Championship League Snooker returns for 2012 - 05/01/2012

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Championship League Snooker returns on Monday as the best snooker stars aim to qualify for the 2012 Premier League Snooker competition.

Matthew Stevens won last year's Championship League and played in the 2011 Premier League as a result

The Championship League Snooker event is a venture between Matchroom Sport and Perform where 25 of the game's finest players compete with all matches broadcast on a host of betting websites.

Each group features seven players with each man playing the other six once in a round-robin basis. Every match is the best of five (with dead frames not played) and the winner gains one point with the loser getting zero.

At the end of the league phase the top four advance to that group's semi-finals where the two winners meet in the final and the winner advances to the Winners' Group at the end of March.

The losing finalist, two losing semi-finalists and player finishing fifth move into the next group where they are joined by three new players and the process is repeated.

At the end of the seventh group, the seven group winners move into the Winners' Group and the overall champion of that will secure their spot in the 2012 Premier League in the autumn.

The first group features seven of the world's top 19 players with Ali Carter, Mark Davis, Andrew Higginson, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, last year's winner Matthew Stevens and Judd Trump in action.

Mark Williams and Neil Robertson, ranked second and third in the world respectively, come in at Group Two along with Australian Open winner Stuart Bingham.

All the action will again come from the Crondon Park Golf Club in Stock, Essex, the venue that has successfully staged the event in the last four years.

The dates for the groups are as follows...
Group 1 - Monday, January 9 and Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Group 2 - Wednesday, January 11 and Thursday, January 12
Group 3 - Monday, January 23 and Tuesday, January 24
Group 4 - Wednesday, January 25 and Thursday, January 26
Group 5 - Monday, February 6 and Tuesday, February 7
Group 6 - Wednesday, February 8 and Thursday, February 9
Group 7 - Monday, March 19 and Tuesday, March 20
Winners' Group - Wednesday, March 21 and Thursday, March 22

The players in each group are...
Group 1 - Ali Carter, Mark Davis, Andrew Higginson, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Matthew Stevens and Judd Trump.

Group 2 - Four players from Group 1 plus Stuart Bingham, Neil Robertson and Mark Williams.

Group 3 - Four players from Group 2 plus Jamie Cope, Martin Gould and Stephen Hendry.

Group 4 - Four players from Group 3 plus Mark Allen, Peter Ebdon and Stephen Lee.

Group 5 - Four players from Group 4 plus Barry Hawkins, Mark King and Ricky Walden.

Group 6 - Four players from Group 5 plus Marcus Campbell, Dominic Dale and Joe Perry.

Group 7 - Four players from Group 6 plus three Ryan Day, Ding Junhui and Marco Fu.

Winners' Group - Winners of groups 1 to 7