Snooker Betting: Everything you need to know about the 2009 Championship League

Snooker / David Hendon / 06 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

They're playing for £100 a frame, the eventual winner gets to play in this year's Premier League, you can make up to £80,000 from it and it features the likes of Stephen Hendry, Ali Carter, Mark Selby and Ding Junhui. And you can watch it all on Betfair Live Video, says David Hendon.

The Championship League will provide the perfect pre-Wembley Masters warm up for a number of top players and it promises to be an extremely competitive event. The new League was set up last year and is streamed live here on Betfair from Crondon Park Golf Club, Essex. Click on http://livevideo.betfair.com/ to watch the action.

There are seven groups, each featuring seven players. The winner of each group goes into a final eighth champions' group, the eventual winner of which is invited into the highly lucrative Premier League next season. Players who finish second to fifth in each group are invited back for the next one and are joined by three new players, so a total of 25 will be in action over the coming weeks.

And any player turning down the chance to play in it must need their head looked at. At £100 per frame, this is like being paid to practice against some of the best cuemen around. Not only is it a financial boost in tough economic times but it also affords players the opportunity to toughen up their games as the season enters its most important phase, with the World Championship just three months away. Ask Ali Carter.

This time last year he had figured in just two ranking event semi-finals in 12 years on the tour. However, he had a good run through the Championship League, picked up just under £30,000 and headed to the Crucible full of confidence and match sharp. He made a 147 on the way to the world final against Ronnie O'Sullivan and has since appeared in three semi-finals from the five ranking events this season.

Joe Perry is another player to benefit from the League. He came through the pack to win it last year and went on to beat O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Stephen Hendry in the Premier League itself. His total financial reward for all this was not far off £80,000.

The first seven-man pool on Monday and Tuesday will inevitably be described - certainly by me in commentary - as a 'group of death.' It features Carter, Perry, newly crowned UK champion Shaun Murphy, world no.4 Mark Selby, the ultra consistent Ryan Day, Chinese star Ding Junhui and seven times world champion Hendry, whose participation is a stamp of credibility for this new venture. The snooker legend is not one to be grubbing around in something that's not worth his time. But he faces a real battle to survive past the first two days, not least because all the other players in the group, with the exception of Ding, played in the League last season and are used to its format.

Each match in the round robin phase is over four frames. There are three possible results in each match: a win for player A, a win for player B or a draw. This adds up to five possible match scores. A study of last year's results reveals that 4-0 whitewashes were relatively rare. There were a number of 2-2 draws but 3-1 tended to be the most common scoreline. The top four in each group go through to a best-of-five frame semi-final followed by a best of five final.

There are two tables with 12 matches each day, starting at 11am. This is a sprint compared to most tournaments and perfect for the likes of Murphy, Selby and Day, who competed in hundreds and hundreds of junior tournaments over such a short distance not so long ago. I'd expect all three to feature in the group one semi-finals and Perry is in good form of late - having beaten O'Sullivan at the UK Championship - so he would be a good bet to make up the other place.

On Wednesday, Mark Williams, Mark Allen and Barry Hawkins enter the fray for group two. Williams looked good at the UK Championship and is precisely the sort of player who could win the Championship League because he tends to adapt to any format. Indeed, though there are many more players set to compete later in the season, I'd be surprised if the overall winner wasn't one of those in action over the first four days.