Less than 11 hours till the defending champion starts off the tournament. Love this time of year, but usually ends up with me watching an unhealthy amount of snooker over the 17 days.

Ronnie makes his return to the game after last years win



I know he is Ronnie and the most talented player in a long time if not ever, but surely asking too much to come back from a year without any match practice and win it all again

Other contenders

Current Masters, UK champion and world no.1 - Mark Selby



2010 World Champ and won the China Open last month - Neil Robertson



Judd Trump - 2011 runner up, world no.2



John Higgins - 4 time world champ, in poor form recently though and said he needed a miracle to win this year, smells like BS to me, he'll have prepared well and has a nice draw



Ding Junhui - makes the game look like a joke when he's on his game, has no excuse not to win a World Championship in his career



Other contenders with every chance of winning are Mark Allen & Stephen Maguire.

Odds for everyone on Betfair currently

Ronnie O'Sullivan - 6.8 fav
Neil Robertson - 7.2
Mark Selby - 7.8
Judd Trump - 8.2
Ding Junhui - 13
John Higgins - 13.5
Mark Allen - 16.5
Stephen Maguire - 20
Shaun Murphy - 20
Ali Carter - 32
Stuart Bingham - 34
Jack Lisowski - 65
Graeme Dott -70
Mark Williams - 75
Matthew Stevens - 75
Marco Fu - 85
The rest 100+. Martin Gould at 140 looks the best outsider to me.


Main bet for me is on Ding to win it... looks -EV based on his performances here but I believe it is his time to come good

Draw and other info can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Wo...r_Championship

Mark williams' game really fell off huh. 75:1 jeezus.

peter ebdon is aids

Allen out already lolaments, as is Higgins.

Anyone else sick of O'Sullivan taking these breaks for the foreseeable future then coming back? Its like when the snooker world starts talking about someone else, he has to steal the media light by announcing his return. Just **** off already.

Yeah all tiresome at this stage with Ronnie. Play and use your talent or piss off and retire.

Loving Poomjaeng and his clapping when he hits a good shot also funny how long he is down on the shot before he hits it



Also backed Fu outright for the tournament, cheering on the Asian players here

I stopped paying attention to O'Sullivan's antics a while ago. Just enjoy watching him play and tune out all else. He's been "retiring" for better part of a decade now.

Aye that's true.

Dott wasn't too happy about Ebdon's usual antics, admitted to hating playing him in interview.

Poor bloke had to play him best out of 35 a few years back.

Poomjaeng is officially the best character and funniest man in snooker. Had me loling so many times in that match, showed some great bottle in the end

also his press conference at the end was supposed to be funny. Mr Bean of Thailand definitely!

"I don't think he's the full shilling. I've never seen him before but there's definitely something missing.

Stephen Maguire slightly bitter perhaps...



Thai people are just awesome generally, but a bit mad alright! Really enjoyed that match

I'm pretty sure he got over having to suffer through that one just fine.

Still vividly remembering his "COME OOOOONNNNN!!!!"

Yeah, another Poomjaeng fan right here. His celebrations at the end had me loling as well.

Anyone see his face when he missed the blue at the end? He wasn't happy at all, until the crowd started clapping lol.

Been enjoying it so far. Don't think Ronnie will win it though, maybe Ding or Robertson. I'm backing Bingham to make semis also.

I think Carter will beat Ronnie comfortably enough, might look stupid though saying that ha. I don't think Ronnie's game was impressive really v Campbell, pinched a lot of frames early on when the balls were out in the open after Marcus couldn't quite kill the frames with a good lead (then it was too hard to make a comeback)... Carter won't do that imo. Also Ronnie's safety play looked a bit rusty from what I saw (not much of 2nd session though), Campbell had chances and got in first in too many frames, Carter's gonna test his lack of match practice in the last year big time and make a lot of frames scrappy and tight. I predict 13-7.

Going to look stupid probably, Ronnie is Ronnie afterall gonna take a chance and have a decent bet at 3.2 though on Ali

robertson is in trouble

ronnie agains carter will be nice match. Obv hoping for Ronnie. My heart is also with Judd - final includes Ronnie and Trump will be EPIC! my little dream i'd say This may be the last tournament for Ronnie...

also think Bingham can be black horse of this WC - he always play good snooker

Poomjaeng.

Sick Snooker.

And what a pink right after, LOL.

so what ails Poomjaeng? funny guy

Dott needs to up the dosage, being a miserable **** at the moment

yah too bad BOOMjaeng went nuts attacking just about every ball against white. it was quite entertaining though.

trump was killing it against FU, hope he takes it down.

dont get why we always need 50 discussions/tournament on different theories about what causes a kick. they've been banging on about this for decades.

give a physics graduate a couple balls & a stick and a week later it'll be a solved question.

Highly doubt Carter beats O'Sullivan .. fully expect Ronnie to get better as this tournament progresses, do not see anyone causing him that much trouble tbh .. especially over the longer format from the quarters.

I lumped £50 on him at 6's before the start ... pretty good value if you ask me.

Lol dott, terrible shot on the respotted black, and wtf at eurosport going to advert right before it

I'm sure apart from you, no one has ever thought about investigating what causes a kick. Why don't you tell them your brilliant idea? They might reward you with something.

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