The 2023 Snooker Shoot Out (officially the 2023 BetVictor Snooker Shoot Out) was a professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

tournament that took place from 25 to 28 January 2023 at the

Morningside Arena The Leicester Arena, known for sponsorship reasons as the Morningside Arena Leicester, is a multi-purpose built sports arena located in Leicester, England. The arena has a seating capacity for 3,000 spectators. The arena's main tenants are the ...

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

, England. Played under a variation of the standard rules of snooker, with every match contested over a single , the tournament was the ninth

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...

event of the

2022–23 snooker season The 2022–23 snooker season is a professional snooker season with tournaments played between June 2022 and May 2023. Players The World Snooker Tour in the 2022–23 season initially consisted of a field of 131 professional players, but later ...

and the sixth of eight events in the 2023 European Series. Sponsored by

BetVictor BetVictor is an online gambling company headquartered in Gibraltar. Founded in 1946, it offers products such as sports betting and online casino. The company is currently owned by Michael Tabor. History The company was founded by William Chand ...

, the event was broadcast by

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, its international sports unit, it operates two ...

in Europe and by multiple other broadcasters internationally. The winner received £50,000 from a total prize fund of £171,000.

Hossein Vafaei Hossein Vafaei ( fa, حسین وفایی ایوری; born 15 October 1994) is an Iranian professional snooker player. He is the first professional player from Iran. He won his first professional title at the 2022 Snooker Shoot Out, beating Mar ...

was the defending champion, having defeated Mark Williams 71–0 in the 2022 final. However, Vafaei lost 9–33 to

Shaun Murphy Shaun Peter Murphy (born 10 August 1982) is an English professional snooker player who won the 2005 World Snooker Championship, 2005 World Championship. Nicknamed "The Magician", Murphy is noted for his straight Cue stick, cue action and his lo ...

in the first round. Aged 14 years and three months, Vladislav Gradinari became the youngest player to win a televised match at a ranking event when he defeated

Ng On-yee Ng On-yee (; born 17 November 1990) is a Hong Kong professional snooker player who has won three IBSF World Snooker Championships and three World Women's Snooker world championships. She held the number one position in the World Women's Sno ...

in the first round.

Reanne Evans Reanne Evans (born 25 October 1985) is an English professional snooker player who competes on the World Women's Snooker Tour and the professional World Snooker Tour. She is the number one ranked player on the women's tour, and regularly featur ...

became the first woman to win a match in a Snooker Shoot Out event, as well as the first woman to win a televised match at any ranking event, when she defeated

Stuart Bingham Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player who is a former world and Masters champion. Bingham won the 1996 World Amateur Championship but enjoyed little sustained success in the early part of his professional ...

in the first round. In the final of the event,

Chris Wakelin Chris Wakelin (born 16 March 1992) is an English professional snooker player from Rugby, Warwickshire. He practices in Bar 8 in Rugby. Career Early career Wakelin started playing snooker aged 8, when his parents Mark and Angie bought him his ...

faced Belgian teenager Julien Leclercq, who had turned professional at the beginning of the season. Both players contested their first ranking final. Wakelin won the event with a 119 break, the highest of the four century breaks made in the tournament, to capture the first ranking title of his ten-year professional career.

Tournament format

Prize fund

The total prize fund for the event is £171,000 with the winner receiving £50,000. The breakdown of prize money is shown below: * Winner: £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 (prize money at this stage will not count towards prize money

rankings A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

) * Highest break: £5,000 * Total: £171,000

Tournament draw

Top half

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Bottom half

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Finals

Final

Notes

Century breaks

A total of four century breaks were made during the tournament. * 119

* 117

Ali Carter Allister Carter (born 25 July 1979) is an English professional snooker player. He has twice been the World Championship runner-up, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won four ranking titles and briefly reached numb ...

* 116 Michael Holt * 106

Xiao Guodong Xiao Guodong (, born 10 February 1989) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He turned professional in 2007 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championships. Career 2007–2010 Xiao appeared as a wildcard in the 2007 China Open, and beat t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snooker Shoot Out, 2023

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

2023 in snooker 2023 in English sport

January 2023 sports events in the United Kingdom