skip to content

Monday 6th February 2012

MD Advisory In The Community

MD Advisory is pleased to be sponsoring Harry Irwin, a talented young pool player. 2009 saw his first attempt to enter the senior pool rankings. MD Advisory sponsored him through 2009 and 2010 and we are sponsoring him again for 2011.

Harry is ranked 73 for the 2011 season up from 80 in 2010.

Harry's summary on the 2011 Season

Tour 1 – Blackpool

The new season did not start quite according to script as high winds caused two overturned lorries on the motorway to Blackpool with traffic at a stand still. I was going to be late! Despite much attempted sweet-talking of the tournament director, I was unable to get my match time moved. I arrived so late; I had to get changed in the car outside the hotel and run straight in.

The rules go that your opponent is awarded a frame for every 10 minutes you are late. So I got to my match 0-3 down and starving hungry. I won the match 7-3 with quite a decent performance, so maybe I should try it more often!

I was up against good friend and top professional John Roe (ranked 34) next. We know each other so well and I think we both showed each other far too much respect in the first frame as it seemed to last longer than the whole of the rest of the match. John eventually won the first frame and went on to win the match 7-2. So I was out of the main competition.

In the "Club" competition, I had a bye in round 1 and a 4-0 win against Tony Cracknell in round 2. I then faced a tough match on the Saturday morning with Ian McMullan, but feeling relaxed and confident, I won it 5-3. I was now into the last 16 and more confident of going all the way, but I spoke too soon and lost 3-5 to Chris Alexander.

I played really well all through the weekend with just some very harsh slices of bad luck, which cost me key frames. Hopefully the luck will be on my side next time.

Tour 3 - Daventry

My first opponent at Daventry was Jordan O'Connor. It was a lucky start going 4-1 up without playing well at all. Jordan did then pull the game back to 4-4 but using my experience I managed to see the game out 7-5. Not playing well and winning is always good but it was definitely my worst performance on the tour. My game improved against professional Ben Swinerton (ranked 46) but it still wasn't good enough. Both of us performed under par but the balls were slightly on Ben's side and he pulled through a 7-5 winner.

In the Club, I had a very tough game first against Andrew O'Hara (ranked 56). I made a huge step up from my two earlier Tour games to win 4-2 and then I won my next game a comfortable 4-1. Now in the last 32 and playing better, I was confident of the next win, but it shows anyone can beat anyone in this game as the run of the ball played a huge part in my 5-4 defeat to Steve Crosbie (ranked 148).

This was a Tour to forget for me as I didn't feel I played anywhere close to my best. Improvement needed for tour 4!!