Riyadh Season Snooker Championship Betting Preview
(Featured image: Alamy Images)
Snooker heads to Saudi Arabia for the inaugural edition of the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, which boasts an elite field and some unusual quirks in its format.
Our snooker tipster Adam Drury (@AdamDrury1) runs through everything you need to know about this week's event and offers up two outright selections.
Bar the World Open qualifiers, snooker in 2024 is concluded in Saudi Arabia this week with the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship.
The world's top 10 players plus two local wildcards will compete over three days for a £785,000 prize pot, with £250,000 awarded to the winner.
The tournament was first staged in March 2024 when Ronnie O'Sullivan lifted the title, seeing off John Higgins, Judd Trump and Luca Brecel to win the inaugural event.
But that competition was memorable not so much for The Rocket's victory but for the golden ball, a shiny toy Saudi organisers have chucked into their event to make it that bit more noteworthy.
The ball is spotted on the baulk cushion, remains in play while a 147 break remains possible in each frame, and is worth a bonus 20 points for any player that pots it after the final black. Last season, a 167 break was worth $500k – this time, the prize has been doubled to $1m.
Exciting initiative or needless gimmick? Not for us to say.
Trump too short to back
Unsurprisingly, Judd Trump heads the betting for the title at 5/2 with Bet365.
The recently-crowned UK champion has already won the Saudi Arabia Masters this season and is seemingly able to win titles in first or second gear, let alone at his very best.
But Trump's side of the draw features world champion Kyren Wilson, probably his closest current challenger, and the ageless Mark Williams, who agonisingly lost that Saudi Arabia Masters final 10-9 and recently won the Champion of Champions.
Three genuine contenders having to fight each other off just to reach the final means the value probably lies in the other half.
In any case, best of seven matches all the way to that showdown, which is only best of nine, are too unpredictable to confidently back a clear favourite.
Who will make their Mark?
Mark Allen v Mark Selby looks a key quarter-final on Thursday afternoon and one we're going to punt on the winner of this event coming from.
Allen is in decent nick, losing semi-final deciders in both the Scottish Open on Saturday and UK Championship at the end of November, but there is some concern about his how he travels.
The Northern Irishman has only reached one quarter-final in eight events he has entered in Asia since the Covid-enforced break from tournaments there ended.
Selby's form is less impressive on paper, but his performances suggest a bit of luck and a decent run is just around the corner.
The Jester must have been ruing his misfortune as a superb display was rewarded merely with a 6-4 defeat to an inspired Jack Lisowski at the UK Championship last month, before Noppon Saengkham ran in breaks of 79 and 134 to knock him out in the second round of the Scottish Open after midnight last week.
He has already won the British Open this season and has a fine track record in Asia, so he's our tip.
The rest of that side of the draw – featuring Ronnie O'Sullivan, Shaun Murphy and Ding Junhui – is obviously tricky, but feels less daunting than the other half.
The long shot
The nature of this short format is such that chucking a dart at an outsider makes some sense – and ours is going to be thrown in the direction of 2023 world champion Luca Brecel.
The Belgian Bullet has achieved very little on the baize since that exhilarating run to the title in Sheffield – but will reflect on last season's run to the final of this event as one of his best performances in that time.
There were some signs of a return to his former self in Glasgow last week, too, when he beat Ding in a decider before running into in-form Xiao Guodong.
This could be the kind of event that gets the best out of showman Brecel and though he must navigate the Trump-Williams-Wilson side of the draw, a small punt on a run to the final looks worthwhile.
Brecel has shown some signs of improvement in recent weeks. (Photo credit: Alamy Images)
What about the 167?
Well, no. Sorry. The 9/4 available on Sky Bet for a Saudi version of a maximum to be made this week just isn't worth it.
Even if any player were to make a 147 – statistically unlikely in an event this short – playing up for and potting the gold ball positioned flush on the opposite cushion is unlikely enough that it doesn't make sense to back that price.