Professional World Snooker Tour Professional snooker players compete on the World Snooker Tour, which is a circuit of
world ranking tournaments and invitational events held throughout the snooker season. All competitions are
open to professional players who have qualified for the tour, and selected amateur players, but most events include a separate qualification stage. Players can qualify for the tour by virtue of their position in the world rankings from prior seasons, by winning continental championships, or through the
Challenge Tour or
Q School events. Players on the World Snooker Tour generally gain a "tour card" for participation in the events. Beginning in the
201415 season, some players have also received invitational tour cards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the sport; these cards are issued at the discretion of the World Snooker Board, and have been awarded to players including
Steve Davis,
James Wattana,
Jimmy White, and
Stephen Hendry. Some additional secondary tours have been contested over the years. A structure was adopted for the
199798 season; comprising six tournaments known as the WPBSA Minor Tour was open to all professionals, but only ran for one season. A similar secondary UK Tour was first played from the 199798 season, which was renamed the Challenge Tour in 2000, Players Tour Championship in 2010 and returned as the Challenge Tour in 2018. The global governing body for professional snooker is the
World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), founded in 1968 as the Professional Billiards Players' Association. The WPBSA owns and publishes the official rules of snooker, and has overall responsibility for policy making in the professional sport of snooker. World Snooker Ltd is responsible for the professional tour which is owned by both the WPBSA and
Matchroom Sport.
World rankings Every player on the World Snooker Tour is assigned a position on the WPBSA's official world ranking list, which is used to determine the
seedings and the level of qualification each player requires for the tournaments on the professional circuit. The current world rankings are determined using a rolling points system, where points are allocated to the players according to the prize money earned at designated tournaments. This "rolling" list is maintained and updated throughout the season, with points from tournaments played in the current season replacing points earned from the corresponding tournaments of two seasons ago. Additionally, "" and "" ranking lists are compiled at the end of every season, after the World Championship; these lists are used for at certain tournaments and for guarantees. The top 16 players in the world ranking list, generally regarded as the "elite" of the professional snooker circuit, are not required to for some of the tournaments, such as the
Shanghai Masters, the
Masters and the World Snooker Championship. Certain other events, such as those in the
Players Series, use the ranking list to qualify; these use the results of the current season to denote participants. There are approximately 128 places available on the World Snooker Tour each season. As of the
202425 season, players in the top 64 on the official ranking list are guaranteed a tour place for the next season, as well as a maximum of 31 players who are currently on the first year of a tour card, and the top four prize money earners during the most recent season who are not already qualified; this being assessed after the World Championship.
Tournaments The oldest current professional snooker tournament is the
World Snooker Championship, which has taken place as an annual event most years since 1927. Hosted at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield since 1977, the championship was sponsored by tobacco company Embassy from 1976 to 2005 and has since been sponsored by various betting companies after the introduction of an ban on the advertising of tobacco products. The World Championship is the most highly valued title in professional snooker, in terms of financial reward (the tournament has carried a £500,000 winner's prize since 2019), ranking points and prestige. The
UK Championship, held annually since 1977, is considered to be the second most important ranking tournament after the World Championship. These two events, and the annual
Masters tournament, make up snooker's
Triple Crown Series; among the oldest competitions on the professional circuit, the Triple Crown events are valued by many players as the most prestigious. , only eleven players have won all three events, the most recent being
Judd Trump who completed the Triple Crown in May 2019. The Triple Crown events are televised in the UK by the BBC, while most other tournaments are broadcast across Europe on the
Eurosport network, or
ITV Sport, as well as numerous other broadcasters internationally. After facing some criticism for matches taking too long, Matchroom Sport chairman Barry Hearn introduced a series of timed tournaments: the
Premier League Snooker, held between 1987 and 2012, featured seven players invited to compete at regular United Kingdom venues and was televised on
Sky Sports. The players had 25 seconds to take each shot, with each player allowed five per match. The format did achieve some success but was not afforded the same amount of press attention or status as the regular ranking tournaments. The event was removed from the professional tour after the 201213 season, when the
Champion of Champions was ; players qualify for this tournament by virtue of winning other events in the season, with sixteen champions competing. Classified as a "precision sport" by the
International Olympic Committee, snooker has never been contested at the
Summer Olympics. In 2015, the WPBSA submitted a bid for snooker to be included at the
2020 Tokyo Olympics, but without success. Since its launch in October 2017, the
World Snooker Federation (WSF) has been advocating for snooker to be added to the Olympic and Paralympic programme. Their initial bid for the
2024 Paris Olympics was unsuccessful, but the WSF is campaigning for snooker to be included at the
2032 Brisbane Olympics. Olympic status would create a significant public funding opportunity for the sport and boost its global exposure. A trial of the format for
