Giants of the baize including Judd Trump, Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Shaun Murphy local favourite Mark Selby and defending champion Mark Allen will be in action at the World Grand Prix at the Morningside Arena in Leicester in January.
The prestigious event, with a field of only the best 32 players from the one-year ranking list, will run from January 15 to 21.
…
Player of the season so far Judd Trump gets the tournament underway on the evening of Monday January 15 in a clash with Jamie Jones. The opening round will also see blockbuster battles including John Higgins taking on Shaun Murphy and Mark Allen facing Jack Lisowski.
The full first round schedule is:
Monday January 15
7pm Judd Trump v Jamie Jones Chris Wakelin v Lyu Haotian Followed by Mark Selby v Yuan Sijun Ali Carter v Wu Yize
Tuesday January 16
1pm John Higgins v Shaun Murphy Stephen Maguire v Zhou Yuelong Followed by Gary Wilson v David Gilbert Hossein Vafaei v Matthew Selt
7pm Mark Williams v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Tom Ford v Jordan Brown Followed by Ronnie O’Sullivan v Pang Junxu Barry Hawkins v Cao Yupeng
Wednesday January 17
1pm Ding Junhui v Ricky Walden Noppon Saengkham v Xiao Guodong Followed by Mark Allen v Jack Lisowski Zhang Anda v Dominic Dale
The World Grand Prix is the first of three events in the 2024 Players Series, to be followed by the Players Championship in Telford in February and the Tour Championship at Manchester Central in April.
Following the massive success of the MrQ UK Championship, World Snooker Tour (WST) is pleased to announce MrQ as the new Lead Partner of The Masters, the sport’s greatest invitation event, to be contested by the best 16 players on the planet.
The MrQ Masters will run from January 7 to 14 at the iconic Alexandra Palace in London. Celebrating the 50th staging of this historic tournament, which was first held in 1975, WST is delighted to join forces with MrQ.com for one of the outstanding events of the global tour.
Popular UK-based online casino MrQ launched in 2018 and established a modern, easy to use platform to provide a fun and transparent customer experience.
MrQ’s first partnership with snooker came at the recent UK Championship in York. The event achieved tremendous viewing figures, with a peak audience of 2.6 million for the final on BBC, and a cumulative audience of 14.3 million across the event on BBC and UK Eurosport.
MrQ has now grasped the opportunity to join forces with WST again for another of snooker’s Triple Crown Series. The MrQ Masters will bring packed crowds to Alexandra Palace, with all standard tickets for the 2,000-seat arena sold out weeks in advance.
Judd Trump will defend the title, in a field full of giants of the baize including Ronnie O’Sullivan, Luca Brecel, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Mark Allen and many more.
MrQ’s Head of Acquisition James Booth said: “We were elated by the success of the MrQ UK Championship, we had not fully appreciated snooker’s vast reach and popularity, in terms of its live and television audience. We look forward to seeing this partnership taken to the next level at the MrQ Masters in London.
“We’re particularly excited about getting involved with the fan experience at Ally Pally, renowned as the best of its kind on the snooker circuit, including interactive games. As always we’ll be bringing an extra element of fun for fans coming for a great day out.”
WST’s Chief Commercial Officer Peter Wright said: “We’re delighted to develop this relationship with MrQ, our lead partner for two of the three Triple Crown events this season. Clearly they were amazed by the incredible atmosphere at the UK Championship and the exceptional data that came out of the event, so naturally they were very motivated to extend their relationship with a rapidly growing sport.
“We can now look forward to the MrQ Masters, which in recent years has increased its appeal to become one of the hottest tickets across London. We look forward to working with the MrQ team on this elite event.”
…
I can’t say I’m thrilled… you know my thoughts about bookies and betting in general. It’s a plague…
The 2024 Championship League Snooker line-up has been revealed on the event site.
This line-up will certainly change, it always does. As it stand Ronnie has entered the event, but in the last Group , Group 7.
This event is not everybody’s cup of tea (coffee for me, please) but I like it because the players usually play with a lot of freedom and it’s often very pleasant to watch.
