Chris Small began his challenge for the British Open - the prize fund for which has been heavily cut - with a 5-0 win at Telford over Peter Lines and revealed the latest unconventional treatments for his chronic back and neck problems.

An exponent of the cat-and-mouse game, the 29-year-old Scot - winner of last month's £82,500 LG Cup - said he would enter hospital after this event to be hooked up to a drip for five hours "and have mouse extract put into me. I don't know how it works. I just hope Bupa pay for it."

Last year, Small's career appeared on the brink due to a degenerative back condition, ankylosing spondilitis. At one stage he could not lift his head far enough to see the cue ball, let alone the object ball. He was in severe pain until, to his surprise, he began to gain relief by inserting magnets in his shoes and under his mattress.

He has taken some strain off his long back by playing with his feet splayed, but has come to rely on "unbelievably painful" monthly steroid injections to keep him going.

No competitor was pleased to discover on arrival that the prize fund had been reduced from £666,800 to £450,000. Next month's UK Championship prize fund has also been cut by £131,900 .

Snooker's governing body has, however, announced two more ranking events to make a total of eight for the season as opposed to last season's nine. They have bought into March's Irish Masters, hitherto an independently promoted invitation event, and used savings from other budgets to stage a £250,000 European Open at the Palace Hotel, Torquay, also in March.