Championship League Snooker
Non-Ranking, Snooker Headlines

Championship League Snooker to conclude with Winners’ Group

The invitation edition of Championship League Snooker reaches its climax this week at the Morningside Arena in Leicester.

Shaun Murphy emerged with the ranking version of the competition at the start of the season but won’t feature in the latter stages of this tournament.

Play in the Winners’ Group will begin on Tuesday with the champion to be crowned on Wednesday evening.

Who is in the Winners’ Group?

Seven players in total advanced from the preliminary group stages and are still in with a shot of landing the top prize.

Defending champion John Higgins will bid for a record fifth title having emerged successfully with the trophy in his hands in both of the last two campaigns.

Kyren Wilson and Stuart Bingham represent two other former champions hoping to reclaim the silverware.

Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Chris Wakelin, and Joe O’Connor are the other contenders for the £10,000 champion’s cheque.


Championship League Snooker

– Winners’ Group –

Chris Wakelin
Neil Robertson
John Higgins
Joe O’Connor
Mark Selby
Stuart Bingham
Kyren Wilson


What are they playing for?

Championship League Snooker is one of the less lucrative competitions on the calendar, but there is still quite a lot to play for.

In addition to various bonuses for frames won and highest breaks compiled, the event also provides an avenue to qualify for the more prestigious Champion of Champions later in the year.

Capturing a trophy at this time of the season could also act as a springboard to further success at an important period of the calendar.

There are several notable tournaments on the horizon, including the World Open, the Tour Championship, and the sport’s blue-riband World Championship in Sheffield.

The remaining contenders will be hoping to use the valuable match practice here and play themselves into form at an opportune juncture of the 2023/24 season.

What’s the format for the Winners’ Group?

As usual with any group in the invitational version Championship League Snooker, all matches in the Winners’ Group will be short best of fives.

Each player will face off against the others in a round-robin format to begin with – the top four following the league phase then advancing to the semi-finals.

From there, it will be a straight knockout to determine the overall champion of the tournament.

Championship League Snooker

– Former Champions –

2008: Joe Perry
2009: Judd Trump
2010: Marco Fu
2011: Matthew Stevens
2012: Ding Junhui
2013: Martin Gould
2014: Judd Trump
2015: Stuart Bingham
2016: Judd Trump
2017: John Higgins
2018: John Higgins
2019: Martin Gould
2020 (1): Scott Donaldson
2020 (2): Luca Brecel
2021: Kyren Wilson
2022: John Higgins
2023: John Higgins

Where to stream Championship League Snooker?

Live coverage will be available at various online bookmaker sites, with streaming also an option for Matchroom.Live subscribers.

Updates for the latest scores and results over the next couple of days can be found over at the snooker.org website.

Featured photo credit: CLSnooker

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