Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
Pankaj Arjan Advani is an Indian billiards and professional snooker player. He is a 27-time International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) world champion. He has won 18 billiards world titles, the IBSF World Billiards Championship on 17 occasions and the World Team Billiards Championship once. In snooker, he won the IBSF World Snooker Championship three times, IBSF World six-red championship twice and the IBSF World Team Cup and IBSF World Team Championship one time each. He has the record number of IBSF world championships. He became a snooker professional in 2012/2013.
The International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) is an organisation that governs non-professional snooker and English billiards around the world. As of January 2020, the organisation is headquartered in Doha, Qatar.
Peter Francisco is a South African former professional snooker player who won the African Snooker Championship 4 times and South African Snooker Championship 8 times and the South African Billiards Championship 13 times as an amateur and professional.
The IBSF World Snooker Championship is the premier non-professional snooker tournament in the world. The event series is sanctioned by the International Billiards and Snooker Federation. A number of IBSF champions have gone on to successful careers in the professional ranks, notably Jimmy White (1980), James Wattana (1988), Ken Doherty (1989), Stuart Bingham (1996), Marco Fu (1997), Stephen Maguire (2000) and Mark Allen (2004). Both Doherty and Bingham have gone on to win the professional World Snooker Championship.
The 2010–11 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 20 May 2010 and 2 May 2011. The German Masters was the first ranking tournament in Germany since the 1997/1998 season. The Grand Prix was renamed to World Open, and the format of the tournament was changed with 32 amateurs joining the Main Tour professionals. The Players Tour Championship minor-ranking series was introduced to the calendar. These events were open to amateurs and professionals with a separate Order of Merit. The top 24 in the Order of Merit qualified for the Finals, which was a ranking event. The Premier League was for the first time part of the Main Tour. The Jiangsu Classic was renamed to the Wuxi Classic, and other events were introduced to the calendar: the new cue sport Power Snooker, the World Seniors Championship, and Snooker Shoot Out. The Scottish Professional Championship was held for the first time since 1989.
The 2011–12 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 1 June 2011 and 7 May 2012. The Brazil Masters became the first major professional event held in South America, and the Australian Goldfields Open the first ranking event in Australia. The World Cup was held again after 1996. At the end of the season Ronnie O'Sullivan was named the World Snooker Player of the Year and the Snooker Writers Player of the Year, Judd Trump the Fans Player of the Year and Luca Brecel the Rookie of the Year. Stuart Bingham received the "Performance of the Year" for winning his first ranking event, the Australian Goldfields Open. Stephen Hendry's maximum break at the World Championship received "The Magic Moment" award. Walter Donaldson, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Hossein Vafaei is an Iranian professional snooker player. He is the first professional player from Iran. He won his first ranking title at the 2022 Snooker Shoot Out, beating Mark Williams 1–0 (71–0) in the final.
The 2012–13 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 16 May 2012 and 6 May 2013. The season featured two new ranking events: the Wuxi Classic and the International Championship. The tour had a record five ranking events in China, and three new PTC events in Asia. The tour also visited Bulgaria for the first time in its history, and returned to Poland, Belgium and Australia. Before the start of the season World Snooker requested every player to sign a players contract, that would allow players to choose which events they want to enter – no player was forced to play in any event. At the end of the season Mark Selby was named the World Snooker Player of the Year, the Snooker Writers' Player of the Year and the Fans' Player of the Year and Ian Burns the Rookie of the Year. Ronnie O'Sullivan received the "Performance of the Year" for winning his fifth World title after playing just one competitive match during the season. Jimmy Robertson's 57 break in just 130 seconds at the Snooker Shoot Out received the "Magic Moment of the Year" award. Terry Griffiths, Joe Johnson, Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty, Graeme Dott, Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship is the premier non-professional junior snooker tournament in the world. The event series is sanctioned by the International Billiards and Snooker Federation and started from 1987.
The ACBS Asian Snooker Championship is the premier non-professional snooker tournament in Asia. The event series is sanctioned by the Asian Confederation of Billiard Sports and started from 1984. Mostly, the winner of the tournament qualifies for the next season of the Professional Snooker Tour.
The 2013–14 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 6 June 2013 and 5 May 2014. From this season every qualifying match was held open to the public at various venues in the United Kingdom, replacing the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield. The number of wild-card players at the Chinese ranking events, except the Shanghai Masters, was reduced from eight to four and former Main Tour players were excluded. A professional player could not be selected for more than one wild-card match during the season.
The 2014–15 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 8 May 2014 and 4 May 2015. The Riga Open was the first professional snooker tournament held in Latvia. The season also saw the first professional tournament in Portugal as the Lisbon Open took place.
Mohamed Alaa Khairy is an Egyptian former professional snooker player. Khairy turned professional in 2012 after having been nominated by the African Billiards and Snooker Federation, but was relegated from the tour after two seasons.
The Players Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. Held as the Players Tour Championship Finals from 2011 to 2016, it was rebranded as the standalone Players Championship in 2017. One of three events in the Players Series, it features the top 16 players on the one-year ranking list. Mark Allen is the reigning champion, having won the 2024 event.
The 2015–16 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played between 7 May 2015 and 2 May 2016.
Hatem Yassen is a former Egyptian professional snooker player. Yassen turned professional in 2015 winning the African Championship.
Jamie Clarke is a Welsh professional snooker player.
Amee Kamani is an Indian snooker player. She was runner-up in the 2016 International Billiards and Snooker Federation World Snooker championship, losing 0–5 in the final to the defending champion Wendy Jans. Kamani was the 2018 Asian Billiards Sports Championships Ladies Champion after defeating Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan 3–0 in the final, and was runner-up at the 2014 Australian Open and the 2019 International Billiards and Snooker Federation Women's six-reds snooker championship.
Mostafa Dorgham is an Egyptian snooker player. He earned a two-year card on to the World Snooker Tour, starting from the 2023-24 snooker season.
Mostafa Dorgham (EGY)
