We are midway through the silly season of snooker scheduling, great for viewers but a headache for punters and odds compilers alike. Prices for the Scottish Open are at least starting to filter through and in chronological order, the first bet arrives in the Shaun Murphy against Ng On Yee match on Monday evening.
Evidently, this is a mismatch in terms of ability with the Magician chalked up at 1/100, but there is a shade of value to be had in the side market priced up by William Hill in the shape of ON YEE +3.5 at 6/5.
Putting a rating on a player like On Yee is no easy assignment. She is a dominant force against her own sex but as of yet has had very little to shout about when taking on her male opponents. From a small sample of matches this term she is going at a 20% frame win-rate, which won’t suffice, though she barely had a sniff against Yan Bingtao at York and back in her grade, she added to her haul in the women’s game with ranking win number 16 last week.
As mentioned before in this column, Murphy has a habit of making slightly harder work than he should do against inferior opposition, in part due to the fact he always plays the positive shot. His 2019 Champion of Champions match with Reanne Evans probably isn’t a piece of form to place much stock on but, nonetheless, Murphy laboured to a 4-3 win that day from 3-0 up.
There’s a recent piece of form to go on in the Xiao Guodong versus DUANE JONES match, a convincing 5-1 for Xiao in a German Masters qualifier. That, I guess, will put a lot of people off siding with the Welshman, but snooker isn’t as simple as that and the market may have overreacted a touch.
Sure, Jones will have to play a play a lot better this time, but he definitely has it in his locker and as I have mentioned in this column before, I have Jones slightly better than his historic match prices suggest, while I am the other way when it comes to Guodong.
A run to the last 32 was a fair return for Guodong last week, but he didn’t do a lot right against Vafaei when I watched that match and 13/5 about Jones looks a shade too big as I am 0.69 v 0.31 (4/9 v 9/4). It’s perhaps worth pointing out that the pair went off around 4/11 v 9/4 in that recent best-of-9-frames clash, so 13/5 for Jones to exact revenge in a slightly shorter match looks just the ticket.
Preview published at 2300 GMT on 06/12/21
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 / on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at and .