Another big snooker tournament rolling our way for 2016 and next up on the list of ranking events is the Snooker World Grand Prix 2016. This wasn’t one of the ranking tournaments on last season’s snooker season but it is now. The tournament is being held at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, Wales with a total prize fund of £300,000 up for grabs and a third of that is going to the winner alone. The tournament starts on March 8th and runs through to the 13th. Heading back to the event as the defending champion is Judd Trump.
There will be just the three ranking events left for the remainder of the 2015/16 season, the Players Tour Championship Finals, the China Open and the World Snooker Championship to follow. Judd Trump actually carries some nice form into the Snooker World Grand Prix 2016 title defence as he took a win over Ronnie O’Sullivan in the Championship League in early March (a non ranking event).
Ronnie O’Sullivan is back in the field and he has taken over the market running at a price of 2/1 outright favourite. After his win at the Welsh Open and his triumph at the Masters on his return there this year, he is probably going to take some stopping. To put his favouritism into context you have Neil Robertson and Mark Selby both around the 7/1 mark to take the title, with Judd Trump at 8/1.
Snooker World Grand Prix 2016 Betting Odds
Ronnie O’Sullivan 2/1, Neil Robertson 7/1, Mark Selby 7/1, Judd Trump 8/1, John Higgins 18/1, Shuan Murphy 22/1, Mark Allen 25/1, Barry Hawkins 33/1, Ding Junhui 33/1, bar 40/1
Snooker World Grand Prix 2016 Free Bet
Open an account with online betting site Bet365 and you can pick up a free bet through their welcome bonus promotion. Just go through the quick sign up process and when you make your first deposit, they will give you a 100% matched deposit bonus back to enjoy. As a bet365 customer you have access to some brilliant features like their extensive live in-play betting services and their vast live sports streaming service as well!
Draw Format
This event is for the top 32 ranked players in the world and the seeds come together from the opposite ends to meet up in matches. So for example, number one seed John Higgins faces number thirty two seed Stephen Maguire, number two seed Neil Robertson faces number thirty-one seed Peter Ebdon and so on until you meet in the middle with number sixteen Matthew Selt taking on seventeenth seed Ryan Day.
It is a straight knockout format with the best of seven frame matches being played for the first round, the last sixteen and the quarter finals. The semi finals then step it up to the best of 11 frames and then the final of the Snooker World Grand Prix 2016 will be contested over 19 frames.
Snooker World Grand Prix History and Stats
The tournament started back in 1982 and it has gone through some changes since then. Incidentally, Ray Reardon was the inaugural winner of the event and winners following on from him reads as a who’s-who of snooker, with Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis, Jimmy Whites and John Higgins all having lifted the title. Ronnie O’Sullivan is a former winner as well, but his only triumph at the event came back in 2004 when he beat Ian McCulloch 9-5 in the final. he has lost his other four appearances in the final of the event.
Here’s a great bit of trivia, the 1985 final contested between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor has gone down in history as the longest ever one-day final. It took over ten hours for them to settle the score (Davis taking a 10-9 victory). John Higgins scored four consecutive century breaks in the 2005 final.
The only players to have won the Snooker World Grand Prix four times is John Higgins and Stephen Hendry. It is a tournament which has gone through a lot of changes when back in the day, the top 32 players entering at the round of 64 meaning that more upsets were caused. Then it was switched to group stages which caused even more random matches and results and it even went to an FA Cup style draw when it went back to a knockout format in 2008.
Snooker World Grand Prix 2016 Predictions
Strangely, for reasons unknown, Ronnie O’Sullivan has failed to deliver when it counts at the Snooker World Grand Prix. Four finals he has lost, which is a pretty poor strike rate from him. He has been on top of his game this year though as his easy win at the Masters and the Welsh Open proves. At such short odds though he really isn’t going to a tremendous amount of value to be throwing wagers at.
That having been said, you don’t want to be backing a player who could potentially run into O’Sullivan before the final, so look in the opposite half of the draw. You have Mark Selby, Judd Trump and John Higgins all up there. Trump beat O’Sullivan recently in the Championship League and he is the defending champion of the Snooker World Grand Prix and trading at a chunky 8/1 price to defend his title it’s worth an each way shot on him.
