The first round of the UK Championship continues on Wednesday with 24 more matches at the Barbican Theatre in York as a number of big players look to book their spots in the second round of the historic event.
The matches will be played across three sessions of play with eight matches in each session. Among the star names on show are Mark Williams, Shaun Murphy and Judd Trump.
The highlight of the morning session is Mark Williams’ clash with Hamza Akbar. That is one of the matches on the streamed tables. The other one sees Ricky Walden taking on Itaro Santos. As with all matches they are over the best of 11 frames.
Williams is a warm favourite to progress. He arrives here off the back of a run to the final in Hong Kong last weekend so is in good form. His opponent isn’t used to these conditions so this should be a good opportunity for the Welshman. That said for the big names this first round is all about winning rather than winning big so I don’t want to take a big handicap here.
There is one bet I like in the morning session. Mike Dunn takes on Thailand’s Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon who apart from a run in Thailand has done nothing of any note this season.
Mike Dunn has been around the block and while he rarely challenges at the business end of events he is rarely beaten this early. The handicap line on Dunn is -1.5 which looks favourable to me. We would need Dunn to win this no worse than 6-4 and I expect him to win much more comfortably than that.
Moving into the afternoon session and Shaun Murphy is the centre of attention. He takes on the improving youngster Ashley Hugill in a match the former world champion is expected to win convincingly.
I expect him to win convincingly too but as with Williams I’m reluctant to get involved in any big handicaps at this stage of the tournament. The other match that is streamed in this session sees Joe Perry taking on James Wattana.
Twenty years ago Wattana would have been more than competitive in this match but time has caught up with him and that’s no longer the case. In saying that the Thai is still capable of the odd big break which puts me off any handicap.
One match which the bookies have as level is the one between Rory Mcleod and Jamie Cope but I don’t see it that way. Since Mcleod won a European Tour event he has offered little of any note. I think he could be vulnerable to the improving Stoke potter.
Cope has had his issues through the years but the signs are that he is coming out the other end from that. He has a win over Neil Robertson this season and as we saw a couple of weeks ago that is never easy to achieve.
You can get even money on Cope to win this match and I think that is where the value lies in the afternoon session on Wednesday.
In the evening session all eyes will be on the wonderful Judd Trump. Trump begins this tournament as the favourite to win it and will be widely expected to ease past Hammad Miah. Miah isn’t the best player going around and he is unlikely to cause too many problems for the left hander but again the handicap is quite high and offers little interest.
Just one match interests me from a betting point of view in this session and that is the one between Aditya Mehta and Sam Baird. Mehta is competent but rarely does the business in the big events.
Sam Baird keeps on improving and we’ve seen him deliver in big tournaments in the past. He will fancy a run in this tournament as he comes here in good form and importantly he is scoring well. I believe that scoring power will ensure he gets the job done here.
Back M.Dunn (-1.5 frames) to beat T.Tirapongpaiboon for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Titanbet
Back J.Cope to beat R.McLeod for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back S.Baird to beat A.Mehta for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Skybet
