Eight weeks after Luca Brecel lifted a famous world title, the new snooker season begins on Monday as the Championship League Snooker kicks off the 2023/24 campaign with a whole host of players looking to take down the first tournament of the term and take the riches which come with it.
This tournament launched a brilliant campaign for Luca Brecel last season, one which saw him end as the world champion. He isn’t around to defend the title so those who have entered will be looking to emulate his achievements.
Recent Winners
2022 – Luca Brecel
2021 – Dave Gilbert
2020 – Kyren Wilson
2020 – Luca Brecel
The Format
The whole tour are invited into the tournament with it now having ranking event status. The 128 player field have been split into 32 groups of four in the first round. Each group is a round robin with everyone playing everyone else over the best of four frames with two points for a win and one for a draw. The player who tops the group goes through to the second stage where the 32 remaining players are split into eight more groups of four over the same format. Those eight winners then go into two more groups where the winner of each will battle it out in a best of five frame final for the title. Two groups will be played on each day until the final day when the Championship groups and final are played. The tournament is being shown on Viaplay on TV and on Matchroom.live.
The Favourites
There is a bit of a lottery approach to this tournament which is highlighted by the fact that it is 8/1 the field this year. Ronnie O’Sullivan has entered the event and he is the favourite to win it although we sometimes see that by the time it comes to actually playing in it he has changed his mind. He did speak in a recent video on the Stephen Hendry YouTube channel that he was going to play more regularly so he isn’t losing a competition edge but that remains to be seen. He’s more than capable of winning this but a month is a long time for him to lose interest.
Judd Trump had a poor 2022/23 campaign by his high standards despite winning The Masters at the beginning of the year. It is pretty well known that he likes to enjoy himself in the off season, which he has every right to do, so just how in tune he will be when it comes to playing in this tournament remains to be seen. He is already in the Champion of Champions so he doesn’t need to go well in this like some do so the 9/1 feels a little short on Trump.
Neil Robertson would have been the third favourite this week but he has pulled out of the competition which leaves Kyren Wilson in that position at 12/1. The last we saw of Wilson he was getting bashed up by John Higgins at the World Championship when it looked like he had cue problems. He was on the Stephen Hendry YouTube channel recently and his cue had been done but he did say he has been taking it easy. He is a former winner here and can’t completely be ruled out but I don’t really want my dough on someone we know might not be up to speed.
The only other players in the betting are both 14/1 and they are Mark Williams and Shaun Murphy. We know that Williams enjoys his summers on the golf course so he is easy to rule out. Murphy isn’t as simple to ignore being the professional that he is but after the season he has just had I sense he will have his eyes set on bigger things than this. Murphy will take this seriously but he plays a game which is more vulnerable over four frames so he isn’t for me.
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Profile
This is the fourth time this tournament has been run in this format so we have a little bit of a guide to go by and the four players who made the final group in the first event were: Luca Brecel, Ben Woollaston, Stuart Bingham and Ryan Day – four pretty attacking players who are decent under pressure, score heavily and get in from distance. The second year had the likes of Judd Trump, Zhou Yuelong, Kyren Wilson and Zhao Xintong making the final groups while Brecel, Xintong and Bingham were in the final groups last year so that trend continued. They are all prepared to take risks as well and that is the sort of player I’m looking for in this.
I definitely think this is an event for the scorers rather than the safety playing plodders and of course in the previous events we saw a few groups decided by the highest break so I certainly wouldn’t want to be on someone who can’t score that well. In an ideal world we would have someone with a good long game and a bit of a snooker brain but we’re not going to get everything I guess. Definitely the scorers for me.
Betting
I’ll go with three in this tournament to begin the season. The first of those is Robert Milkins who has the taste for winning now and I see no reason why he can’t get the season off to a positive start. He will know he is probably in his prime years for winning and although he doesn’t have any Champion of Champions issues having qualified already through winning the Welsh Open, he can do his ranking no harm with a deep run here. Milkins scores heavy when he is in, can get in from range but he is quite clever. I think he’ll have a big campaign and that can start in style in this tournament.
Si Jiahui broke through at the World Championship last month and probably should have made the final of that as a qualifier. He didn’t but he certainly enhanced both his reputation and I would suggest his confidence as well. We know the Chinese players are diligent when it comes to practicing so we shouldn’t have any issues about him being ready for the tournament. We saw in the World Championship just how good he can be and if that near miss has fuelled the fire then I would imagine he will be tough to beat here even in a bunch of four frame shootouts.
Finally I saw an interview in The Metro with Oliver Lines where he said he has taken the off season seriously and been putting the work in and wants to see the fruits of his labour as opposed to going on holiday and living it up in that period. Lines has always had the talent but even by his own admission in that interview he hasn’t always had the application but he said he was working with someone now to make life on tour more enjoyable and is seeing a difference already. Players who we know have attacked the practice table in the lead up to this tournament immediately jump up my shortlist and at 150/1 I’ll pay to see whether his practicing pays off.
Tips
Back R.Milkins to win Championship League Snooker (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back S.Jiahui to win Championship League Snooker (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back O.Lines to win Championship League Snooker (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
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