The Table · One
Three-quarters of a tonne of Italian slate
A full-size bed arrives in pieces because nobody can lift it in one, and it has to be flat to about the width of a fingernail across its whole length.
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A tournament bed is levelled with shims on site over most of a day, and levelled again if a ball drifts.
Photo: Ketut Subiyanto / PexelsThe Crucible · Three
Nine hundred and eighty seats
Same theatre since 1977, the smallest venue hosting a world final in any sport, and a contract that runs out in 2027. Sheffield has begun arguing for it in public.
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Two tables, a divider between them until the quarter-finals, and 980 seats around them.
Photo: 2021 World Snooker Championship table setup · Wikimedia CommonsPlayers · Two
Suspended, unranked, world champion
Zhao Xintong won four qualifying rounds as an amateur and then the 2025 world championship, 18–12 against Mark Williams. He is the first Chinese player to hold the title.
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Qualifying runs several tables at once in a sports hall, with almost nobody in the seats.
Photo: Joshua Santos / PexelsElsewhere on the site
The Tour · Four
What the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters Added to the Frame, and What the Appearance Money Added to the Calendar
What the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters added to the frame, and what the appearance money added to the calendar.
Records · Five
Thirty-Six Shots Without a Mistake, at Two in the Morning, in a Match He Lost
Thirty-six shots without a mistake, at two in the morning, in a second-round tie he went on to lose.
The Tour · Four
Barry Hearn Took Over in 2010 and the Number of Events Tripled
What Matchroom's arrangement with the WPBSA did to prize money, and to the players ranked below sixty-fourth.
The Tour · Four
One hundred and twenty-eight tour cards
About thirty of them can win anything. Who holds a card, what it costs to keep one below the top sixty-four, and what the ranking list does to the rest.
A card lasts two years, and most of the 128 who hold one never reach a televised round.
Photo: Fahad Puthawala / PexelsA maximum break is thirty-six shots in a row without a mistake. Cliff Thorburn made the first one at the Crucible in 1983 and then lost the match.
The world trophy, won in 2025 by a player who held no tour card when the tournament began.
Photo: Nick Gorniok / PexelsThe long read
Twenty months out, and a world title
The 2023 disciplinary case took ten Chinese players off the tour. One of them came back without a card and won the thing the sport is named for.
- 2021Wins the UK Championship, the first Chinese player to do so.
- January 2023The WPBSA charges ten Chinese professionals.
- Late 2023Suspended for twenty months; two of the ten are banned for life.
- 2025Wins the world championship 18–12, as an amateur.
