KARACHI: After successfully staging the Asian and World events of the baize game in the preceding years, the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) will focus on domestic activities at home besides sending the cueists abroad, according to its annual calendar.

Pakistan played host to the second Asian team event and third 6-Reds snooker in Aug 2014 and the IBSF team event and 6-Reds snooker last year.

The calendar envisaged half-a-dozen international events abroad for seniors and three for the juniors including the second world under-18 snooker championship that was launched by the world governing body of the game last year..

Contrary to last year, the PBSF has reverted to four ranking competitions in the domestic circuit this year.

Strangely, the prize money for the country’s premier snooker championship shows a meagre raise of Rs 20,000 and that too, for the winner alone and not in other categories.

A total prize money of Rs 2,52,000 was at stake last year and the winner was awarded Rs 80,000. Now the winner will get Rs 100, 000. The purse for the runner-up, losing semi-finalists, quarter-finalists, pre quarter-finalists and highest break remained unchanged.

Again a small amount of Rs10,000 has been set aside for the highest break performer.

Calendar:

41st National Snooker Championship at Karachi from Feb 15 to 17; three cueists to undergo training at CBSA Training Base at Beijing in March; 17th Asian under-21 snooker and 15th billiar ds championship at Colombo from March 1 to 8; NBP ranking snooker championship at Karachi from March 20 to 28; 32nd Asian snooker championship at Doha from April 16 to 23; fourth Asian team event and fifth 6-Reds snooker championship at Abu Dhabi from May 8 to 15; third ranking snooker championship at Karachi from May 18 to 25; IBSF world under-18 and under-21 championships at Brussels in July; IBSF world 6-Reds and team championship at Aswan, Egypt, in Aug; Sangsomn 6-Reds world championship at Bangkok from Sept 7 to 13; fourth ranking snooker championship at Karachi from Sept 18 to 25; first Asian continental billiards sports championship (snooker, pool and carom) at UAE from Sept 30 to Oct 8; IBSF world snooker championship at Doha in Nov and provincial cups in Dec.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016