cue sports to be played at the 2024 Games was conducted at the
2019 World Team Trophy, which also featured Nine-ball| and
carom billiards. Snooker has been contested at the
World Games since
2001 and was included as an event at the
2019 African Games.
Criticism Several players, including
Ronnie O'Sullivan,
Mark Allen and Steve Davis, have claimed that there are too many tournaments in the season, causing
burnout of players. O'Sullivan played only a subset of tournaments in 2012, so he could spend more time with his children; as a result he ended the 201213 season ranked 19th in the world despite being the world champion. O'Sullivan played only one tournament in 2013, the
World Championship, which he won. He suggested that a "breakaway tour" with fewer events would be beneficial to the sport, but none was organised. Some players, including 2005 world champion
Shaun Murphy, have asserted that a 128 player professional tour is financially unsustainable. professional players can struggle to make a living from the sport, especially after paying tournament entry fees, travel costs and other expenses. In 2023,
Stephen Maguire criticised the World Snooker Tour and WPBSA, claiming that "the game is dying right in front of our eyes", and stating that some players ranked within the world's top 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments.
Amateur Non-professional snooker (including youth competition) is governed by the
International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF). The highest level competition in the amateur sport is the IBSF World Snooker Championship. Events held specifically for seniors are handled by the WPBSA under the
World Seniors Tour, the highest level of the senior sport being the
World Seniors Championship. World Disability Billiards and Snooker (WDBS) is a WPBSA subsidiary that organises events and playing aids in snooker and other cue sports for people with disabilities. The most prestigious amateur event in England is the
English Amateur Championship; first held in 1916, this is the oldest snooker competition still being played in the world. Snooker is a mixed gender sport that affords men and women the same opportunities to progress at all levels of the game. While the main professional tour is open to male and female players alike, there is also a separate women's tour organised by
World Women's Snooker (formerly the World Ladies Billiards and Snooker Association) which encourages female players to participate in the sport and take part in high level amateur competitions. The leading tournament on the women's tour is the
World Women's Snooker Championship, the winner of which receives a tour card to the main professional tour.
Reanne Evans won the women's world title a record twelve times, including ten consecutive victories from
2005 to
2014. She has also participated on the World Snooker Tour and has taken part in the qualifying rounds of the main World Snooker Championship on five occasions, reaching the second round in 2017. Evans holds the record for the highest break made in WWS competition, having achieved a 140 break twice (in 2008 and 2010). Other successful female players are
Kelly Fisher (with five women's world titles),
Ng On-yee (with three), and most recently
Nutcharut Wongharuthai,
Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan and
Bai Yulu, who won the World Women's Snooker Championship in 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively. Some leagues have allowed clubs to exclude female players from tournaments. A committee member of the Keighley league defended allowing such teams in the league as necessity: "If we lose two of these clubs [with the policies] we would lose four teams and we can't afford to lose four teams otherwise we would have no league." A World Women's Snooker spokesperson commented, "It is disappointing and unacceptable that in 2019 that players such as
Rebecca Kenna have been the victim of antiquated discriminatory practices." The
parliamentary group for snooker said, "The group believes that being prevented from playing in a club because of gender is archaic." ==Important players==