The 2017 Premier League again shows that the system of taking top players from the previous year’s Main Tour Rankings does work and gives everyone a fair chance of becoming a Premier League player, providing you are on top of your game and getting results throughout the year on the main tour.
The 2017 Premier League is sure to provide another season of top quality pool action with five of the entrants having won a World title and another 5 who are stalwarts of the sport with numerous titles to their name making the top 10 very strong indeed.
This year’s Premier League will see a reduction in players to accommodate a new format whilst also seeing an increase in the prize fund. Instead of guaranteeing money just for making the Premier League, we are instead going to pay £200 to the winner of each and every match. This will ensure that there is a focus on winning as many games as possible whilst providing a pay out at each tour rather than waiting until the final tour.
In addition to this, the round-robin stage will be finalised at Tour 4 with the top 8 going into a play-off at Tour 5 for a prize pot of £3,000! The other four players at the base of the league will be able to compete in the Challenge at Tour 5 .
The 10 players who are guaranteed a place on the Premier League at this point are:
TOM COUSINS
PHIL HARRISON
ADAM DAVIS
STEVE PETTY
DAVE FERNANDEZ
SHAUN CHIPPERFIELD
EDDIE BARKER
MATT BRIERLEY
SHANE THOMPSON
GIUSEPPE D’IMPERIO
This leaves a further 2 places to fill. Working down the rankings we had a lot of players on 18 points and 4 of these have requested to join the play-off for the final places:
STEVE MARTIN
ALEX LEWIS
LEE HOWITT
IAN DUFFY
The players above will draw lots to decide who plays who in a straight K.O. with the winner of each match going into the Premier League and the beaten finalists going into the Challenge.
It all sounds like a very competitive and profitable Premiership for 2017 with over £16,000 to play for by the top 12 players.
With the single season ranking list everyone has a realistic opportunity to take part in next year’s Premier League so get practicing!
In addition, this year will see the LIVE STREAMING, provided by Beard Productions, starting on Friday afternoon and going right through to end of play on Sunday! If you can’t make it to the event then get online and catch all the weekends action, the link will be posted in the run up to the first event, commencing on February 10th, or you can find details on Facebook via the UK Pool Tour or Beard Productions pages.