Q School (snooker) explained

The Q School is an amateur snooker competition which serves as the qualification process for the World Snooker Tour. It is held annually, before the start of the professional season.

Overview

See also: World Snooker Tour. The Q School was established in an attempt to streamline the qualification process for the World Snooker Tour. A series of play-offs are run every year before the season. Players pay a fixed entry fee to enter the play-off events, and there is no prize money. Qualifiers earn a two-year tour card on the Main Tour.^[1]

Qualifiers

For each event, the players who qualified for the World Snooker Tour are listed.

Year	Location	Entries	Event	End date	Qualifier 1	Qualifier 2	Qualifier 3	Qualifier 4	Ref.
2011	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="3"	124	Event1	align=center	16 May	Andrew Norman	David Grace	Adam Wicheard	Robin Hull	^[2]
		Event 2	align=center	22 May	Li Yan	David Morris	Simon Bedford	Tian Pengfei	^[3]
		Event 3	align=center	28 May	Kurt Maflin	Stuart Carrington	Adam Duffy	David Gilbert	^[4]
2012	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="3"	115	Event 1	align=center	17 May	Martin O'Donnell	Sam Baird	Ian Burns	Chen Zhe	^[5]
		Event 2	align=center	23 May	Daniel Wells	Jamie O'Neill	Sean O'Sullivan	Paul Davison	^[6]
		Event 3	align=center	29 May	Rod Lawler	Michael Wasley	Joel Walker	Robbie Williams	^[7]
2013	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="3"	110	Event 1	align=center	14 May	Elliot Slessor	Alex Davies	Lee Page	Hammad Miah	^[8]
		Event 2	align=center	18 May	Ahmed Saif	Ross Muir	Ryan Clark	Alexander Ursenbacher	^[9]
		Event 3	align=center	22 May	David Morris	Lee Spick	Chris Wakelin	Fraser Patrick	^[10]
2014	Gloucester	align=center rowspan="2"	145	Event 1	align=center	15 May	Craig Steadman	Chris Melling	Zhang Anda	Tian Pengfei	^[11]
		Event 2	align=center	21 May	Liam Highfield	Michael Georgiou	Lee Walker	Michael Leslie	^[12]
2015	Burton- upon-Trent	align=center rowspan="2"	166	Event 1	align=center	19 May	Sydney Wilson	Daniel Wells	Eden Sharav	Rhys Clark	^[13]
		Event 2	align=center	25 May	Jason Weston	Gareth Allen	Duane Jones	Paul Davison	^[14]
2016	Burton- upon-Trent	align=center rowspan="3"	182	Event 1	align=center	16 May	Fang Xiongman	Christopher Keogan	Cao Yupeng	Chen Zhe	^[15]
		Event 2	align=center	22 May	Michael Georgiou	John Astley	Alex Borg	David John	^[16]
		Order of Merit		Craig Steadman	Jamie Curtis-Barrett	Ian Preece	Adam Duffy	^[17]
2017	Preston	align=center rowspan="3"	206	Event 1	align=center	14 May	Lukas Kleckers	Allan Taylor	Billy Joe Castle	Ashley Hugill	^[18]
		Event 2	align=center	20 May	Duane Jones		Paul Davison	Chen Zifan	^[19]
		Order of Merit				Joe Swail		^[20]
2018	Burton- upon-Trent	align=center rowspan="3"	202	Event 1	align=center	19 May	Jak Jones	Sam Baird	Hammad Miah	Sam Craigie	^[21]
		Event 2	align=center	25 May	Jordan Brown	Craig Steadman	Lu Ning	Zhao Xintong	^[22]
		Event 3	align=center	31 May	Thor Chuan Leong	Kishan Hirani	Andy Lee	Ashley Carty	^[23]
2019	Wigan	align=center rowspan="4"	218	Event 1	align=center	23 May	Xu Si	David Lilley	Jamie O'Neill	Soheil Vahedi	^[24]
		Event 2	align=center	29 May	Chen Zifan	Riley Parsons	Louis Heathcote	Fraser Patrick	^[25]
		Event 3	align=center	4 June	Barry Pinches	Alex Borg	Alexander Ursenbacher	Andy Hicks	^[26]
		Order of Merit		Si Jiahui	Billy Castle	Peter Lines	Lei Peifan	^[27]
2020	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="3"	172	Event 1	align=center	7 August	Lee Walker	Peter Devlin	Simon Lichtenberg	Fan Zhengyi	^[28]
		Event 2	align=center	8 August	Jamie Jones	Zak Surety	Oliver Lines	Ben Hancorn	^[29]
		Event 3	align=center	9 August	Rory McLeod	Jamie Wilson	Farakh Ajaib	Steven Hallworth	^[30]
2021	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="4"	196	Event 1	align=center	1 June	Peter Lines	Fraser Patrick	Jackson Page	Yuan Sijun	^[31]
		Event 2	align=center	7 June	Barry Pinches	Craig Steadman	Michael Judge	Alfie Burden	^[32]
		Event 3	align=center	13 June	Ian Burns	Lei Peifan	Dean Young	Duane Jones	^[33]
		Order of Merit		Hammad Miah	Mitchell Mann	–	–	^[34]
2022	Sheffield	align=center rowspan="3"	173	Event 1	align=center	21 May	Rod Lawler	Andy Lee	Fergal O'Brien	Bai Langning	^[35]
		Event 2	align=center	27 May	Adam Duffy	Aaron Hill	Zak Surety	Sanderson Lam	^[36]
		Event 3	align=center	2 June	James Cahill	John Astley	Jenson Kendrick	Lukas Kleckers	^[37]
2023	Leicester	align=center rowspan="2"	208	Event 1	align=center	31 May	Alexander Ursenbacher	Andrew Higginson	Liam Pullen	Andrew Pagett	^[38]
		Event 2	align=center	6 June	Dean Young	Louis Heathcote	Stuart Carrington	Alfie Burden	^[39]
2024	Leicester	align=center rowspan="2"	167	Event 1	align=center	26 May	Artemijs Zizins	Allan Taylor	Haydon Pinhey	Wang Yuchen	^[40]
		Event 2	align=center	1 June	Antoni Kowalski	Chris Totten	Farakh Ajaib	Mitchell Mann	^[41]

