Snooker betting tips: Tour Championship outright preview and best bets
Richard Mann has tipped 40/1 and 5/1 outright winners already this season, and looks to add to those gains in his preview of the Tour Championship.
Snooker betting tips: Tour Championship
1pt e.w. Mark Selby to win the Tour Championship at 9/1 (William Hill)
1pt e.w. Mark Allen to win the Tour Championship at 16/1 (General)
This is very much MARK SELBY’s time of year, and he is fancied to win the Tour Championship before all eyes turn to the Crucible and the big one.
Selby is a notoriously hard man to beat at this time of year – winning the World Championship four times already and reaching two more finals, including last year – and though yet to win this prestigious event, he has reached the semi-finals in each of his last three appearances.
It’s always been this way with Selby. The World Championship has long been at the top of his list of priorities and thus, his campaigns have tended to be shaped in the hope he can peak in the spring.
Prior to the pandemic, the China Open was staged right before the World Championship and the Leicester man won that tournament three times between 2015 and 2018, having had to withdraw from the event in 2016.
It’s no fluke and even last year, signs of another deep run in Sheffield were offered when he pushed a red-hot Shaun Murphy closer than anyone else managed at that time of the season by taking their semi-final in this tournament to a deciding frame.
Selby was coming perfectly to the boil, and it took the performance of a lifetime from the supremely gifted Luca Brecel to deny him a fifth world title.
The clues are certainly there and the answers as to why Selby is so good at this time of the year are relatively easy to find.
He’s made no secret of that fact that he places extra importance on peaking for Sheffield, though he certainly isn’t alone in that, and when it means that bit more, Selby is usually the one who handles the pressure cooker better than most.
Longer matches play to Selby's strengths
Perhaps the biggest factor, however, is the format change. After a diet of shorter matches, many played over best-of-seven frames in the early rounds, Selby comes alive as they are stretched out further.
Like a chess player, Selby is the master at probing for weakness, limiting the damage when things aren’t going so well, and then going in for the kill when smelling blood. He is the very definition of Boa constrictor and over the course of a long, multi-session contest, he can be almost impossible to break down.
There are recent form clues, too. Things went quiet for Selby after finishing runner-up at the British Open in September, but his 6-0 whitewash of Ronnie O’Sullivan at the Players Championship was a huge step forward, even more meritorious given O’Sullivan's dominance this term.
Selby eventually lost to Zhang Anda in the semi-finals there, but very nearly pulled off a memorable comeback having at one stage trailed 4-0, and that tournament looked very much like another stepping stone to better things.
He lost in the quarter-finals of the World Masters of Snooker subsequently, but that came in another deciding frame, this time against Mark Allen, and Selby will have been frustrated to lose to Jackson Page in the third round of the World Open.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been, Page playing out of skin to eventually reach the last four in what might prove to be a coming-of-age week for the talented Welshman.
As for Selby, I can’t shake the feeling that something big is coming and chalked up at 9/1 this week, he rates a perfectly viable alternative to O’Sullivan and Judd Trump, who dominate the betting having dominated so much of the season so far.
CLICK HERE to back Selby with Sky Bet
O'Sullivan too short with one eye on the Crucible
Selby is on a collision course with O’Sullivan in the last four, but after such a busy and fruitful time of things, it’s not hard to think the latter might be happy with a couple of quiet weeks before heading back to Sheffield for his quest to win his eighth World Championship, which would also mean he holds all three Triple Crown titles at the same time.
And even if that isn’t the case and we get a fully dialled in O’Sullivan in Manchester, that recent Players Championship meeting once again confirms Selby remains just about his worst opponent. It’s a match Selby will always fancy if playing well.
All things considered, I can’t consider backing O’Sullivan at 13/8, nor Trump who is a general 2/1 chance berthed in the top of half of the draw.
It’s five tournament victories and counting for Trump this season after he comfortably beat Ding Junhui in the final of the World Open just over a week ago, and he holds obviously strong claims once again.
Allen has history on his side
Nevertheless, his price reflects that and I’d much rather back MARK ALLEN from that top section at 16/1.
Allen has won three times himself this season, including the Champion of Champions when hammering Trump 10-3 in the final, meaning the Northern Irishman has won three of the last five meetings between the pair. Allen now leads the overall head-to-head 18-14, quite the feat given Trump’s impressive level of success in recent years.
I’ve long felt Allen is an opponent Trump doesn't relish facing, even more so nowadays when the former's liking for winning ugly and turning matches into a war can knock a flair player like Trump out of his rhythm.
A last-64 loss to Daniel Wells at the World Open recently could be taken as a cause for concern regarding Allen’s form, but O’Sullivan was another early casualty that week, and that is hardly putting compilers and punters off.
It’s dangerous to get too caught up one bad result in this sport, not given the way the Tour is nowadays and the standard of player even lower down the rankings. Anyone can beat anyone on their day and when it comes to outright betting, you are better off looking at the bigger picture.
It was only in late February that Allen was beating Zhang in the final of the Players Championship and that tournament has been a fine pointer for this one in recent years, with Shaun Murphy – who hasn’t qualified this time around – completing the double last year, 12 months after Neil Robertson did the same in 2022.
Crucially, when Allen won the Champion of Champions in November, that victory came only a matter of days after his early exit at the International Championship in China, where I’m not convinced table conditions really play to his strengths.
Regardless, there is little doubting Allen’s ability to bounce back from setbacks, and as one of the most successful players so far this season, he is overpriced at 16/1.
CLICK HERE to back Allen with Sky Bet
Posted at 1000 GMT on 29/03/24
ALSO READ: Nick Metcalfe's latest column on the revamped Tour Championship
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
MOST READ
Next Off
Fixtures & Results
