The Q School is an amateur snooker competition which serves as the qualification school for the World Snooker Tour.
Overview
Q School was 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 former second-tier snooker series organised by the English Association of Snooker and Billiards (EASB).
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 invited for the second-tier WPBSA Q Tour.
A Q School Order of Merit is produced for players who failed to gain a place on the main tour every year to top up under-subscribed tournaments on the main tour. The rankings in the Order of Merit were based on the number of frames won in the two UK Q School events.
In 2022, a Q School branch in Bangkok was established for entrants from the Asia-Oceania region. Two qualifying places were awarded to the winners whilst discontinuing qualification through Order of Merit in Q School Europe.
Qualifiers For each event, the players who qualified for the World Snooker Tour are listed.
YearLocationEntriesEventEnd dateQualifier 1Qualifier 2Qualifier 3Qualifier 4Ref. 2011 Sheffield 124 Event1 16 May Andrew Norman David Grace Adam Wicheard Robin Hull Event 2 22 May Li Yan David Morris Simon Bedford Tian Pengfei Event 3 28 May Kurt Maflin Stuart Carrington Adam Duffy David Gilbert 2012115 Event 1 17 May Martin O'Donnell Sam Baird Ian Burns Chen Zhe Event 2 23 May Daniel Wells Jamie O'Neill Sean O'Sullivan Paul Davison Event 3 29 May Rod Lawler Michael Wasley Joel Walker Robbie Williams 2013 110 Event 1 14 May Elliot Slessor Alex Davies Lee Page Hammad Miah Event 2 18 May Ahmed Saif Ross Muir Ryan Clark Alexander Ursenbacher Event 3 22 May David Morris Lee Spick Chris Wakelin Fraser Patrick 2014 Gloucester 145 Event 1 15 May Craig Steadman Chris Melling Zhang Anda Tian Pengfei Event 2 21 May Liam Highfield Michael Georgiou Lee Walker Michael Leslie 2015 Burton-upon-Trent 166 Event 1 19 May Sydney Wilson Daniel Wells Eden Sharav Rhys Clark Event 2 25 May Jason Weston Gareth Allen Duane Jones Paul Davison 2016 182 Event 1 16 May Fang Xiongman Christopher Keogan Cao Yupeng Chen Zhe Event 2 22 May Michael Georgiou John Astley Alex Borg David John Order of Merit Craig Steadman Jamie Curtis-Barrett Ian Preece Adam Duffy 2017 Preston 206 Event 1 14 May Lukas Kleckers Allan Taylor Billy Joe Castle Ashley Hugill Event 2 20 May Duane Jones Sanderson Lam Paul Davison Chen Zifan Order of Merit Zhang Yong Sean O'Sullivan Joe Swail Martin O'Donnell 2018 Burton-upon-Trent 202 Event 1 19 May Jak Jones Sam Baird Hammad Miah Sam Craigie Event 2 25 May Jordan Brown Craig Steadman Lu Ning Zhao Xintong Event 3 31 May Thor Chuan Leong Kishan Hirani Andy Lee Ashley Carty 2019 Wigan 218 Event 1 23 May Xu Si David Lilley Jamie O'Neill Soheil Vahedi Event 2 29 May Chen Zifan Riley Parsons Louis Heathcote Fraser Patrick Event 3 4 June Barry Pinches Alex Borg Alexander Ursenbacher Andy Hicks Order of Merit Si Jiahui Billy Castle Peter Lines Lei Peifan 2020 Sheffield 172 Event 1 7 August Lee Walker Peter Devlin Simon Lichtenberg Fan Zhengyi Event 2 8 August Jamie Jones Zak Surety Oliver Lines Ben Hancorn Event 3 9 August Rory McLeod Jamie Wilson Farakh Ajaib Steven Hallworth 2021 196 Event 1 1 June Peter Lines Fraser Patrick Jackson Page Yuan Sijun Event 2 7 June Barry Pinches Craig Steadman Michael Judge Alfie Burden Event 3 13 June Ian Burns Lei Peifan Dean Young Duane Jones "Qualifying School - Event Three (2021)". snooker.org. Order of Merit Hammad Miah Mitchell Mann – – 2022 173 Event 1 21 May Rod Lawler Andy Lee Fergal O'Brien Bai Langning Event 2 27 May Adam Duffy Aaron Hill Zak Surety Sanderson Lam Event 3 2 June James Cahill John Astley Jenson Kendrick Lukas Kleckers 2023 Leicester 208 Event 1 31 May Alexander Ursenbacher Andrew Higginson Liam Pullen Andrew Pagett Event 2 6 June Dean Young Louis Heathcote Stuart Carrington Alfie Burden 2024 167 Event 1 26 May Artemijs Zizins Allan Taylor Haydon Pinhey Wang Yuchen Event 2 1 June Antoni Kowalski Chris Totten Farakh Ajaib Mitchell Mann 2025 171 Event 1 26 May Liam Pullen Oliver Brown Alexander Ursenbacher Mateusz Baranowski Event 2 1 June David Grace Ian Burns Fergal Quinn Connor Benzey 2026 156Event 125 May Cheung Ka Wai Phil O'Kane Sean O'Sullivan Liam DaviesEvent 231 May Andrew Higginson Gong Chenzhi Stuart Carrington Mitchell Mann
Asia-Oceania Q School YearLocationEntriesEventEnd dateQualifier 1Qualifier 2Ref. 2022 Bangkok 70 Asia & Oceania Event 1 5 June Muhammad Asif Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon Asjad IqbalWPBSA Statement - Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon Asia & Oceania Event 2 11 June Dechawat Poomjaeng Himanshu Jain 2023 99 Asia & Oceania Event 1 6 June Thor Chuan Leong Manasawin Phetmalaikul Asia & Oceania Event 2 12 June Ishpreet Singh Chadha He Guoqiang 2024 99 Asia & Oceania Event 1 27 May Lim Kok Leong Sunny Akani Asia & Oceania Event 2 2 June Haris Tahir Kreishh Gurbaxani 2025 86 Asia & Oceania Event 1 18 May Chatchapong Nasa Liu Wenwei Asia & Oceania Event 2 24 May Xu Yichen Zhao Hanyang 2026 63Asia & Oceania Event 118 May Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon Deng Haohui Asia & Oceania Event 224 May Huang Jiahao Liu Yang
Statistics
Players Craig Steadman and Alexander Ursenbacher have qualified from Q School on a record 4 occasions. Stuart Carrington, Paul Davison, Fraser Patrick, Duane Jones and Ian Burns have qualified through the event on three occasions. 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.
Order of Merit
Over the last three seasons from 2023 to 2025, the third-ranked player from the Q School Order of Merit were able to play in an average of 9 ranking tournaments as a top-up, half of the total amount of ranking events (18) in a typical main tour season; the eighth-ranked averaged 6 rankings tournaments; and the twelfth-ranked or below only 2, namely the Championship League and the Snooker Shoot Out, which suffered a high withdrawal rate from the main tour players due to the nature of such events. A minimum of 35 frames combined from the two Q School events were needed to secure a top-three finish from the Order of Merit rankings, 29 frames for a top-eight finish and 28 frames for a top-twelve finish. Alfie Burden is the most successful top-up player in terms of tournament finish by winning the 2025 Shoot Out as the 20th-ranked, and the lowest-ranked to be invited, from the 2025 Q School Order of Merit.
References