The final week of the Championship League Snooker competition continues on Tuesday when another two groups get played out inside the Morningside Arena in Leicester as two more players will book their place in title day on Friday.
We saw a couple of upsets in the two groups that were played out to open the second stage on Monday and it might be that we get more of the same on Tuesday with everyone in action having already won a group to be here.
Group C
Fixtures
Stuart Bingham vs Ben Woollaston
Jordan Brown vs Jamie Jones
Jordan Brown vs Ben Woollaston
Stuart Bingham vs Jamie Jones
Jamie Jones vs Ben Woollaston
Stuart Bingham vs Jordan Brown
Preview
The action on the main table will have Stuart Bingham as the headline act looking to make it through to the next stage when he is the top seed in Group C. Bingham lost his first match in his opening group but still made it through but you would think he will need to start much better here because this looks a competitive group. It has the former Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown in it as the second seed while Jamie Jones is a very solid offering as a third seed. It has to be said that Ben Woollaston isn’t exactly a mug as a bottom seed, as he showed when he came through an opening group which included Mark Selby.
Group H
Fixtures
David Gilbert vs Michael White
Robert Milkins vs Xiao Guodong
Robert Milkins vs Michael White
David Gilbert vs Xiao Guodong
Xiao Guodong vs Michael White
David Gilbert vs Robert Milkins
Preview
The defending champion Dave Gilbert will look to get his title defence to the final day from Group H which will be played out on Table Two. This was his first ranking title so he’ll be eager to keep hold of it but he has a tricky test on Tuesday. The second seed in this group is Robert Milkins who is buoyed by winning the Gibraltar Trophy at the back end of last year. He won his first group nicely and then walloped Lu Ning 5-0 in European Masters qualifying. That form has been franked already with Ning progressing on Monday. Xiao Guodong is a seasoned campaigner as a third seed while Michael White is only a fourth seed in ranking alone. He is much better than his ranking suggests.
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Group Betting
I don’t think these groups are the easiest to bet on in the world. We saw on Monday that even the lower seeds can be competitive in these groups given that everyone has won one and knows the format and everything else and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we see something similar on Tuesday too. I certainly can’t get involved in the group on the main table. You can make a strong case for all four men in that so I don’t really want my hard earned tied up anywhere there.
Over on Table Two my gut instinct is that being the defending champion will spur Dave Gilbert into coming through but when Michael White is the lowest seed in it then that is another betting minefield. White impressed me in European Masters qualifying at the weekend and he could certainly cause a stir. When I bet on these groups I like to bet with the relative assurance that the player I’m on will win at least two matches but I don’t think you can claim that about any of them here so I’m happy to leave this one alone too.
Match Betting
I am happy to take one in the match betting though. That comes in the form of Jamie Jones to beat Jordan Brown. Brown was a little fortunate in his first group in that it became a three-man section so he played four matches but the same two players twice and one of those was Ross Muir who is a level below the top grade so I’m not really sure what to make of that. He won his European Masters qualifier at the weekend but he needed a deciding frame in order to get the job done so again you can pick holes in that, although to be fair Cao Yupeng is a tough nut to crack.
Jamie Jones cruised through his opening group with a couple of wins and a draw and he has also booked his place in the European Masters next month courtesy of seeing off Mark Davis over the qualifying section. On paper there isn’t much between these two players but I like what I’ve seen from Jones so far and I think he just has that edge on the scoring. That is shown in the head-to-head where Jones has won the last two away from the Shootout including in Gibraltar last season. The draw is a runner here so I’ll take that out of the equation and back Jones to come through.
Tips
Back J.Jones to beat J.Brown (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
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