There’s hardly time to dwell on Zhao Xintong’s career-changing UK Championship win as the Scottish Open, relocated to Llandudno, begins on Monday – James Cooper has had a look at the early matches and found three bets.
Snooker betting tips: Scottish Open
1pt Ng On Yee +3.5 frames against Shaun Murphy at 6/5 (William Hill)
2pts over 5.5 frames in Robbie Williams versus Peifan Lei match at 8/11 (Sky Bet)
1pt Duane Jones to beat Xiao Guodong at 13/5 (Coral Ladbrokes)
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.
In terms of the numbers, my cautious projections make Murphy a 1/5 shot to win a single frame against 5/1 Ng and with each frame taken as independent from the others, Murphy is 11/10 with me to win 4-0. That makes On Yee 10/11 to avoid a whitewash and with that in mind, the 6/5 quote looks too big to turn down.
Williams facing grind against Lei
Having failed to qualify for the German or European Masters, Robbie Williams could be forgiven for feeling a bit down on his luck having drawn Ronnie O’Sullivan in round two at York. He actually played well against the Rocket, sharing the first four frames before succumbing after the interval.
In terms of ratings, Robbie never seems to move a lot either way with me, which is the sign of a steady, if unspectacular, operator. That makes him a good proposition for going long when playing in the total frames market and the wager make sense when you factor in the level of his opponent, Peifan Lei.
The Chinese teenager ought to be happy with his work in 2021, securing his status on the main tour via the Q School and in qualifying for this, he knocked out Xintong 4-2. A 6-3 defeat to Mark Williams was a perfectly acceptable performance from Lei at the Barbican, particularly when you consider he won his trio of frames in one visit. In short, he can definitely pose the Liverpudlian some issues here.
I make the contest a 0.67 v 0.33 affair so a best price of 11/5 offers a shade of value about the underdog winning, but the best way to play this match is siding with OVER 5.5 FRAMES AT 8/11. Using my model, that outcome has a 61% chance of occurring so it’s closer to 8/13 with me.
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
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