Champion of Champions

Ding led 3-0 over Zhang but ended up winning a decider on the black. He then got drubbed 6-1 by John Higgins in the evening.

Judd Trump saw off Women's World Champion Baipat Siripaporn 4-0 and now faces the tubs man tonight for a place in the semi-finals.

Prize money in the women's game is not great, with the best paying tournament, the Women's World Championship only paying £8000 to the winner. However the winner also gets a place in the Champion of Champions where first round losers get £12,500 so that's a nice supplement to the winner's income.

Murphy set out his stall to outpot Judd, but he forgot to bring his tactical game. Judd ruthlessly exploited Murphy's state of mind to come back from 3-1 down to win 6-4, winning 2 or 3 frames that seemed lost.

Phew! That was close!

He's a Tubs Man
Ba-da-ba-da-ba-be bop bop bodda bop
Bop ba bodda bop

Oh yeah, Judd Trump 6-3 Barry Hawkins
2nd semi-final tomorrow 7pm
John Higgins (Scotland) v Mark Allen (England)
(Edit: Now that I'm sober I believe Mark Allen is from Northern Ireland)

It was 2-2 at the interval, but afterwards Mark Allen made his greater fluency and higher scoring count as he eased to a 6-2 victory.
Meanwhile referee Desislava Bozhilova, who had a lovely face and hair makeover before the match, was looking absolutely stunning

The triangular-faced terror continued his semi-final form by drubbing Trump 10-3 to win the title.

A bit of a damp squib really. No comeback from Judd this time. Nothing like the drama going on in UK Championship qualifiers.

From the Toughsheet Community Stadium, Bolton, from Monday 11th November. Only 12 players have won an eligible tournament since the last one. The other 4 places will be filled by:
The winner of the International Championship
Jak Jones, the World Championship runner up
Luca Brecel and Tubbs Murphy, the 2 highest ranked players not already in the competition.

The players will be split into 4 groups of 4. Every day from Mon-Thur one group will play their last 16 match in the morning session. and the 2 winners play their quarter final in the evening session.

The Draw:
Group A (Monday)
Mark Allen v Igor Figueiredo
Gary Wilson v Jak Jones
Group 2 (Tue)
Mark Williams v Bai Yulu
Kyren Wilson v Luca Brecel
Group 3 (Wed)
Judd Trump v International Championship winner
Craptain Carter v Neil Robertson
Group 4 (Thur)
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Xiao Guodong
Mark Selby v Tubbs

Jak Jones did well to better Gary Wilson, and took a 3-0 lead against Mark Allen. But the 4th looked to be going Mark's way. Jak had a chance to clean up and pinch it, but he stuffed an easy red. Mark rallied to win 6-4.