Asia-Oceania Q School

Year	Location	Entries	Event	End date	Qualifier 1	Qualifier 2	Ref.
2022	Bangkok	align=center rowspan="2"	70	Asia & Oceania Event 1	align=center	5 June	Muhammad Asif	Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon Asjad Iqbal^[42]	^[43]
		Asia & Oceania Event 2	align=center	11 June	Dechawat Poomjaeng	Himanshu Jain	^[44]
2023	Bangkok	align=center rowspan="2"	99	Asia & Oceania Event 1	align=center	6 June	Thor Chuan Leong	Manasawin Phetmalaikul	^[45]
		Asia & Oceania Event 2	align=center	12 June	Ishpreet Singh Chadha	He Guoqiang	^[46]
2024	Bangkok	align=center rowspan="2"	99	Asia & Oceania Event 1	align=center	27 May	Lim Kok Leong	Sunny Akani	^[47]
		Asia & Oceania Event 2	align=center	2 June	Haris Tahir	Kreishh Gurbaxani	^[48]

Statistics

• Craig Steadman has qualified from Q School on a record 4 occasions. Paul Davison, Fraser Patrick, Duane Jones and Alexander Ursenbacher have qualified through the event on three occasions.^[49]
• Michael Georgiou, Jordan Brown, David Gilbert, Fan Zhengyi, Fergal O'Brien and Zhao Xintong are the six Q-School qualifiers to win a ranking event. Zhao is the only one to have won multiple ranking events. O'Brien, Brown and Gilbert had been professionals before qualifying through Q School.
• The youngest qualifier through Q School was Lei Peifan at 15, while Peter Lines was the oldest, qualifying at 51 in 2021.

