Championship League 2012 - Pistol Allen wins Group Six

Allen wins Group Six

Mark Allen beat Dominic Dale 3-2 to win Championship League's Group Six. Hence, the Northern Irish player joined Judd Trump, Shaun Murphy, Neil Robertson, Mark Davis and Barry Hawkins in Winners' Group.

He was a runner-up for the 2011 UK Championship and he reached the Last 16 at the German Masters proving he is fighting like a lion to get a ranking event under his belt (his first one, actually).

He started his Championship League journey with Group Four and back then he reached the semi-finals. 
A couple of days ago he was once again, reaching the semis, this time for Group Five. So, when he finally qualified for Group Six's play-offs he just knew he needed to win. And so he did.

Allen qualified on first place for the semi-finals of Group Six collecting no less the 5 points (this also means that he won five out of six matches). The proud of Northern Ireland hammered Mark King 3-1, crashed Peter Ebdon and Jamie Cope 3-0 and ended on a tight 3-2 with both Dominic Dale and Scotland's Marcus Campbell.

In the semi-final he meet again with Campbell, only that this time he beat him by 3-1 using runs of 58, 36 and 75. The "Pistol" was running smoothly.

The final saw an re-enactment of a previous match, Allen having to face Dominic Dale. What was even more ironically is they played against each other just a few hours before, Allen winning by 3-2, which was also going to be the scoreline for the final.

Dom Dale in action

Dale managed to hit a 55 break during the first frame, but Allen knew to turn the situation in his favour and won it by a difference of only 5 points (78-73). However, his "pink colleague" took revenge the next frame to draw level.

A break of 125 and Allen was back in front, while Dale responded with an 83 to force the match to end in a decider. Minutes later and after runs of 60 and 61 Mark Allen was ending the snooker encounter on a 3-2 result.

For runner-up Dominic Dale, as well as for Marcus Campbell, Peter Ebdon and Joe Perry there is still hope for grabbing the last spot in Winners' Group since all of them have been given the chance to perform in Group Seven.

However, for Mark King (who just two days ago was reaching the final of Group Five) and also for Jamie Cope the race ends here, since none of them earned enough points to remain in the competition, at the end of the day.

Next stop for Championship League's matches is March 19-22, when both Group Seven and Winners' Group matches are taking place.