Worst professional player

Who's the worst player to play professionally and how did they end up as a professional?

Neil Robertson? ;)

simplysnooker wrote:Neil Robertson? ;)

I mean statistically worst i.e career earnings or never got past the first round of a tournament.

Not sure if you mean now or worst ever?

Also, worst for quality of play or because they won a place on Tour and then don't turn up for matches?

For sure the worst player now is probably better than some of the so-called Pros in the 1990s when anyone could join the Tour. Picking quite unfairly on one, just checked Cuetracker and can see Mario Cutajar never won a match (but nonetheless not such a bad player, quite a good player in the amateur ranks), but still, won nearly 30% of the frames he played. There've certainly been quite a few players who've similarly never won a match.

With apologies for picking on them, Simon Keeton perhaps? Played 59 frames, won 5. Clement Walden technically had a win (a walkover) - 41 frames played, won 2. At least they tried.

roy142857 wrote:Not sure if you mean now or worst ever?

Also, worst for quality of play or because they won a place on Tour and then don't turn up for matches?

For sure the worst player now is probably better than some of the so-called Pros in the 1990s when anyone could join the Tour. Picking quite unfairly on one, just checked Cuetracker and can see Mario Cutajar never won a match (but nonetheless not such a bad player, quite a good player in the amateur ranks), but still, won nearly 30% of the frames he played. There've certainly been quite a few players who've similarly never won a match.

With apologies for picking on them, Simon Keeton perhaps? Played 59 frames, won 5. Clement Walden technically had a win (a walkover) - 41 frames played, won 2. At least they tried.

I meant now but ever's still quite interesting,

How many tour players were there in the late 1990s?

Only 313 by 1998/99, the highest numbers of players were earlier in the decade ... to give you an idea ...

465 players were ranked in 1996/97

550 players were ranked in 1994/95

597 players were ranked in 1992/93

roy142857 wrote:Only 313 by 1998/99, the highest numbers of players were earlier in the decade ... to give you an idea ...

465 players were ranked in 1996/97

550 players were ranked in 1994/95

597 players were ranked in 1992/93

Surely that made the qualifying system insurmountable?

11 rounds of qualifying for the 1993 World Championship (i.e. before the Last 32 stage), pretty much the same with other big tournaments such as the British Open.

Have a look at the comments from Dannyboy and Snooky147 about qualifying back then on this topic - viewtopic.php?f=59&t=4249

The Current Worst Pro is Lee Spick he went through Q School and not turned up for tournaments.

Ahmed Saif and Mohammed Khairy must run him pretty close.

If they played now I'd expect Ahmed Saif or Mohammed Khairy to beat Khalid Belaied from Libya who has just got his Visa to join the Tour. From the little I managed to see (the streaming from the African Championship wasn't too good) quite a lot of improvement will be needed if he's to make an impact. Shame he's not got the full two years.

African Snooker had his name as Belaied, whereas on Twitter World Snooker used Beleid, of course the actual name is in Arabic script, but I think the name is said (very roughly) Bell - Aye - Ed.

Got on to the Tour like Mohammed Khairy as African runner-up, as Peter Francisco turned down the opportunity on both occasions. Was a bit lucky to be in the opposite half of the draw to Francisco and having weaker opponents en route to the final, Morocco's Chaouki Yousfi came through a tougher draw and gave Francisco more of a match in the semis and (just my opinion) was probably the best player aside from Francisco.

So he's my pick as 'worst player' at the moment, but hoping he won't still be worst player this time next year. Going to be a steep learning curve ...

roy142857 wrote:11 rounds of qualifying for the 1993 World Championship (i.e. before the Last 32 stage), pretty much the same with other big tournaments such as the British Open.

Pretty sure that all of the qualifying events were held at the start of the season i.e. the summer qualifying school at the Norbreck Castle in Blackpool. Pretty much meant that a lot of the early rounds of the qualifiers for the World Championships and UK Championships were best of nine frames rather than just the pre qualifiers. One of the reasons why some many matches were one sided in 1993 was because a lot of players were surprise qualifiers due to the qualifying being held in September of 92. Indeed the draw was made before Hendry and White got underway for the 1992 final

With the fact that anyone could pay an enrolement fee and tournament entry fees and declare themselves as a professional it means that we've had a lot of players who might have fancied a crack at being a professional but were not of the standard required and in the cases of a select select few, not of the standard to be a good amateur.


The fact you'd got 526 entries vying for 32, 16 or in the case of the masters just the one spot at the finals means its inevitable some players will be left out in the cold. One player, Spencer Dunn tried ages to qualify for a venue, made the Crucible, lost in the first round, and never reached another venue before packing it in at a young age

The whole of the 1993 World Championship qualifiers were completed a full 7 months before the start of the final stages of the event at The Crucible.