The Snookerbacker Blog

The setting for the Championship League - A unique event

Monday sees the return of the Championship League, the season long tournament which eventually sees the overall winner guarantee their spot into the razzmatazz of the Premier League.

Now, it’s a strange old thing this Championship League, the format is enough to have Einstein scratching his head in confusion and the setting, well the setting….it is held at Crondon Park in what looks like someones living room.

The players are swamped in huge leather chairs which in some cases make them look like midgets and at regular intervals a kindly old lady walks in with little regard for the man at the table, brandishing a feather duster and some tea and biscuits for the players and the referee, (always an extra biscuit for ‘that nice boy Ali Carter and that foreign boy Marco, he’s so far away from home he must miss his mum, can’t understand a word he says but he’s got such a lovely smile’ ) – anyway for the uninitiated, I’ll try to explain the format and what’s happened so far below.

Each group is made up of seven players, each play each other once in a best of five frame match, meaning that each player plays six matches and a table is formed based on the results of these matches. For every frame they win in a group they win £100. When the games are finished the top four players move on to a semi final and final format, the player in fifth lives to fight another day and moves on into the next starting group and the two that finish sixth and seventh are eliminated from the event. Clear as mud.

So far we have seen four groups, the winners in order, have been Stephen Maguire, John Higgins (another one who usually gets an extra biscuit), Judd Trump (who won the event overall last season) and Marco Fu. We have had to say a tearful goodbye to:  Shaun Murphy (the old lady didn’t like him ‘just something about him’), Ryan Day, Mark Selby, Ronnie O’Sullivan (who finished bottom of his group AND she didn’t like him either ‘very rude’), Joe Perry, Stephen Hendry, Liang Wenbo and King of the Custard Creams Ali Carter. 

Any chance of a Jammy Dodger?

There are two groups this week and Monday and Tuesday sees the following doing battle; Mark Williams, Peter Ebdon, Jamie Cope, Neil Robertson (who since Ali left is now the old lady’s favourite), Ricky Walden, Barry Hawkins and Big Dave Harold (the old lady thinks he’s a cheeky fella but she has a soft spot for him). 

It tends to fall under the radar of some this event but the prize money is not to be sniffed at, as well as the £100 per frame from the groups, the losing semi-finalists in each group receive £1000, the losing finalist receives £2000 and the winner pockets £3000 and promotion to the lucrative Winners Group where they play for £300 a frame, £3000 for losing semi finalist, £5000 for losing finalist and £10,000 plus a Premier League spot for the winner. Since it’s inception, Joe Perry, Ali Carter and Mark Selby have all earned over £30k from this event alone, in Joe’s case having won it the first time around nearly £50,000. So given the sparcity of events at the moment and the fact that John Higgins only picked up £35,000 for winning the Welsh Open, it is well worth the players taking this seriously and it’s clear that they do (apart from Ronnie who knows he’ll get the Premier League gig anyway).

Bet 365 are amongst the live streamers

In terms of betting opportunities, it is priced up by most of the bookmakers and the matches are streamed on some of their websites, Betfair, Bet 365 and William Hills are three of whom have the live streaming and commentators include the legend that is Clive Everton, the excellent Neal Foulds and the extremely knowledgeable Dave Hendon. 

A few of the bookies will price up the outright winner of the group in advance and I generally have a go on a couple of the players at this stage, in the hope that they will both make the semi-finals and I’ll have the chance to lay off. But be careful, a few groups back I had a bet on Judd Trump to win in the outrights with Bet 365, he won the group but then lost in the overall final. Surprisingly, I got paid out as he won the group whereas most of the firms pay out on the overall winner. Don’t get me wrong I was happy, but it did make me wary to check whether I was betting on the group winner or the winner overall.

'I never touched it - honest' Beware the pitfalls of trading and don't leave your whippet alone with the laptop for a second.

There is also obviously match betting both at the bookmakers and on the exchanges. A few times last year when I found myself with nothing better to do I just played with a few quid on the exchanges by laying the winner of the first frame in every match and then looking to trade (last year they played best of 4 so the draw was an option – this year, happily they have dispensed with that). It seemed to prove a fairly decent tactic on that occasion in a kind of ‘make a few quid without really being that bothered kind of way’ but I wouldn’t go in heavy on the exchanges on games like these by any means.

It’s quite relaxing to watch if you just like snooker and having a small bet on it always adds to the enjoyment.

I’ll have a look at what the bookies have to offer in the outrights and post up a prediction (NOT a recommendation – I’m not wrecking the tipping percentage for this!) later on today.

More info and results as they happen in the Championship League can be found by visiting the excellent Global Snooker website link below.      

http://www.global-snooker.com/championship-league-snooker-2010-main.asp

Right, I’ve now had a small bet on this. Sportingbet are betting on the outrights and I think for the first time the player to finish bottom of the group (The Wooden Spoon market). So I have gone with two players whose confidence should be high after the qualifiers in Jamie Cope (5/1) and Barry Hawkins (8/1). Cope is a very strong practice player and fluent break builder and may take to this like a duck to water. Barry is 8/1 and is capable of beating anyone, so I’m looking for these two to finish top four. For the Wooden Spoon I’ve had an interest on Ricky Walden (7/1), who is likely to be down in the dumps after his defeat to Rod Lawler last week left his chances of a top sixteen spot next season hanging by a thread. It’s the chance you take that the form of the previous week translates to this, but it doesn’t always work that way. The logical choices to win are Williams and Robertson, but they are too short for me.

Good Luck to anyone trying.

UPDATE – WEBSITES SHOWING THE CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE MATCHES:

Bet365 – Global

Betfair – Europe

Ladbrokes – UK/Nordics

William Hill – UK

Paddy Power – Ireland

Skybet – UK

Sportingbet – Europe (Excluding UK &Nordics)

Unibet – Europe (Excluding UK)

188bet – Asia

IBC Bet – Asia

Digibet – Germany

Betboo – South America