The World Snooker Tour heads back to Thailand for the first time in four years this week for the Six Red World Championship, a tournament which has been heavily impacted by the pandemic and the subsequent travel and quarantine issues.
This tournament was last held in 2019 when Stephen Maguire came up with the goods to win the title. He is back looking to defend his crown in what should be a decent event to get the sport back up and running in this part of Asia.
Recent Winners
2019 – Stephen Maguire
2018 – Kyren Wilson
2017 – Mark Williams
2016 – Ding Junhui
2015 – Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
2014 – Stephen Maguire
2013 – Mark Davis
2012 – Mark Davis
2010 – Mark Selby
2009 – Jimmy White
The Format
The 32 players have been drawn into eight groups of four for the first round of the tournament. The top two from each qualify for the last 16 with a winner from Groups A-D playing a runner up from E-H in a random draw. The opposite happens with the E-H winners. The group stages are the best of nine frames which moves up to the best of 11 for the last 16 and quarter finals. The semi-finals are over the best of 13 frames with the final being a best of 15 frame affair. As the tournament name would suggest there are only six reds on the table at the start of the frame rather than 15.
Market Leaders
Ronnie O’Sullivan is a surprise entrant into the tournament this week and the Rocket is 4/1 to win it. He was inspired by the arena when the tour went to Hong Kong earlier in the season and he’ll hope the same happens here because he isn’t in the Tour Championship at the end of the month so playing opportunities between now and his World Championship title defence in Sheffield are few and far between for him. If he fancies the job there is probably value in the price.
Judd Trump also lines up this week and he is another who is struggling to be at the Tour Championship so this could be his penultimate competitive week before the World Championship. He is 11/2 to win this title for a first time this week and certainly has the scoring power to do just that but whether the draw will map out as well remains to be seen. I wouldn’t want to be massively against him but at the price I’m happy to let him win if he is good enough.
Mark Williams is a former winner of this tournament and on the best prices he is 17/2 to get hold of the title once again. Like the two above him in the market, he also is unlikely to be competing at the Tour Championship so his competitive playing opportunities ahead of the World Championship are few and far between. There is no doubt he has the quality to win this thing again and if he wins his group, which isn’t impossible, then he could be hard to stop.
John Higgins won one quirky event last week when he retained his Championship League crown and he is 9/1 to win this tournament as well. Clearly he will be feeling good about his game and will look to build on the success of last week, especially as he isn’t anywhere near the Tour Championship. He showed last week that he can score and we know he has the tactical nous for this shindig but he is in one of the more competitive groups which might be a negative.
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Betting
I’ll take a player from each half of the draw this week. In the top half I like Hossein Vafaei who I think is ideally suited to these sorts of tournaments and should be ready to win again. He won the Shootout in fine style last season and has shown his best stuff at places like The Masters this season. Vafaei wants to become a serial winner and the best way of doing that is to clean up in these invitation tournaments. I expect Vafaei to come out of his group without too many problems and then from there if he can find his scoring boots he is more than talented enough to come through.
The other player I’ll go with this week is Robert Milkins. He is clearly on the crest of a wave right now and he is exactly the sort of player who can go well in a tournament like this. Mlikins has a more competitive group but if you look at the players who have won this event in the past they are all top quality scorers who are aggressive and I don’t think that is a surprise. You need precise positional play with the fewer amount of reds to go at and Milkins has that. He is a scorer on the crest of a wave and looks a big price at 20/1.
Tips
Back H.Vafaei to win Six Red World Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back R.Milkins to win Six Red World Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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