A Guide To The 2012/13 Ranking System

A Guide to the Rankings System in Snooker

The start of the 2010/11 season saw a major change to the way that the rankings in professional snooker are calculated, introducing a rolling-ranking system whereby the official ranking list is now updated after each event.

To confuse things however, whilst the rankings are updated after each event, the seedings for future events are not, instead being updated FOUR times during the season, in addition to the post-World Championship shake-up at the end of the season.

These revisions during 2012/13 will take place on the following dates:

  • Following the UK PTC2 event on the 12th August 2012.
  • Following the APTC3 event on the 9th November 2012.
  • Following the UK Championship on the 9th December 2012.
  • Following the China Open on the 31st March 2013.
  • Following the 2013 World Championship.

In effect therefore, there are now at any one time, three separate lists of relevance for fans and players alike:

  1. The Current Seeding List – This list determines the seedings for the start of the season, eg for the Australian Open and Shanghai Masters in 2011/12.
  2. The Official Ranking List – This list is the official rankings, what you see is what you get. In reality however until the seedings are revised, this does not determine anything more than who sits where in the arena and has no effect on who has to qualify and so on.
  3. The Projected Seedings List – This for me is the interesting one, in effect the provisional rankings up until the next seeding revision. Unlike the official list, this list already removes any points that will not be used at the next cut-off point, so as to show the true picture. For example at the start of the season, this list shows how the rankings will be adjusted at the first mid-season cut-off point, having already removed the points from the start of the season two years previously.

As a result, rather than having one table to cover the season, I have will a table leading up to each individual revision, beginning with the the first in October.

To reinforce the ‘rolling rankings’ system, this means that as points for the current season are added to the player’s totals, points from two years previously will be replaced.

To demonstrate just who has the most to lose at each cut-off point I will also be presenting ‘points to defend’ tables, an example of which you can see here.

There is also a separate Order of Merit for the Players Tour Championship. The Top 25 in this list who have played three events in England as well as three overseas are eligible for the PTC Grand Finals tournament later in the season, in addition to the winners of the three APTC events and the top four players from the new APTC Order of Merit.

To access all of my rankings pages, please click here to return to the main rankings menu.