The 2012 Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament held between 15 and 22 January 2012 at the Alexandra Palace in London, England. This was the first time that Stephen Hendry didn't participate at the Masters since his début in 1989, and the first time that BGC Partners sponsored the event.
2012 Masters (snooker)
Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
Four-time world champion Mark Selby playing at a practice table during the 2012 Masters tournament
A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game
A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks
A shot using a rest, allowing the player to reach farther down the table