Snooker: Premier League 2011

[kevshat]

The Premier League returns on Thursday night and it brings with it a new format. This year there's 10 entrants and rather than everyone playing everyone which would take forever each qualifying night will feature 4 men and they will play semi finals and a final over the best of 5 frames each night. Each player will take part in four of the weekly qualifying nights. Dead frames aren't played and each frame won will go towards the league table so the most a player can win is 24 frames (for winning his semi final and final on all 4 nights) and the least is 0. At the end of the 10 weeks the top 4 go through to the playoffs. As usual in the Premier League the shot clock rules come into play where players have 20 seconds (as opposed to the 25 of previous seasons) to play their shot. Should a match go to a deciding frame we'll be at Shootout rules. Anyone who didn't watch that event it's basically 15 seconds a shot for the first 5 minutes of the frame and 10 seconds after it. 10 minutes for the frame and whoever leads at the end of the 10 minutes wins the frame unless the frame has already been concluded by then. Some quirky other rules too like ball in hand for fouls in the shootout frame and in the 'normal' frames instead of being allowed to miss and miss when snookered if a players misses 3 times it's then ball in hand. I'm sure I've missed some rules out but they are all in this article: http://www.premierleaguesnooker.com/news/premier_league_set_for_brand_new.htm The tournament is always played in front of good crowds and there's decent moolah to be won and so the players are always up for it so it should be a decent watch and will probably provide some betting opportunities throughout the course of the season.

[kevshat]

Re: Snooker: Premier League 2011 Week 1 semi finals:

Thursday 18 August 2011	Player 1	Player 2	BPP
	Higgins, J v White, J (19:30 BST)	1.34	3.9	99.77 %
	Robertson, N v Stevens, M (20:30 BST)	1.71	2.42	99.80 %