Q School (snooker)

The Q School is an amateur snooker competition which serves as the qualification school for the World Snooker Tour.

Q School

Tournament information
Venue	Mattioli Arena BSAT Academy
Location	Leicester Bangkok
Country	England Thailand
Established	2011 2022 (Asia-Oceania)
Organisation(s)	World Snooker Tour
Format	Qualifying school for the Main Tour and Q Tour
Recent edition	2025

Overview

Pathways to enter the main tour, including Q School; note that the graph omits the qualification path to Q Tour Europe

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.^[1] It replaced the amateur tournament International Open Series, 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-Oceania region. 2 qualifying places were awarded to the winners whilst discontinuing qualification through Order of Merit 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 World Snooker Tour are listed.

Year	Location	Entries	Event	End date	Qualifier 1	Qualifier 2	Qualifier 3	Qualifier 4	Ref.
2011	Sheffield	124	Event 1	16 May	Andrew Norman	David Grace	Adam Wicheard	Robin Hull	[2]
			Event 2	22 May	Li Yan	David Morris	Simon Bedford	Tian Pengfei	[3]
			Event 3	28 May	Kurt Maflin	Stuart Carrington	Adam Duffy	David Gilbert	[4]
2012	Sheffield	115	Event 1	17 May	Martin O'Donnell	Sam Baird	Ian Burns	Chen Zhe	[5]
			Event 2	23 May	Daniel Wells	Jamie O'Neill	Sean O'Sullivan	Paul Davison	[6]
			Event 3	29 May	Rod Lawler	Michael Wasley	Joel Walker	Robbie Williams	[7]
2013	Sheffield	110	Event 1	14 May	Elliot Slessor	Alex Davies	Lee Page	Hammad Miah	[8]
			Event 2	18 May	Ahmed Saif	Ross Muir	Ryan Clark	Alexander Ursenbacher	[9]
			Event 3	22 May	David Morris	Lee Spick	Chris Wakelin	Fraser Patrick	[10]
2014	Gloucester	145	Event 1	15 May	Craig Steadman	Chris Melling	Zhang Anda	Tian Pengfei	[11]
			Event 2	21 May	Liam Highfield	Michael Georgiou	Lee Walker	Michael Leslie	[12]
2015	Burton- upon-Trent	166	Event 1	19 May	Sydney Wilson	Daniel Wells	Eden Sharav	Rhys Clark	[13]
			Event 2	25 May	Jason Weston	Gareth Allen	Duane Jones	Paul Davison	[14]
2016	Burton- upon-Trent	182	Event 1	16 May	Fang Xiongman	Christopher Keogan	Cao Yupeng	Chen Zhe	[15]
			Event 2	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	206	Event 1	14 May	Lukas Kleckers	Allan Taylor	Billy Joe Castle	Ashley Hugill	[18]
			Event 2	20 May	Duane Jones	Sanderson Lam	Paul Davison	Chen Zifan	[19]
			Order of Merit		Zhang Yong	Sean O'Sullivan	Joe Swail	Martin O'Donnell	[20]
2018	Burton- upon-Trent	202	Event 1	19 May	Jak Jones	Sam Baird	Hammad Miah	Sam Craigie	[21]
			Event 2	25 May	Jordan Brown	Craig Steadman	Lu Ning	Zhao Xintong	[22]
			Event 3	31 May	Thor Chuan Leong	Kishan Hirani	Andy Lee	Ashley Carty	[23]
2019	Wigan	218	Event 1	23 May	Xu Si	David Lilley	Jamie O'Neill	Soheil Vahedi	[24]
			Event 2	29 May	Chen Zifan	Riley Parsons	Louis Heathcote	Fraser Patrick	[25]
			Event 3	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	172	Event 1	7 August	Lee Walker	Peter Devlin	Simon Lichtenberg	Fan Zhengyi	[28]
			Event 2	8 August	Jamie Jones	Zak Surety	Oliver Lines	Ben Hancorn	[29]
			Event 3	9 August	Rory McLeod	Jamie Wilson	Farakh Ajaib	Steven Hallworth	[30]
2021	Sheffield	196	Event 1	1 June	Peter Lines	Fraser Patrick	Jackson Page	Yuan Sijun	[31]
			Event 2	7 June	Barry Pinches	Craig Steadman	Michael Judge	Alfie Burden	[32]
			Event 3	13 June	Ian Burns	Lei Peifan	Dean Young	Duane Jones	[33]
			Order of Merit		Hammad Miah	Mitchell Mann	–	–	[34]
2022	Sheffield	173	Event 1	21 May	Rod Lawler	Andy Lee	Fergal O'Brien	Bai Langning	[35]
			Event 2	27 May	Adam Duffy	Aaron Hill	Zak Surety	Sanderson Lam	[36]
			Event 3	2 June	James Cahill	John Astley	Jenson Kendrick	Lukas Kleckers	[37]
2023	Leicester	208	Event 1	31 May	Alexander Ursenbacher	Andrew Higginson	Liam Pullen	Andrew Pagett	[38]
			Event 2	6 June	Dean Young	Louis Heathcote	Stuart Carrington	Alfie Burden	[39]
2024	Leicester	167	Event 1	26 May	Artemijs Zizins	Allan Taylor	Haydon Pinhey	Wang Yuchen	[40]
			Event 2	1 June	Antoni Kowalski	Chris Totten	Farakh Ajaib	Mitchell Mann	[41]
2025	Leicester	171	Event 1	26 May	Liam Pullen	Oliver Brown	Alexander Ursenbacher	Mateusz Baranowski	[42]
			Event 2	1 June	David Grace	Ian Burns	Fergal Quinn	Connor Benzey	[43]

Asia-Oceania Q School

Year	Location	Entries	Event	End date	Qualifier 1	Qualifier 2	Ref.
2022	Bangkok	70	Asia & Oceania Event 1	5 June	Muhammad Asif	Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon Asjad Iqbal[44]	[45]
			Asia & Oceania Event 2	11 June	Dechawat Poomjaeng	Himanshu Jain	[46]
2023	Bangkok	99	Asia & Oceania Event 1	6 June	Thor Chuan Leong	Manasawin Phetmalaikul	[47]
			Asia & Oceania Event 2	12 June	Ishpreet Singh Chadha	He Guoqiang	[48]
2024	Bangkok	99	Asia & Oceania Event 1	27 May	Lim Kok Leong	Sunny Akani	[49]
			Asia & Oceania Event 2	2 June	Haris Tahir	Kreishh Gurbaxani	[50]
2025	Bangkok	86	Asia & Oceania Event 1	18 May	Chatchapong Nasa	Liu Wenwei	[51]
			Asia & Oceania Event 2	24 May	Xu Yichen	Zhao Hanyang	[52]

Statistics

• Craig Steadman and Alexander Ursenbacher have qualified from Q School on a record 4 occasions. Paul Davison, Fraser Patrick, Duane Jones and Ian Burns have qualified through the event on three occasions.^[53]
• 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.