The 1970 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 October 1969 to 11 April 1970, as an edition of the World Snooker Championship. The final was held at Victoria Hall in London from 6 to 11 April 1970. For the second and last time the event was sponsored by Player's No.6. There were nine participants in the tournament, one more than in the previous year. John Spencer was the defending champion, having defeated Gary Owen 37–24 in the 1969 World Snooker Championship final. Spencer was eliminated in the 1970 semi-final after a 33–37 loss to Ray Reardon, who claimed the title with a 37–33 final victory over John Pulman, and received a total of £1,225 in prize money. Reardon made the highest of the tournament, 118. He held the title for only seven months, until the next championship in Australia which concluded in November 1970. Reardon eventually won a total of six world titles, the last of them in 1978. Background The World Snooker Championship is a professional tournament and the official world championship of the game of snooker. The sport was developed in the late 19th century by British Army soldiers stationed in India. Professional English billiards player and billiard hall manager Joe Davis noticed the increasing popularity of snooker compared to billiards in the 1920s, and with Birmingham-based billiards equipment manager Bill Camkin, persuaded the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC) to recognise an official professional snooker championship in the 1926–27 season. The annual competition was not titled the World Championship until 1935, but the 1927 tournament is now referred to as the first World Snooker Championship. In 1952, the, following a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the BACC about the distribution of income from the world championship, the PBPA members established an alternative competition known as the World Professional Match-play Championship, the editions of which are now recognised as world championships, whilst only Horace Lindrum and Clark McConachy entered for the BACC's 1952 World Snooker Championship. The World Professional Match-play Championship continued until 1957, after which there were no world championship matches until it was revived on a challenge basis in 1964. John Pulman retained the title in several challenges from 1964 to 1968. Tobacco brand John Player sponsored his 1968 match against Eddie Charlton. The good attendances for the championship match led to John Player deciding