The Northern Ireland Trophy was a professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

tournament.

History

First contested in 1981 and named ''Northern Ireland Classic''. It was an invitational event held at Ulster Hall, Belfast, and

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won ten ranking events. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his swift and attacking style of play, White has reached six World Snooker Championship finals ...

beat

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He dominated professional snooker in the 1980s, when he reached eight ...

in the final. The event was revived for the 2005/06 season as an invitational event and was contested by 20 players. From the 2006/07 season, it became a full

ranking event A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...

, attended by the world's top 32 players plus 16 qualifiers. The event was the first ranking tournament to be held in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

and has been staged as part of

World Snooker The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

's continuing efforts to popularise the game in more territories. The tournament took place at the

Waterfront Hall Belfast Waterfront is a multi-purpose conference and entertainment centre, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, designed by local architects' firm Robinson McIlwaine. The hall is located in Lanyon Place, the flagship development of the Laganside Corp ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. It has been the opening event of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

, other than in 2007 when it was held in November.

Prize money Prize money refers in particular to naval prize money, usually arising in naval warfare, but also in other circumstances. It was a monetary reward paid in accordance with the prize law of a belligerent state to the crew of a ship belonging to ...

for 2006 totalled £200,500 with the winner receiving £30,000. In the 2006 event

Ronnie O'Sullivan Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in snooker history, he has won the World Snooker Championship seven times, a m ...

broke a world record during his semi-final against

Dominic Dale Dominic Dale (born Christopher Dale; 29 December 1971) is a Welsh retired professional snooker player, as well as a current snooker commentator, pundit and presenter for BBC Cymru Wales and TNT Sports (United Kingdom), TNT Sports (formerly Eur ...

; he won the match in 53 minutes of play, which was the fastest ever time in a best-of-11 match. At the 2007 event, O'Sullivan established another record in his 3rd round 5–2 win over

Ali Carter Allister Carter (born 25 July 1979) is an English professional snooker player. He has twice been a World Championship finalist, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won six ranking titles and briefly reached number t ...

by becoming the only player to win a match in a ranking tournament by compiling a century break in every winning frame. O'Sullivan also compiled a

maximum break A maximum break (also known as a maximum, a 147, or orally, a onefourseven) is the highest possible in snooker in normal circumstances and is a special type of . A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 with 15 for 120 points, fo ...

in the same match.

Winners

References

{{Snooker tournaments Recurring sporting events established in 1981 Recurring events disestablished in 2008 1981 establishments in Northern Ireland 2008 disestablishments in Northern Ireland Snooker ranking tournaments Snooker competitions in Northern Ireland Defunct sports competitions in Northern Ireland Defunct snooker competitions

History

Winners

See also

References