2006 World Snooker Championship
The 2006 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2006 888.com World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that was held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It started on 15 April 2006 and was scheduled to finish on 1 May 2006, but continued into the early hours of 2 May, ending at 12:52 a.m. BST. The final broke the record for the latest finish time in a World Snooker Championship final – 29 minutes later than the 1985 final – although it was not the longest-ever final . Shaun Murphy was the defending champion, but he lost in the quarter-finals against eventual runner-up Peter Ebdon and became another World Champion who fell to the Crucible curse and could not defend his first World title. The final was contested between Ebdon and Graeme Dott, and the victor was Dott by 18 frames to 14, earning him his first professional title in his 12-year career, and a £200,000 cheque. The tournament was sponsored by online casino 888.com. Prize fund. The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: Main draw. Shown below are the  results for each round. The numbers in parentheses beside some of the players are their seeding ranks (each championship has 16 seeds and 16 qualifiers). Preliminary qualifying. The preliminary qualifying rounds for the tournament were for WPBSA members not on the Main Tour and took place on 6 and 7 January 2006 at Pontin's in Prestatyn, Wales. Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Qualifying. The qualifying rounds 1–3 for the tournament took place between 8 and 13 January 2006 at Pontin's in Prestatyn, Wales. The final round of qualifying took place between 14 and 15 March 2006 at  the same venue. Century breaks. Televised stage centuries. There were 46 century breaks in the televised stage of the World Championship. Qualifying stage centuries. There were 52 century breaks in the qualifying stage of the World Championship: