After a story laden UK Championship the snooker world heads to Gibraltar for the first time this weekend for the Gibraltar Open, the fifth European Tour event of the season.
With the PTC Finals confirmed for Manchester, on terrestrial TV in the UK and with a proper format there is suddenly much more interest in qualifying for the grand finale so this is likely to be a very competitive event.
With the seedings for this tournament done on the PTC Order of Merit the big names that are entering the event are all over the place which makes for some decent value and hopefully a good weekend of snooker.
The format for this event remains unchanged. The whole draw is the best of seven frames with the top half played down to the last 16 stage on Friday and the bottom half to the same part on Saturday. The event concludes from the last 16 onwards on Sunday.
As ever with these tournaments I’m going to play one man in each quarter in the aim of getting a couple of them through to Sunday where the tournament really kicks into gear. In a 128 runner field I’ll make sure I go with the bookies that are offering four places.
In the top quarter I really like Stephen Maguire once again. We saw him go well in the UK Championship and who knows what he would have done there if he hadn’t run into the very best of Neil Robertson in the quarter final.
There is no Robertson in this tournament so he isn’t going to come up against him here. We saw the Scot scoring really well in York and that bodes well for a tournament like this. With Rory McLeod the top seed in the top quarter and Robertson having withdrawn it is wide open for someone to come through.
Mark Selby would be a danger but at double the price I’ll take a punt on Maguire to make it through from the top portion of the draw for starters.
The two main seeds in the second quarter of the event are Mark Williams and Tian Pengfei so this is another quarter which could have a surprise winner and I’m certainly going to take a punt on someone at a big price here.
Dominic Dale has made a number of last 16s in these events this season and run into someone in form at that stage but there isn’t a big name in his quarter at all here so this could be the weekend he does some real damage.
Dale looked good in the UK Championship but just got touched off by Peter Ebdon in the middle stages of the competition but what has been impossible to ignore is how well he has been scoring of late. If he can continue to score well then he could easily push deep into this tournament at a rather big price.
Judd Trump is the main draw in the third quarter but it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Rod Lawler bores him out in the second round so someone in the other half of that quarter could be worth taking.
Ryan Day is the main seed in the top part of the quarter but you can take him on with someone and I’ll do so with Matt Selt. Selt went well in the UK Championship and while he didn’t always play brilliant snooker he showed he can win without playing well which will stand him in good stead going forward now.
Selt is no stranger to going deep in one of these tournaments having the final and the semi-final of a couple last year so that gives us some confidence and at a nice price we can get stuck into Selt to deliver another solid effort.
Ding Junhui and the world champion Stuart Bingham are the main players in the last quarter but they are on course to meet in the second round should Bingham come through his opening match so one of them if not both will be gone before the last 32 of the draw which opens that section right up.
John Higgins is another danger in this part of the draw but he’s played a lot of snooker recently and might be worth taking on. I almost took Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who must surely be due some luck from the snooker gods after his massive disappointment last week but that missed black might linger in his head for a while so I’ll go with someone else.
Tom Ford has already made the final of one of these events this season so he’s a big price at 100/1. He could run into Higgins in the last 16 but I’ll take my chances there. Ford was a frame away from the quarter final of the UK Championship last week. I still think best of 11s are a little too much for him but this distance isn’t and he can give us a solid run for our money this weekend.
Back S.Maguire to win Gibraltar Open (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 17.00 with William Hill (1/4 1-4)
Back D.Dale to win Gibraltar Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Boylesports (1/4 1-4)
Back M.Selt to win Gibraltar Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/4 1-4)
Back T.Ford to win Gibraltar Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Boylesports (1/4 1-4)
Blog snooker YTD: +82.43pts