Notes and References

1. Web site: World Snooker Q School . World Snooker . . 9 May 2016 . 2 April 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160402062425/http://www.worldsnookerqschool.com/ . live .
2. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2011). Snooker.org. 2011-05-11. 2017-05-22. 2016-12-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20161202125550/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=33. live.
3. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2011). Snooker.org. 2011-05-17. 2017-05-22. 2017-01-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20170126013050/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=124. live.
4. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2011). Snooker.org. 2011-05-23. 2017-05-22. 2018-04-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20180406073701/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=125. live.
5. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2012). Snooker.org. 2012-05-13. 2017-05-22. 2016-07-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20160716073211/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=170. live.
6. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2012). Snooker.org. 2012-05-19. 2017-05-22. 2016-07-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20160706102255/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=171. live.
7. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2012). Snooker.org. 2012-05-25. 2017-05-22. 2016-07-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20160715010722/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=172. live.
8. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2013). Snooker.org. 2013-05-11. 2017-05-22. 2016-12-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20161205113128/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=251. live.
9. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2013). Snooker.org. 2013-05-15. 2017-05-22. 2016-12-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20161228031125/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=252. live.
10. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2013). Snooker.org. 2013-05-19. 2017-05-22. 2016-06-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20160609221120/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=253. live.
11. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2014). Snooker.org. 2014-05-10. 2017-05-22. 2016-04-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20160410155721/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=329. live.
12. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2014). Snooker.org. 2014-05-16. 2017-05-22. 2016-04-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20160410155725/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=330. live.
13. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2015) . Snooker.org . 2015-05-14 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-06-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170611203623/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=400 . live .
14. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2015) . Snooker.org . 2015-05-20 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-06-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170611223702/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=401 . live .
15. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2016) . snooker.org . 2016-05-16 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-05-17 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170517014350/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=521 . live .
16. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2016) . snooker.org . 2016-05-22 . 2017-05-22 . 2016-08-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160831161249/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=538 . live .
17. Web site: Q School Order of Merit (2016) . snooker.org . 2016-05-22 . 2017-05-22 . 2016-05-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160523150953/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=46&season=2015 . live .
18. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2017) . snooker.org . 2017-05-14 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-05-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170521034625/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=618 . live .
19. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2017) . snooker.org . 2017-05-20 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-05-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170521031838/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=619 . live .
20. Web site: Q School Order of Merit (2017) . snooker.org . 2017-05-20 . 2017-05-22 . 2017-05-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170519204755/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=46&season=2016 . live .
21. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2018) . snooker.org . 2018-05-19 . 2019-05-23 . 2018-08-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180812105327/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=736 . live .
22. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2018) . snooker.org . 2018-05-25 . 2019-05-23 . 2018-08-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180812105804/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=737 . live .
23. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2018) . snooker.org . 2018-05-31 . 2019-05-23 . 2018-07-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180721233922/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=738 . live .
24. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2019) . snooker.org . 2019-05-23 . 2019-05-23 . 2019-05-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190525143656/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=838 . live .
25. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2019) . snooker.org . 2019-05-29 . 2019-05-23 . 2019-05-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190501101045/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=839 . live .
26. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2019) . snooker.org . 2019-06-04 . 2019-05-23 . 2019-06-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190611074600/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=840 . live .
27. Web site: Q School Order of Merit (2019) . snooker.org . 2019-06-04 . 2019-05-23 . 2019-06-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190625040327/http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=46&season=2018 . live .
28. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2020). snooker.org . 2020-08-08.
29. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2020). snooker.org . 2020-08-08.
30. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2020). snooker.org . 2020-08-08.
31. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2021) . snooker.org.
32. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2021) . snooker.org.
33. "Qualifying School - Event Three (2021)". snooker.org.
34. Web site: Q School Order of Merit (2021) . snooker.org.
35. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2022). snooker.org.
36. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2022). snooker.org.
37. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Three (2022). snooker.org.
38. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2023). snooker.org.
39. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2023). snooker.org.
40. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One (2024). snooker.org.
41. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two (2024). snooker.org.
42. https://web.archive.org/web/20220622192328/https://wst.tv/wpbsa-statement-thanawat-tirapongpaiboon/ WPBSA Statement - Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon
43. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One Asia & Oceania (2022) . snooker.org.
44. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two Asia & Oceania (2022) . snooker.org.
45. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One Asia & Oceania (2023) . snooker.org.
46. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two Asia & Oceania (2023) . snooker.org.
47. Web site: Qualifying School - Event One Asia & Oceania (2024) . snooker.org.
48. Web site: Qualifying School - Event Two Asia & Oceania (2024) . snooker.org.
49. Web site: Lam secures immediate tour return . https://web.archive.org/web/20200220184022/https://wst.tv/lam-secures-immediate-tour-return/ . dead . February 20, 2020 . wst.tv . . 20 May 2017.