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Darts + Snooker

Snooker Loopy nuts are we………………….

Its that time of the year again when the green baize take centre stage at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

This year sees a very open championship. Everybody seems to be pointing to Rocket Ronnie and he is the favourite at 4.6 but I’m not convinced. He has a tough draw against the up and coming youngster Ding Junhui (that’s easy for me to say) in the first round. I know Ronnie beat Ding comfortably in the Masters Final earlier in the year but I am going to be on wait and see mode.

After the ‘Rocket’ the next shortest odds are around the 12 mark, which tells us that the punters are not sure what is going to happen either.

There tends to be a few shocks in the minor tournaments due to the short first to five-frame format, but class normally tells in the best of nineteen first round matches at the World Championship.

Last year’s winner Graeme Dott has come into some form and recently won the China Open but it is a tough ask for him to defend the title. He should be too good for Ian McCulloch in the first round and should at least get to the quarter finals.

My outsider for the title is Neil Robertson who prior to the last tournament had been in red-hot form winning in February at the Welsh Open, following his Grand Prix victory back in October. At odds of 17.5 he could be in the shake up at the end.

Stephen Hendry is in good form and currently ranked number one.

One of the picks of round one is the clash of two veterans of the game in Steve Davis and John Parrott. Both spend more time being pundits and commentating rather than troubling the scorers these days but bring a wealth of experience. The ‘Nugget’ is still churning out a few results as has vowed to carry on playing until he drops!

The key to this market is picking a few value matches in the early rounds and being satisfied with what you have got. There is no point in going and chasing results especially in a tournament as open as this one. In this way you leave yourself something for the second week when we go to one table and real matches start.