The final event of the season, the Holy Grail of the snooker calendar, begins on Saturday when 32 men battle it out in the World Championship with them all aiming to secure their dream of walking off with a huge £500,000 first prize.
Mark Williams famously walked off with the title last year and is back to attempt to make a successful defence of it but with so many top players coming into the event in good form, this promises to be one of the best renewals of the tournament yet.
Recent Winners
2018 – Mark Williams
2017 – Mark Selby
2016 – Mark Selby
2015 – Stuart Bingham
2014 – Mark Selby
2013 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2012 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2011 – John Higgins
2010 – Neil Robertson
2009 – John Higgins
The Format
I’m sure everyone knows the format by now but for those who are unsure of it, it is long course snooker all the way over this 17 day marathon. The first round is the best-of-19 frames which goes up to the best-of-25 for the second round and the quarter finals. The semi-finals at the best-of-33 frames and then the four session final will see a champion crowned on the third Sunday and Monday over the best-of-35 frames. The draw was conducted on Thursday.
Top Quarter
The defending champion is always the number one seed in this tournament which means that Mark Williams will head the top quarter. His defence of the title will see him having to come through a section which includes David Gilbert, Barry Hawkins and Kyren Wilson as seeded players, in what looks like one of the more open parts of the entire draw.
There are four men who came through the qualifiers in each of the quarters. Joe Perry is probably the biggest name of them in this quarter with the other three all perfectly capable. They are the Championship League winner Martin Gould as well as two of the debutants in Li Hang and Scott Donaldson.
Second Quarter
Neil Robertson arrives in great form having won the China Open earlier in the month and he is the leading seed in this second quarter. The beaten finalist of last year, John Higgins, is seeded to be his main danger to the semi-final but Stuart Bingham and Shaun Murphy will be out to put a spanner in the works as well.
We have two class acts and two debutants in among the four qualifiers in this part of the draw with the former champion Graeme Dott probably leading the way. Mark Davis made the final of a tournament earlier in the season and will be out to cause an upset here while Luo Honghao and Michael Georgiou will be making their debuts.
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Third Quarter
The three time world champion Mark Selby is the leading light in the third quarter. He has had a rotten year but needs a decent run here as he is defending the cash he banked when he won the tournament two years ago. Mark Allen is seeded as his potential quarter final opponent with Jack Lisowski and Luca Brecel the other two seeds in the quarter.
Ali Carter is a standout name among the qualifiers in this quarter of the draw. The twice beaten finalist has had a decent season and might be a dark horse. Chinese duo Zhao Xintong and Zhou Yuelong are both perfectly capable of causing upsets to the big names while Gary Wilson will be out to do some damage as well.
Bottom Quarter
The new world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan heads up the bottom quarter as he goes in quest of a sixth world title. This quarter is absolutely loaded with talent though with many people’s idea of the winner, Judd Trump, also being in this quarter. Stephen Maguire and Ding Junhui are the other two seeds with points to prove over the duration of this competition.
The first ever amateur to make it to the Crucible gets the headlines among the qualifiers in this section as James Cahill got the plum first round draw of O’Sullivan. We shouldn’t ignore the Shootout winner though as Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is in this quarter too. Anthony McGill and Tian Pengfei are the other men in this section.
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Outright Betting
I’ll go with three outright bets for this tournament. One main one and two that are overpriced. Neil Robertson is my main bet. I think he has everything going for him at the present time and in winning the China Open he got himself out of the bottom half of the draw and into the top one which is very much the place to be here. Robertson has won the Riga Masters, Welsh Open and China Open this season and in his last four tournaments only Ronnie O’Sullivan has beaten him. He wouldn’t face O’Sullivan until the final and that is even if the Rocket gets that far. Robertson has 78 centuries this term which highlights his scoring prowess is back and I think he has the bit between his teeth here. He’s my main bet.
I’ll also pay to see how far Joe Perry and Jack Lisowski can go in this tournament. Both men have found themselves in nice quarters and if the draw opens up in the other part in their half of the draw it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them on the final weekend. Lisowski made the final of the China Open recently where he played some awesome snooker while Perry is a former semi-finalist in this competition so he knows how to make his way to the one table set up. Perry only lost five frames in qualifying so he has warmed up for this nicely. Both look overpriced to me.
Quarter Betting
I’m also going to play Perry and Lisowski to come through their sections too because they both look certain to open up along the way and I’ll also play the bottom quarter, where I will take on Ronnie O’Sullivan with the man who has been something of a nemesis for him over the course of the campaign in Judd Trump.
Trump came of age in Northern Ireland when he beat O’Sullivan in a final there and to make sure people were aware it wasn’t a fluke he went and did it in Ronnie’s back yard in The Masters final too. Trump almost had a third long course win over O’Sullivan in the Tour Championship when Ronnie won an epic contest on the final black in the deciding frame of a pulsating match. I’ll take the 2/1 Trump wins the bottom quarter.
Specials
There are plenty of other markets priced up for the tournament but there is only two that interest me. The first is the total centuries where I don’t think the 84.5 line will be covered. I think for that to happen you’ve got to have high scoring qualifiers who aren’t going to wilt on the big stage and we don’t have that. The likes of Ryan Day, Marco Fu, Yan Bingtao, Liang Wenbo and Tom Ford were all knocked out in qualifying. The other thing we don’t need is a bunch of debutants who could get caught in the headlights and we have seven of them. With regular heavy scorers Ding Junhui, John Higgins, Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy all bang out of form I don’t see the scoring touching 85 tons.
One man who might get a few tons while he is in is Stuart Bingham. He is always chasing a few quid so I would expect him to chase the highest break prize so he is unlikely to take it easy when frames are won. Bingham made a 147 earlier this month in the China Open and that is good to have up his locker. History here tells us we might not need a 147 to land this market. There hasn’t been one since 2012 so any break in the 140s will have a chance. Bingham is a relentless century scorer so 20/1 on him looks a shade big.
Tips
Back N.Robertson to win World Championship for a 4/10 stake at 6.00 with Betway
Back him here:
Back J.Lisowski to win World Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back J.Perry to win World Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back Under 84.5 centuries for a 5/10 stake at 1.73 with Betfair
Back them here:
Back J.Lisowski to win 3rd Quarter for a 2/10 stake at 8.00 with Boylesports
Back him here:
WON – Back J.Trump to win 4th Quarter for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back S.Bingham to make highest break for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with Betfred
Back him here:
Back J.Perry to win 1st Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Skybet
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