Thursday, August 6, 2009

Major Snooker Tournaments

By Norton Legg

Whether you are a snooker fanatic or merely a casual spectator of the game who appreciates the enormous skill and patience required for the game of snooker, we have provided a list of tournaments that you would do well to diarise!

While you can find a game of snooker being played just about anywhere in the world, from pubs to area tournaments, which draw amateur as well as professional players, the following tournaments are really where its at for those major players.

The Embassy World Championship has long been considered to be the most important and prestigious snooker tournament anywhere on earth. It first started in 1927, was cancelled during the war years of 1939 to 1945, and has been held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for thirty years since 1977. This tournament was largely dominated by Joe Davis who won the tournament a record fifteen times.

Joe Davis was then followed by his brother Fred, who continued the family reign, winning the tournament multiple times himself. However, it must be noted that between 1958-63, no tournament was held due to waning interest. Revived in 1964, the Embassy World Championship resumed its place as the preeminent tournament in the world. In 2009, it was announced that the Embassy World Championship would continue to reside at the Crucible until at least 2014.

The ranking tournaments follow on from the Embassy World Championship and are used to assign points which determine player rankings for seeding position at the major tournaments. Ranking tournaments are important because of the third tier of snooker tournaments, the Invitationals.

There are numerous invitational tournaments, and one must be invited first in order to play. The most prestigious of all the invitational tournaments is The Masters.

The Masters, first held in London in 1975, offers more prize money to the professional snooker player than any other tournament except for the Embassy World Championship. Only the best players are invited to exhibit their talents in this tournament.

Snooker is a game that requires a great amount of skill, patience and cunning, the best players of course being extremely talented. For a fan who appreciates these attributes, they only need to attend one of the tournaments that we have spoken about here today.

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