10 thoughts on “More Snooker News – 20 December 2023”
The main problem with the Championship League is that the format is totally obsolete. Essentially nobody cares who wins or loses this endless barrage of matches not least who comes through the labyrinthian group stages.
The players don’t give a hoot either.
Also if anyone thinks that all of the advertised players are all going to appear they need to have a long hard look at themselves in a full length mirror.
I’m not for a second believing they will all turn up. And many of the top players entering it see it as paid practice in a relaxed atmosphere and a free lunch.
The problem is the calendar is congested because this tournament exists to keep the money coming in to WS coffers. But for the Champs League things could be spaced out more than they are.
All so the top players can pull out at short notice and get a free lunch.
How is this event fair for low ranked professionals?
From what I understood from Dave Hendon when discussing this some years back, this event is particularly lucrative for the bookies… and they are WST main sponsors. I have no reason to doubt David and, indeed, many of them stream it on their site. So, I guess, fairness to the lower ranked players is the lowest of their concern. And the format itself doesn’t invite at trying your best. Some players have made quite a bit of money by managing to play in several consecutive “groups”, always going deep but never winning them.
It goes without saying that the primary reason for the “massive success of the MrQ UK Championship” and the “tremendous viewing figures” was Ronnie making it to the Final. I think I read somewhere that the viewing figures were 59% higher for the Ding-Ronnie Final in 2023 than for the Ding-Allen Final in 2022.
Also, I hope Ronnie doesn’t play in the Championship League…
Why not? Basically most top players treat this as paid practice.
The main reason is that I care about Ronnie’s career match-win %, which would still be above 75% if he hadn’t lost a bunch of pointless matches in the various championship league events over the past few years.
That being said, there’s always a good chance he’ll win his first 3 matches in his group and then withdraw after that…
I see. Maybe it doesn’t count in the head to head. I have the inkling it doesn’t count somewhere lol.
Does it actually count to win/loss percentage?
Unfortunately, yes. Ronnie has won just 19 of his 35 matches in Championship League-esque events over the past 4 seasons. With those matches, his match-win % is 74.85: without those matches, his % would be 75.3.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
The main problem with the Championship League is that the format is totally obsolete. Essentially nobody cares who wins or loses this endless barrage of matches not least who comes through the labyrinthian group stages.
The players don’t give a hoot either.
Also if anyone thinks that all of the advertised players are all going to appear they need to have a long hard look at themselves in a full length mirror.
I’m not for a second believing they will all turn up. And many of the top players entering it see it as paid practice in a relaxed atmosphere and a free lunch.
The problem is the calendar is congested because this tournament exists to keep the money coming in to WS coffers. But for the Champs League things could be spaced out more than they are.
All so the top players can pull out at short notice and get a free lunch.
How is this event fair for low ranked professionals?
From what I understood from Dave Hendon when discussing this some years back, this event is particularly lucrative for the bookies… and they are WST main sponsors. I have no reason to doubt David and, indeed, many of them stream it on their site. So, I guess, fairness to the lower ranked players is the lowest of their concern. And the format itself doesn’t invite at trying your best. Some players have made quite a bit of money by managing to play in several consecutive “groups”, always going deep but never winning them.
It goes without saying that the primary reason for the “massive success of the MrQ UK Championship” and the “tremendous viewing figures” was Ronnie making it to the Final. I think I read somewhere that the viewing figures were 59% higher for the Ding-Ronnie Final in 2023 than for the Ding-Allen Final in 2022.
Also, I hope Ronnie doesn’t play in the Championship League…
Why not? Basically most top players treat this as paid practice.
The main reason is that I care about Ronnie’s career match-win %, which would still be above 75% if he hadn’t lost a bunch of pointless matches in the various championship league events over the past few years.
That being said, there’s always a good chance he’ll win his first 3 matches in his group and then withdraw after that…
I see. Maybe it doesn’t count in the head to head. I have the inkling it doesn’t count somewhere lol.
Does it actually count to win/loss percentage?
Unfortunately, yes. Ronnie has won just 19 of his 35 matches in Championship League-esque events over the past 4 seasons. With those matches, his match-win % is 74.85: without those matches, his % would be 75.3.