Sheffield, like Rome, was built on seven hills. There, the similarity ends, of course. Because Rome, for all its ancient history, architectural beauty and hot paninis, has never hosted a snooker tournament of any note.
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Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, on the other hand, has been home to the Embassy World Snooker Championship for 28 years. So when it comes to making hard cash from a sport that's regularly labelled 'one of the easiest to call - there's only two players, form counts for everything and you can't get a draw' (source: any local pub in Britain), there's no better place to be than in South Yorkshire, stroking your lucky rabbit's foot and flicking through the order of play.

Which is exactly where we find ourselves at 9am on 18 April, day three of the tournament.