon game played on pocket-less tables.

Paul Hunter Yorkshireman Paul Alan Hunter began life on the Moortown estate in Leeds. He was born on 14th October 1978 and was to become one of the greatest sporting talents from the famous English county of Yorkshire. He first picked up a snooker cue and began to play the game at the age of seven, he was a natural from the beginning and it wasn't long before he would reach number four in the world rankings of the professional game.