Brace for chaos – the 2025 Snooker Shoot Out lands in Blackpool for the annual four-day stretch of ten-minute drama.
The Snooker Shoot Out, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday, represents the tenth ranking event of the 2025/26 campaign.
The setting at the Tower Circus couldn’t be much more different compared to last week’s prestigious UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York.
It will be a much more relaxed atmosphere at the seaside destination as every fan’s favourite tournament to either love or hate returns to the schedule.
Regardless of all that, it remains a tournament to be won, and the confidence from getting one’s hands on the silverware here can lead to much greater things on the circuit.
Just look at the trajectory of Chris Wakelin’s career since he emerged with the trophy to claim a maiden ranking title a little under three years ago.
Wakelin is one of several former champions who are back in the Snooker Shoot Out draw in 2025.
Tom Ford is the defending champion, the Leicester man getting his hands on silverware at a full ranking event for the first time a year ago.
A lot of high-profile players choose to skip this week’s action considering its unpredictability and a relatively low prize fund.
Despite the fact that ten of the top 16 members are absent, there are still plenty of marquee names in the field.
World champion Zhao Xintong is set to participate for the first time since 2022 while Shaun Murphy, who memorably compiled a 147 break in the late-2023 edition, returns.
Former champions Mark Allen, Hossein Vafaei, Ryan Day, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Anthony McGill, and Michael Holt will also attempt to survive the seven one-frame shoot outs again.
Prize money
Champion: £50,000
Runner-up: £20,000
Semi-Final: £8,000
Quarter-Final: £4,000
Last 16: £2,000
Last 32: £1,000
Last 64: £500
Last 128: £250
Highest Break: £5,000
TOTAL: £171,000
What is the Snooker Shoot Out format?
The Snooker Shoot Out, which incorporates a random draw for each round, is always a controversial inclusion as a ranking event given its deviation from the normal rules of the game.
Each match lasts only one ten-minute frame, with a 15-second shot clock in operation for the first five minutes and a 10-second shot clock required for the remaining time.
Players lag to determine who breaks off, every shot must result in a ball hitting a cushion or getting potted, and the ball-in-hand rule is in operation for any foul committed.
Originally an invitational, the event was upgraded to ranking event status in 2017 – much to the dismay of most involved in the sport.
Who are the betting favourites?
The Shoot Out is notoriously one of the most difficult tournaments on the calendar to predict and only one active top 16 member has ever emerged with the title.
That was Mark Allen two years ago and the Northern Irishman is among the favourites again this year – just behind Zhao Xintong and Shaun Murphy who are priced at about 10/1 in the outright market.
The recent tournaments predictions have generally caused trouble with Mark Selby becoming the season’s first two-time winner at the UK Championship.
2025 Snooker Shoot Out draw and first-round schedule
Round of 128 (bo1)
Tom Ford 1-0 Martin O’Donnell
Chatchapong Nasa 0-1 Stan Moody
Zhang Anda 0-1 Julien Leclercq
Ethan Llewellyn 1-0 Yao Pengcheng
Jiang Jun 0-1 Robbie McGuigan
Stuart Carrington 1-0 Zhao Hanyang
Mark Davis 0-1 Pang Junxu
Michael Holt 1-0 Ashley Hugill
David Lilley 0-1 Alfie Burden
Leone Crowley 0-1 Amir Sarkhosh
Ricky Walden 1-0 Ryan Davies
Dylan Emery 0-1 Mitchell Mann
Steven Wardopper 0-1 Florian Nuessle
Lan Yuhao 1-0 Joel Connolly
Mateusz Baranowski 0-1 Ken Doherty
