October 2025 snooker guide: key tournaments and schedule

There are two rankings tournaments and plenty more snooker action to look forward to in what is a busy month of October on the baize.

September produced champions at the English Open and the British Open, with Mark Allen and Shaun Murphy emerging victoriously in Brentwood and Cheltenham respectively.

There were winners too in various amateur competitions staged around the world, including at the Pan American Championships where Igor Figueiredo triumphed to secure a two-year professional card.

There are some big snooker events to come later in October, so let’s have a quick rundown of what there is to look forward to.

World Snooker Tour

Xi’an Grand Prix

The sixth ranking event on the 2025/26 calendar is the Xi’an Grand Prix, which returns to the annual schedule for just its second ever edition.

Kyren Wilson enjoyed success in the inaugural staging just over a year ago, with the Englishman beating Judd Trump in a close final.

There is again set to be a top prize of £177,000 up for grabs, representing the second-highest cheque to be awarded in a ranking event so far this term.

When is the Xi’an Grand Prix? October 7th to 13th

Northern Ireland Open

The second event on the Home Nations Series will be staged a week after the trip to China, seeing the players return to Belfast for the Northern Ireland Open.

This year marks the 10th edition of the popular tournament at the Waterfront Hall where the contenders will scrap it out for the £100,000 top prize and the coveted Alex Higgins Trophy.

Once again, Kyren Wilson will be the reigning champion after also beating Judd Trump in the final of this competition a year ago.

When is the Northern Ireland Open? October 19th to 26th

Qualifiers

As usual, there are some batches of snooker qualifiers and preliminary stages of ranking events to be staged during the month of October.

One of those is already under way, with the initial matches from the International Championship being held in Sheffield this week.

In between the Xi’an Grand Prix and the Northern Ireland Open, there will also be the opening couple of rounds of this year’s Scottish Open.

When are the International Championship qualifiers? September 30th to October 2nd
When are the Scottish Open qualifiers? October 14th to 17th

World Women’s Snooker Tour

Australian Women’s Open

A busy few weeks on the women’s snooker circuit will see the month of October bookended by a couple of ranking events.

First up this weekend will be the Australian Women’s Open where reigning champion Mink Nutcharut will hope to put her difficult main tour form behind her.

The entry list for the Sydney trip is dominated by players from Australia and Thailand, with the likes of Bai Yulu, Ng On Yee, and Reanne Evans all not involved.

When is the Australian Women’s Open? October 4th to 7th

Women’s Snooker Open

Towards the end of October, a brand new event on the World Women’s Snooker Tour will be staged in Bangkok.

There isn’t much more information available on this one, except that it will be held at the familiar Hi-End Snooker Club that previously hosted World Women’s Championships.

When is the Women’s Snooker Open? October 27th to 30th

Q Tour

Last weekend, Peter Lines beat Peter Devlin to capture Q Tour Event 2 on the European swing of the amateur feeder circuit.

Q Tour Event 3 and Event 4 will both be held in October, with the first of those in Albania and the second back in Leeds.

The fourth tournament on the Asia Pacific Q Tour will be staged as well.

When is Asia Pacific Q Tour Event 4? October 9th to 12th
When is Q Tour Event 3? October 9th to 12th
When is Q Tour Event 4? October 29th to November 1st

Pluto Snooker 900

Elsewhere, there was interesting news earlier this week with a new 24/7 snooker channel to be launched on October 6th.

Named Pluto TV and backed by Jason Francis and Ronnie O’Sullivan, the new venture intends to shine a spotlight on the future of the sport by giving amateurs, women, juniors and disabled players the TV platform usually reserved for the elite.

The channel will broadcast 18 hours of live snooker every week, classic matches from the archive, and footage from O’Sullivan’s own Rocket Method coaching series.

Access to this snooker channel will be available for free via the Pluto TV app.

When is Pluto Snooker 900? Monday to Wednesday weekly, starting October 6th.

What other snooker tournaments are taking place?

If you know of any other interesting snooker tournaments happening anywhere in the world during the month of October, let us know in the comments section below.

Featured photo credit: WST