Tour composition 13/14

Lets look at the 2013/2014 Tour. It will contain 128 players.

All 99 on this seasons tour will survive. This assumes that last seasons top 64 wont be overtaken by those starting on 0 points this year (unlikely given the huge gap). The rest have a 2 year card. This doesnt take into account Hendrys or Jogias situation.

New places will go to : 8 from PTC order of merit ; 4 from APTC order of merit ; 3 from European amateur order of merit [separate amateur competitions at European Tour events] ; 12 from Q School. All these places will go to amateurs as nobody will drop off [see above].

Adding these places up we get 126 spots. My guess is that the spare 2 places will go to the IBSF World and U21 Champions. This means no nominations for continental/national players. Do you think this is how the field will shape up?

Your thoughts certainly match my initial reaction to this too.

What bothers me is they seem to have made promises to those running the Continental tournaments (and promised a place to the Americans as Canada got a place this year), which would land up with more than 128 players given the other things they've announced.

Are we sure that they will let all of the 64 not guaranteed two years keep their place? I admit I've been assuming this, but have they said this or could they be thinking of say retaining 56 players and making 8 fight through Q school? I'm not sure I've actually seen confirmation the top 64 retain their place ...

The other thing that occurs to me is whether it would matter if they had a few extra players, probably unlikely everyone will enter all events anyway ...

roy142857 wrote:Your thoughts certainly match my initial reaction to this too.

What bothers me is they seem to have made promises to those running the Continental tournaments (and promised a place to the Americans as Canada got a place this year), which would land up with more than 128 players given the other things they've announced.

Are we sure that they will let all of the 64 not guaranteed two years keep their place? I admit I've been assuming this, but have they said this or could they be thinking of say retaining 56 players and making 8 fight through Q school? I'm not sure I've actually seen confirmation the top 64 retain their place ...

The other thing that occurs to me is whether it would matter if they had a few extra players, probably unlikely everyone will enter all events anyway ...

I dont think theres been anything official on top 64 retaining their places. If this year is anything to go by we wont know until March next year!

This is my main gripe with World Snooker? The criteria should be known before ANY potential competition to get on tour begins [ie. criteria for 13/14 should be known before 12/13 season starts] so that everyone knows where they stand beforehand. I follow a number of sports and ONLY snooker messes up this aspect of running a sport to this degree.

Its a sorry state of affairs!

If the tour moves to 128 players next season what happens with PTCs, are they planning to scrap the amateur round (in which case they might as well scrap them altogether)?

AttitudeCarter or LuckyTrump? wrote:If the tour moves to 128 players next season what happens with PTCs, are they planning to scrap the amateur round (in which case they might as well scrap them altogether)?

that is a Good Question

chances are all pros wont enter however just say 127 pros enter will they play Amateur rounds to find 1 player ?

theyll just alter the format of the PTCs

its hardly rocket science

Also, what's happening to the place for the European Amateur champion? This does bug me as well with WS, they don't decide and publish enough info beforehand.

If it wasn't for Joe Jogia being removed from the ranking list, we'd have the interesting situation that a current top 64 player would be outside the top 64 provisionally, as Rod Lawler has overtaken Andy Hicks.

That would have been interesting as to see whether that would have meant Hicks would have to go to Q School (if the season finished that way) but unless Cao has a phenomenal World Champs then we may never know.