The Northern Ireland Trophy was a professional
snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
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 three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...
beat
Steve Davis
Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he rea ...
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
The snooker world rankings are the official system of ranking professional snooker players to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. The ranking lists are maintained by the sport's governing body, ...
, 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 ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
and has been staged as part of
World Snooker
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...
'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 Corpo ...
,
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
.
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 tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
, 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 t ...
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 who is the current world champion and world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, ...
broke a world record during his semi-final against
Dominic Dale
Dominic Dale (born Christopher Dale on 29 December 1971) is a Welsh professional snooker player and snooker commentator and presenter for the BBC and Eurosport.
Career
Dale was born in Coventry, England. He won the Welsh Amateur Championship, ...
; 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 the World Championship runner-up, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won four ranking titles and briefly reached numb ...
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 one-four-seven) is the highest possible in a single of snooker. A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 with 15 for 120 points, followed by all six for a further 27 ...
in the same match.
Winners
See also
*
Irish Open
*
Irish Professional Championship
The Irish Professional Championship was an invitational professional snooker tournament for mostly Irish and Northern Irish snooker players.
History
The Irish Professional Championship was first staged in 1947 in Northern Ireland, and Jack ...
*
Northern Ireland Open
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