The Numbers Game
The home hero of 2021 reaches his favourite venue six days out, with zero wins in MyiCue's season records and four straight defeats behind him. Belfast gets to answer the question.
The Northern Ireland Open returns to the Waterfront Hall on Sunday, and Belfast's home champion of 2021 arrives with his season in reverse: four straight defeats, no wins anywhere in MyiCue's records, and a city wondering whether the crowd can still lift him. The numbers, the memory and the debate, in one place.
Four tournaments. Four opening-round defeats. Zero wins. In MyiCue's season records for Mark Allen, the column that matters most is the one that reads nothing at all: since Hossein Vafaei beat him at the China Open on 11 August, not a single recorded result has gone his way.
The run, in order: Vafaei at the China Open in August. Michael Holt in Wuhan Open qualifying. Sam Craigie in the first round of the English Open. Then Ben Mertens in Shenzhen Open qualifying on 28 September, which made it four from four. None of the four is a journeyman - Holt and Craigie are seasoned tour professionals and Mertens is one of Belgium's brightest young players - and that is precisely the point. Between August and late September, every kind of opponent found a way past a man who has been a fixture at the top of the game for more than a decade.
Frame scores for Allen's matches are not yet recorded in MyiCue's match history, so the raw data tells the shape of the story rather than its detail. Even the shape is stark enough.
Mark Allen's season to date, and the home tournament waiting at the end of it.
Consecutive opening-round defeats in MyiCue season records: Vafaei, Holt, Craigie and Mertens, from 11 August to 28 September.
Wins anywhere in MyiCue's recorded season data for Allen, which reaches back to early August.
His 2021 Northern Ireland Open final defeat of John Higgins at the Waterfront Hall, the night he lifted the Alex Higgins Trophy.
The Northern Ireland Open opens at the Waterfront Hall on Sunday 18 October and runs to Sunday 25 October.
Players in the Belfast field, per MyiCue's tournament records.
World numbers one and two, Zhao Xintong and Wu Yize, lead the field that Allen's form must confront.
The Waterfront Hall has seen Allen at his very best. In October 2021 he beat John Higgins 9-8 in a final that went the full distance, sealing his maiden Northern Ireland Open title and lifting the Alex Higgins Trophy in front of the crowd that knows him best. Sky Sports reported the first prize that night at 70,000 pounds; no number could capture the noise.
That is the memory Belfast brings with it every year. The question this October is different: not whether the crowd remembers what Allen can be, but whether the version of him that arrives on Sunday can still find it. Four years on from that night, the gap between the trophy on the sideboard and the results column has been the story of his autumn.
Every recorded result of Allen's season to date, live from MyiCue's match history - most recent first. Judge the home hero on the evidence.
Frame scores for Allen's matches are not yet recorded in MyiCue's match history.
Analysis, not prediction - but the numbers frame the challenge. The Belfast field does not ease anyone in: MyiCue's tournament records put the world's top two, Zhao Xintong and Wu Yize, alongside defending champion Jack Lisowski and a Judd Trump who swept through Shenzhen before running into Wu. For a player without a win since early August, the first rounds are treacherous.
Form is not fate, and the tour is full of runs that ended the week nobody expected. Sijun Yuan lost his Belfast qualifier on 15 September and was playing a ranking final 19 days later. If the Waterfront Hall crowd is worth anything, it is this: it has turned close matches for Allen before, and there is no stage in snooker closer to home.
The honest answer is that the data cannot tell you which Allen arrives. It can only tell you what he is arriving from - and for now, that is a season with nothing in the win column.
Allen is not the only Antrim man hoping the Waterfront crowd can change a season. The Belfast Telegraph reported this month that Jordan Brown is targeting another special NI Open run on the back of home support - and MyiCue's records show his autumn has been lean too, including a 4-0 first-round defeat by Judd Trump at the English Open.
Two Antrim men, one crowd, the same question: can Belfast lift its own?
MyiCue members can make their Belfast cue order entry until Saturday 17 October - the cut-off before the Waterfront Hall action begins. Put your reputation on the line, then vote in the poll below. We will revisit the verdicts when the trophy is lifted.