On the first day I had one of my predictions to win and another to fail (however five of six predictions in failed one were correct). The same thing happened on day two. To avoid a further draw I’ll make three predictions. And in fact we will have a day-off in the tournament on Friday.
The most interesting are games with equal odds, and we have one on the third day. And I’ll pick up the win of Anthony Hamilton over Peter Lines. Anthony has higher rankings and he had won the last game against Lines on German Masters with a comfy score – 5:1. Again Hamilton is strong individual player and a good tactic. He’s also good at serial shots. Lines is more experienced and self-controlled but Hamilton’s arguments are more weighty.
The game go number 63 against number 66 of world rankings can be very energetic. The bokmakers consider Oliver Lines to be a favourite. But I think that Cao Yupeng have the same chances to win. I know that in predictions we must take into accout the mathematics rather than a sixth sence. I guess this is about serious analytics. But here we can just compare the numbers: game will be close, but the odds on the Chinese are more good looking. For sure this is not a main thing. Cao plays really good. I mean, he was – a couple of seasons ago. Not far ago he had some dead-drop. But his skills, technics and mentality are not gone. Oliver was payed a lot of advances after the glorious victory against Mark Selby and making to the final of the stage of Asian tour. But now he’s not answering that expectations.
And for the evening session I have one accumulator. I think that Hossein Vafaei Ayouri will offer a fight to Luka Brecel and Jimmy White will be unable to stand against Stephen Maguire. Jimmy is only strong in ex games where he can make century breaks on widen pots. So Maguire can feel no trouble as he is a very strong player when he’s calm.
Some young players will compete in the first pair. They reached a good progress at amateur competitions. The Belgian have made his name also as a pro. The Iranian is just waiting for honours but now he is as strong as his rival.