Despite having a physique more suited to keeping the riff-raff out of exclusive private members' clubs, Stephen Lee possesses one of the best cue actions in snooker and to prove this has compiled over 100 century breaks in his time as a professional.

His opponent Mark Selby, however, has one of the best Masters records in recent years, winning it twice and finishing runner-up once in the last four seasons. While the location is a new one, the table and the balls remain the same size and Selby's class and attitude will be more than enough to see off Lee, whose last tournament success of any note was way back in 2006 in the Welsh Masters. I'm so confident of a comfortable Selby victory that the advice is to lay Lee +1.5, which equates to backing Selby with a -1.5 frame handicap. 

In today's other match, Scottish tactician Graeme Dott takes on break-builder Ali Carter. If this game had been contested a couple of years ago, we would have been talking about worthy battlers for the World title, but a lot has changed since then, especially in Carter's case as it has been well documented that he is considering giving up the game after this year's World Championship to concentrate on putting his pilot's licence to better use. With this in mind, Dott's grinding qualities should be enough to take him over the line in what is a close match-up, regardless of Carter's aviation advantage.