Snooker Championship League (group 1) - The Captain takes the lead

Yep, I`m in the lead!

The first day of this year’s Snooker Championship League was a very surprising one, mostly because we’ve seen players win and lose at the same time. However it’s always good to have the chance to see them in action LIVE on your TV screen, although this time it was on the computer’s screen :-)) With more then one website which provides live streaming from the busy, busy town of Essex many of you have had the opportunity to watch the snooker boys doing what they know best - snookering the day away ;-)


But let’s get on to business and let me tell you, in my own special way, what happened in the first day of this competition, okay? ;-)
It’s been an incredible day for Ali Carter who won three out of three matches, meaning he practically erased all his opponents! First of all he defeated the Scot Stephen Maguire in a very tight battle 3-2 (breaks of 85 and 81 included), second he hammered Mark Selby in a match which ended 3-1 (a break of 101 closed the deal) and third he whitewashed Graeme Dott 3-0 (breaks of 63, 72 and 62 being responsible for the victory)! Wow, what a day for "The Captain"!

This doesn`t look good...not sir, it doesn`t!

"The Jester from Leicester" started his day with an amazing victory as he crashed Shaun Murphy 3-0, hitting a beautiful 124 break in the opening frame and ended it with another one, this time in the match played against Stephen Maguire whom he defeated in a very tight battle by a final score of 3-2. Unfortunately he lost two important matches, the one against Ali Carter (1-3) and the one against Mark Williams (1-3), this meaning that he only won two out of four snooker encounters.
In the same situation, Shaun "The Magician" Murphy won the battle against Mark Williams 3-2 (although the Welsh had a very good chance of winning the match for he hit some really nice breaks and dominated the most), and the one against John Higgins 3-1; however he was defeated 0-3 by Selby and 2-3 by Dott.


The fresh winner of the UK Championship 2010, "The Wizard of Wishaw" had a very prolific day as he won two of his three battles. Ironically, his first opponent was the one and only Mark Williams (the one who he magically defeated last month in the UK Championship final) and ... what do you know?! This time things weren’t any different as he practically crashed him with a 3-0 scoreline by hitting a beautiful 104 break in the opening frame. Higgins continued in playing his winner card one more time as he defeated his fellow-country, Graeme Dott 3-2, but he soon lost 3-1 to Shaun Murphy.

Dreaming of a better snooker day...

The less fortunate ones (meaning the ones who didn’t quite have the day they expected to have) were Mark Williams, Stephen Maguire and Graeme Dott. Each of them got only 1 point, as they only won one match. Not a very good thing since Stephen and Mark have played three matches and Graeme four. :-(

Maguire obtained a good victory over Graeme Dott 3-1,Williams succeeded in winning his last match of the day, 3-1 with Mark Selby as well as Dott who had a horrible start but ended his day with a 3-2 victory over Shaun Murphy.


So drawing the line, until this moment Ali Carter is in the lead with 3 points, followed by Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy and John Higgins with 2 points each and Mark Williams, Stephen Maguire and Graeme Dott with only one point. Still, there is a pretty good chance for them to recover from this, as today they will play one more time. ;-)


Table 1


Table 2


So let’s wish the boys good luck and see who’s going to be at the top of "Group 1" . ;-) See you tomorrow boys and girls! ;-)


P.S. For those of you who didn’t get an account on the betting websites that I posted the other day, here’s another way of watching the Championship League: click on this link (note: only one table will be covered!) Enjoy snooker! :-)