Long Zehuang 0-1 Luca Brecel
Xu Yichen 1-0 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
David Gilbert 1-0 Matthew Stevens
Ashley Carty 0-1 Bulcsu Revesz
Ishpreet Singh Chadha 1-0 Dean Young
Joe O’Connor 0-1 Duane Jones
Fergal Quinn 0-1 Jordan Brown
Ben Woollaston 0-1 Ben Mertens
Shaun Murphy 1-0 Patrick Whelan
Umut Dikme 0-1 Ryan Day
Elliot Slessor 1-0 Louis Heathcote
Haydon Pinhey 0-1 Allan Taylor
Jimmy Robertson 1-0 Matthew Selt
Iulian Boiko 1-0 Hatem Yassen
Sanderson Lam 1-0 Jonas Luz
Mahmoud El Hareedy 0-1 Gary Wilson
Jack Bradford 0-1 Zhou Yuelong
Wu Yize 1-0 Craig Steadman
Jackson Page 1-0 Lei Peifan
Chang Bingyu 1-0 Liam Pullen
Yuan Sijun 1-0 Gong Chenzhi
Noppon Saengkham 1-0 Xu Si
Cheung Ka Wai 0-1 Liam Graham
Halim Hussain 1-0 Vladislav Gradinari
Ross Muir 1-0 Zhao Xintong
Ng On Yee 1-0 Mark Allen
Alfie Davies 0-1 Fan Zhengyi
Paul Deaville 1-0 Huang Jiahao
Riley Powell 1-0 Daniel Wells
Michael Szubarczyk 1-0 Jamie Jones
Wang Yuchen 0-1 Kaylan Patel
Simon Blackwell 1-0 Reanne Evans
Elliot Scott 0-1 Bai Yulu
Oliver Lines 1-0 Mark Lloyd
Daniel Womersley 0-1 Kayden Brierley
Zack Richardson 1-0 Si Jiahui
Stephen Maguire 0-1 Farakh Ajaib
Hossein Vafaei 1-0 Haris Tahir
Robert Milkins 0-1 Liu Hongyu
Aaron Hill 1-0 Liu Wenwei
Ian Burns 0-1 Liam Highfield
Stuart Bingham 1-0 Jack O’Brien
Oliver Brown 1-0 Jimmy White
Antoni Kowalski 0-1 Sahil Nayyar
Gao Yang 1-0 Steven Hallworth
Zak Surety 1-0 Kreishh Gurbaxani
Chris Totten 0-1 Connor Benzey
Liam Davies 1-0 Anthony McGill
He Guoqiang 0-1 David Grace
Round of 64 (bo1)
Sanderson Lam 1-0 Ken Doherty
Liam Highfield 1-0 Ricky Walden
Allan Taylor 0-1 Zhou Yuelong
Gary Wilson 1-0 Florian Nuessle
Ryan Day 1-0 Duane Jones
Ben Mertens 1-0 Liam Graham
Julien Leclercq 1-0 Michal Szubarczyk
Lan Yuhao 0-1 Stan Moody
Stuart Bingham 1-0 Simon Blackwell
Oliver Lines 1-0 Chang Bingyu
Connor Benzey 0-1 Noppon Saengkham
Pang Junxu 1-0 Jordan Brown
Jimmy Robertson 0-1 Tom Ford
Iulian Boiko 1-0 Xu Yichen
Hossein Vafaei 0-1 Robbie McGuigan
David Gilbert 1-0 Wu Yize
Michael Holt 0-1 Jackson Page
Liam Davies 0-1 Bulcsu Revesz
Kayden Brierley 0-1 Kaylan Patel
Mitchell Mann 1-0 Stuart Carrington
Riley Powell 0-1 Ethan Llewellyn
Yuan Sijun 1-0 Farakh Ajaib
Elliot Slessor 1-0 Paul Deaville
Sahil Nayyar 0-1 Amir Sarkhosh
David Grace 0-1 Halim Hussain
Zak Surety 0-1 Fan Zhengyi
Ishpreet Singh Chadha 0-1 Alfie Burden
Ross Muir 1-0 Liu Hongyu
Oliver Brown 1-0 Bai Yulu
Aaron Hill 0-1 Ng On Yee
Gao Yang 0-1 Zack Richardson
Shaun Murphy 0-1 Luca Brecel
Round of 32 (bo1)
Stan Moody 1-0 Ng On Yee
Elliot Slessor 1-0 Ross Muir
Ben Mertens 1-0 Robbie McGuigan
Gary Wilson 0-1 Alfie Burden
Jackson Page 1-0 Pang Junxu
Bulcsu Revesz 0-1 Kaylan Patel
Ryan Day 0-1 Ethan Llewellyn
Zhou Yuelong 0-1 Noppon Saengkham
Yuan Sijun 1-0 Julien Leclercq
Mitchell Mann 0-1 Zachary Richardson
Sanderson Lam 0-1 Stuart Bingham
Luca Brecel 0-1 Fan Zhengyi
Iulian Boiko 1-0 Oliver Lines
Oliver Brown 0-1 Halim Hussain
Liam Highfield 1-0 Amir Sarkhosh
David Gilbert 0-1 Tom Ford
Round of 16 (bo1)
Zachary Richardson 1-0 Kaylan Patel
Halim Hussain 0-1 Ben Mertens
Yuan Sijun 1-0 Ethan Llewellyn
Iulian Boiko 1-0 Elliot Slessor
Liam Highfield 0-1 Alfie Burden
Fan Zhengyi 0-1 Jackson Page
Stuart Bingham 1-0 Tom Ford
Noppon Saengkham 1-0 Stan Moody
Quarter-Finals (bo1)
Stuart Bingham 1-0 Jackson Page
Iulian Boiko 1-0 Yuan Sijun
Ben Mertens 0-1 Noppon Saengkham
Alfie Burden 1-0 Zachary Richardson
Semi-Finals (bo1)
Iulian Boiko 0-1 Stuart Bingham
Alfie Burden 1-0 Noppon Saengkham
Final (bo1)
Alfie Burden 1-0 Stuart Bingham
Click here for updated results
How to watch
There are several viewing options depending on where you are located in the world. A full list of global broadcasters is below.
