Snooker world rankings

Tournament players are decided by their ranking to determine their stage of entering into different events, with some involving qualification matches; Whilst lower-ranked players have to go through the early and untelevised rounds of the tournament, the top 16 ranked players automatically qualify for the final stages of tournaments such as the World Championship and the Masters. Therefore, there is typically a lot of interest in which players are likely to maintain or acquire "top 16 status", as well as the world number one in snooker. Conversely, players whose rank is below 64 at the end of the season are deemed relegated, being unable to retain professional status in the following year by ranking position. Seedings and cut-off Tournament seedings vary from tournament to tournament, but the defending champion is usually allocated the top seed followed by the reigning world champion and the remaining seeds are taken from a "seeding list". The introduction of the rolling rankings in 2010 facilitated updates to the seeding list throughout the season. Various "cut-off" points are selected at convenient stages during the season where the rankings are "frozen" and used as seedings for the following tournaments until the next revision. == History ==

Prior to the introduction of the world rankings, the previous year's winner and runner-up were allocated the top seedings in the World Championship, held annually. As more tournaments were added to the calendar and more players joined the circuit in the 1970s, it became increasingly necessary to seed the tournaments, precipitating the "Order of Merit" for the 1975–76 season. The system was very basic, with seedings based on the results of the last three World Championships with the winner awarded five points, the runner-up four, semi-finalists three, and so on down to one point for players who lost in the last 16. The world rankings, introduced in the following year, used the same allocation. Subsequent tournaments that were assigned ranking status worked on the same system but with the World Championship from 1983 onwards carrying double points. The ranking point allocation was later revised slightly with winners of all bar the World Champion receiving six points, runners-up five, down to one point for the last 32; the World Championship more or less stayed as it was with ten points for the winner, incrementally reduced by two points for each preceding round, but now awarded one point for the last 32 in line with the other tournaments. In addition to ranking points, merit and frame points were also awarded which were used as a tie-break when players were on equal ranking points. By the 1982–83 season many more tournaments were being contested, and it seemed reasonable to take those results into consideration too. The Professional Players Tournament and International Open were awarded ranking status, working on the same system; the Classic carried ranking points from the 1983–84 season, the UK Championship and British Open from 1984–85. The revised system was now based on only the two previous seasons, and updated annually after the World Championship. == Season rankings ==

World Snooker Tour World Women's Snooker Tour == Points distribution ==

Since the transition of world rankings from point-based tariffs set by the governing body to a prize money list for the 2014–15 season, different events of the same tournament series usually maintain a similar level of prize money. The Triple Crown and specifically the World Championship earn the player most points for rankings, whilst invitational event gains do not count into the rankings. The follow table shows the prize money from the round of 32 in selected ranking events held during the 2024–25 season. == See also ==