The participants were invited to the tournament based on the world rankings as they stood after the UK Championship.

Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Mark Selby 10–4 in the previous year's final.

Two days later, in the first frame of his quarter-final match against Marco Fu, O'Sullivan set a new record when he compiled the 776th century of his career.

Marco Fu made the 112th official maximum break during his first-round match against Stuart Bingham.

[5] In the opening match, a repeat of the previous year semi-final, three-time champion and latest runner-up Mark Selby faced Shaun Murphy.

[5] In the evening, Marco Fu was already 2–1 ahead of Stuart Bingham when he made the 112th official maximum break.

[clarification needed] Although Trump took the first frame, in which both players managed to make a half-century, and followed it with the second, Maguire then won four on the spin, including breaks of 96 and 82.

[7] In what would turn out to be the last frame of the match, O'Sullivan ran out of position when he was on 89, but managed to fluke the yellow ball and went on to clear up the rest of the colours to compile a 121 century.

[10] He received a standing ovation from the crowd before his encounter with Barry Hawkins, which he won 6–1,[10] featuring breaks of 95, 50 and 130.

[5] Higgins was 3–1 in front at one point and also made a 120 in the penultimate frame, but would end up losing the match 4–6 to Allen, who edged him out with a 65 break.

[5] In the last match of the quarter-finals, Ding Junhui, the 2011 champion, was paired with Joe Perry, who had never got past the first round.

[5] Perry then opened a two-frame gap, including a century of 104, and ended up winning 6–3, closing out the match with a 104.

[5] Allen raced into a 3–1 advantage, but Perry drew level with back-to-back frames, including breaks of 50 and 68.

[5] In the last game of the quarter-finals, played that evening, scores were level between Maguire and Murphy after four frames, with a century of 137 for the former and another one of 103 for the latter.

[5] Murphy did not take the lead till the ninth frame, which he won with a century of 103, and then closed the match in the tenth.

[5] He enlarged his lead to 3–0, although O'Sullivan, who had won fifteen consecutive matches up to that point,[12] hit back with a century of his own in the fourth frame to go 1–3.

[5][13] Robertson responded with a half-century of 80 in the sixth and both players shared the last two frames of the session to end it with a 6–2 score favourable to Murphy.

[13] It was the biggest winning margin in a Masters final since Steve Davis whitewashed Mike Hallett 9–0 in 1988.