UK & Ireland: TNT Sports, discovery+
Mainland Europe: Eurosport; discovery+ (Germany, Italy, Austria); HBO Max (other markets)
China: Huya.com, Migu, CBSA–WPBSA Academy (WeChat & Douyin)
Hong Kong China: Now TV
Malaysia & Brunei: Astro Supersport
Taiwan: Sportcast
Thailand: True Sport
Philippines: TAP Sports
All Other Territories: WST Play
Featured photo credit: WST
Always a fun event, looking forward to it.
Perhaps more of the top players would participate if it was not staged so soon after the UK Championship — a potential 50k does not seem too bad for a few days of snooker (and fun) — some of those who decide to skip the event may also fear losing to a relative unknown, as anything can happen in a single frame, especially in such a different format.
To me, the 147 by Shaun Murphy is a vastly underrated achievement — it would be no surprise if it did not happen again in our lifetimes.
Yes, the priority for most players at this stage of the season was the UK Championship. In fact, when the Scottish Open was played immediately afterwards, there were a number of players who would miss that. But this is now quite normal in professional snooker – the 128-player fixed tour model doesn’t work any more. There are players who have said that skipping events helps them to perform better in events they decide to target. Indeed, Xiao Guodong attributes his two Wuhan Open wins to reducing his schedule and spending time with his family.
It’s not so much fear of losing to a weak player, it’s that the matches are only 10 minutes, and it’s a heck of a lot of trouble to travel to a tournament for that. In 2020, Mink Nutcharut travelled from Bangkok to make her professional debut in the Shoot-Out. She broke off, and her opponent Rory Thor cleared the table with a 133!
Bai Yulu plays her 1st round match on the 2nd day, would like to catch that — to me she is clearly the best of the women — a good potter, and she controls the cue ball well enough to be a respectable break-builder — like other women she doesn’t really seem to have much cue power, at last I’ve never seen her display much — that can definitely be useful — it’s one of the more entertaining things about Judd Trump’s game.
Of course this is a very controversial event, but all that’s been said before… I watch it only to see how players (some of whom I know quite well) adapt to the bizarre circumstances.
I’m puzzled why the first match doesn’t feature the defending champion. Ford-O’Donnell would be fine, as two players who have experienced this many times before. I’m very uncomfortable with WST’s actual choice, from an organisation who have some history of crass decisions.
It seems as though I picked up the schedule wrong. Ford-O’Donnell is the first game. Will do the edit now.
You may actually be right. I was looking at Hermund’s schedule on snooker.org. The WST site (which I rarely use) has Ford-O’Donnell. We may just have to wait and see! It will be a surprise!
Maybe it’s just me, but the quality of play from this second group of 64 seems clearly below what the first group of 64 showed — with a field of 128 you’re going to get a fair number of players who just aren’t very good, but with few exceptions the group playing today seems weaker than the group that played yesterday.
Bai Yulu was lucky to advance after her opponent made a bad error — it was similar to the one Neil Robinson made when he failed to hit the pink when trying to roll up behind it for a safety — it gave Bai Yulu ball-in-hand, and she went on to win from there — very unfortunate.
And I have never seen Reanne Evans play a good frame — I know she must have, but I’ve never seen it.
Interesting that the draw yielded Shaun Murphy vs Luca Brecel — it’s scheduled as the last match of the 2nd round.