About 60 players will feature at this year’s Cargo Stars Dar es Salaam Open snooker tournament, that will be held at the Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club (DGC) from tomorrow to October 10.
Players from six Dar es Salaam based clubs Upanga Sports Club, Annadil Burhani, Aga Khan sports Club, Patel Samaj Dar Brotherhood, Dar Institute and hosts DGC will battle it out for the top honours. DGC’s captain Nikhil Sangani told the ‘Sunday News’ in Dar es Salaam yesterday that preparations are on top gear to stage the three-week long tournament.
The game is played using a cue and 22 snooker balls: One white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each and six balls of different colours: Yellow (2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7).
Points are scored by sinking the red and coloured balls (knocking them into the pockets, called ‘potting’) in the correct sequence. A player receives additional points if the opponent commits a foul, wins a frame (individual game) of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent. A player wins a match when a predetermined number of frames have been won.
Sangani added that the Cargo Stars Ltd (CSL) of Dar es Salaam sponsored event will be played into four Groups A, B, C and D. “The winner at each group will advance into the semi-final and winner from that stage proceed into the final,” he said.
He said that in the group stages, players will battle it out in the best of three frames format, the semi-final will be best of five, while the final will be best of seven. Last time the final of the event was played in the best of seven format was in 2013, when US player Omar Balsara, who was based in Dar beat local top player Arjun Lavingia 4-3 in the tough competition. Arjun is expected to be among title contender, while Balsara has since left the country.
Veteran Raju Kanabar, who won the title in 2010 but become shadow of himself at recent events, is also expected test the waters for the honours as this is not handicap system tournament.
Other players to watch include up-coming Dhaivat Joshi and Abbas Yusufali who won the event last year and Mitesh Bharain, who is making the come back after missing several events.
Sangani and committee member Rupesh Soni thanked DGC’s Chairman Dioniz Malinzi, who is also the National Sports Council Chairman (NSC) for sponsoring the event every year through his company. He said: “On behalf of the committee, I want to thank Malinzi for his superb support, this is going to be a wonderful tournament and we are all grateful to him.”
By MBONILE BURTON, The New Vision