The Q School is an amateur

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

competition which serves as the qualification school for the

World Snooker Tour The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of about 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. It is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial arm of professional snooker, ...

Overview

Q School is established in 2011 as an attempt to streamline the qualification process and is held annually before the start of the professional season, where amateurs and ex-professionals who dropped out of the top 64 in world rankings in previous seasons can compete for a two-year tour card to play on the Main Tour. It replaced the amateur tournament

International Open Series The International Open Series (often referred to as Pontins International Open Series or PIOS for sponsorship reasons), was a series of snooker tournaments that ran from the 2001–02 season until the 2009–10 season. It was originally called t ...

, the former second-tier snooker series organised by the English Association of Snooker and Billiards (EASB). In 2022, a Q School branch in Bangkok was established for entrants from the

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

region. 2 qualifying places were awarded to the winners whilst discontinuing qualification through

Order of Merit The Order of Merit () is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by Edward VII, admission into the order r ...

in Q School Europe. Players pay a fixed entry fee to enter the play-off events, and there is no prize money. Winners of quarter-finals will be joining the World Snooker Main Tour, whilst the top 32 players of Q School Europe along with other junior players and Asia-Oceania qualifiers will be qualified for the second-tier WPBSA Q Tour.

Qualifiers

For each event, the players who qualified for the

are listed.

Asia-Oceania Q School

Statistics

Craig Steadman Craig Steadman (born 14 July 1982) is an English former professional snooker player. Career Early career Steadman began his professional career by playing Challenge Tour in 2001, at the time the second-level professional tour. He reached the ...

and

Alexander Ursenbacher Alexander Ursenbacher (born 26 April 1996) is a Swiss professional snooker player from Rheinfelden. He is the first snooker player from Switzerland to have competed professionally (former professional Darren Paris represented England, in the mid ...

have qualified from Q School on a record 4 occasions.

Paul Davison Paul S. Davison (born 1 October 1971) is an English former professional snooker player from Pickering, North Yorkshire. First earning a place on the World Snooker Tour in 1992, he played on the tour until 1997, and has since regained his place o ...

Fraser Patrick Fraser Patrick (born 8 November 1985) is a Scottish former professional snooker player from Glasgow. Career Patrick started his professional career in 2002 by playing Challenge Tour, where he spent three seasons without success. In 2007 Patric ...

Duane Jones Duane Lionel Jones (April 11, 1937July 22, 1988) was an American actor. He was best known for his lead role as Ben in the 1968 horror film ''Night of the Living Dead''. He was later director of the Maguire Theater at the State University of New ...

and Ian Burns have qualified through the event on three occasions. *

Michael Georgiou Michael Georgiou (born 18 January 1988) is a British-Greek Cypriots, Cypriot former professional snooker player from Forest Hill, London, Forest Hill. He is a practice partner of Igor Figueiredo and Hammad Miah, who practises at Whetstone Snooke ...

, Jordan Brown, David Gilbert,

Fan Zhengyi Fan Zhengyi (; born 27 January 2001) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He won the IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship in 2017, and turned professional in 2018. He had a breakthrough season in 2021–22 when he reached his first ra ...

Fergal O'Brien Fergal O'Brien (born 8 March 1972) is an Irish retired professional snooker player who competed on the World Snooker Tour from 1991 to 2024. He won one ranking title during his career, defeating Anthony Hamilton 9–7 in the final of the 1999 ...

and

Zhao Xintong Zhao Xintong (; born 3 April 1997) is a Chinese professional snooker player and the reigning World Snooker Champion. He first turned professional in the 2016–17 season, aged 19, having previously recorded wins against a number of top p ...

are the six Q-School qualifiers to win a

ranking event A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...

. 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 Lei Peifan (; born 31 May 2003) is a Chinese professional snooker player. While ranked 84th in the world, he won his first ranking event in December 2024, the 2024 Scottish Open, by defeating Wu Yize 95 in the final. Career In May 2019, Lei ...

at 15, while

Peter Lines Peter Lines (born 11 December 1969) is an English former professional snooker player. He has reached the semi-finals of one ranking tournament, the 2018 Paul Hunter Classic. He reached his highest ranking, 42nd in the world, in 1999. He is the ...

was the oldest, qualifying at 51 in 2021.

References

{{Snooker tournaments Snooker competitions in England Recurring sporting events established in 2011 2011 establishments in England Snooker amateur competitions Qualification for sports events Snooker tours and series