We have had the qualifying events for two tournaments to open up the new snooker season but the first full tournament gets underway on Monday when the ranking version of the Championship League starts out inside the Mattioli Arena in Leicester.
Ali Carter got his season off to the perfect start when he won this tournament a year ago and the Englishman is back to attempt to defend the title in a field which is devoid of a number of big names. The format makes it wide open anyway but the field this year makes it even more so.
Recent Winners
2024 – Ali Carter
2023 – Shaun Murphy
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 YouTube.
The Favourites
Shaun Murphy rarely misses a tournament these days and he isn’t absent from this one either and The Masters champion from earlier in the year is the 8/1 favourite to win the competition. Murphy looked good in the one qualifying match last week and there isn’t a tournament which he doesn’t take seriously. The only question marks over him here is whether you want to take a short price in a format as quirky as this one. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he is around on the final day but in this format the price is too short for me.
Luca Brecel and Barry Hawkins are next in the betting at 12/1. You would be taking a leap of faith that Brecel shows up having withdrawn from the two qualifying events last week but even if he does there is no guarantee he’ll arrive with his best stuff, which even he would need. Hawkins is generally on the scene of every event he enters but he been known to work his way into a season. Even if he hits the ground running the price is a little on the stingy side given the format so neither of this duo interest me too much I have to say.
The Chinese pair of Si Jiahui and Wu Yize come next in the outright market at 14/1 and while they are still a little shorter than the prices I would want to be on at, we do at least know that both are going to give this a good go and will have practiced hard before it and won’t exit through not taking it seriously. I expect big things from both of these men this season but this is a tournament where I seek out more value than a 14/1 shot which puts me off taking either of them over the next few weeks.
There are three other players in the outright market who are shorter than 20/1 and they all come in at 16/1 on the best prices. They are the defending champion Ali Carter, Joe O’Connor and the former Shootout winner Chris Wakelin. Carter might well be bang up for this as he’s the man who fell out of the top 16 when Zhao Xintong won the world title and so the more points he gets here the quicker he can rejoin the elite. O’Connor is another who could easily win a tournament and he’s on home soil here while Wakelin can never be ruled out either, although I like him least of the three here. Once again though it is just the price which is a question mark.
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Profile
This is the sixth 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 in 2022 while Shaun Murphy, Mark Williams, Robert Milkins and Sam Craigie made it two years so that trend continued and then last year you had the likes of Ali Carter, Jackson Page, Mark Williams and Dave Gilbert. 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’ve got three bets for the tournament this year, a main bet, a mid-range bet and an outsider. The main bet comes in the form of Gary Wilson. I do think that this is a bit of a crossroads period for Wilson who has made no secret of the fact that he has issues with his game at the minute but he scored well and played well in the Wuhan Open qualifying earlier in the week and having just dropped out of the top 16 he might be more motivated to take this event seriously for the ranking points that comes with it and to find something in his game to take to the bigger events this term. There are worse bets at 25/1 than him.
I’m very keen to have Zak Surety on my side as much as possible this season and that is going to begin with this tournament. He finished last term very well with a run to the semi-final of the World Open where he really should have beaten the eventual winner John Higgins but he then qualified for the World Championship and scored brilliantly well towards the end of the campaign. Surety has picked up where he left off with wins in both of his qualifying matches this week so he is already building up some nice momentum and I want him on my side in this too.
Louis Heathcote will be my outsider bet for the tournament. He is another who has won both of his qualifying matches earlier in the week and I read that he is being mentored by Anthony Hamilton which is a good man to have on his side. I also read in the same interview that he has moved in with his partner and that should also motivate him to take the game seriously. He has never had a talent issue so if he takes it seriously there should be good things happen for him. He is on home soil in this event and could be a huge price.
Tips
Back G.Wilson to win Championship League (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back Z.Surety to win Championship League (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with Unibet (1/2 1-2)
Back L.Heathcote to win Championship League (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with Unibet (1/2 1-2)
