The 2017 Masters tournament was an invitational non-ranking event held at Alexandra Palace from 15 to 22 January 2017, and saw the 16 highest ranked players in the snooker world rankings compete, with no qualification round. As defending champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan was awarded number one seed with World Champion Mark Selby seeded second. The remaining places allocated to players were based on the world rankings after the 2016 UK Championship. The event was the second Triple Crown event of the &lt;a href="Snooker%20season%202016/2017"&gt;2016/17 snooker season&lt;/a&gt; following the UK Championship and the 43rd staging of the Masters. The event was sponsored by sports betting company dafabet, who had sponsored the event since 2014.