This is a chronological list of snooker ranking tournaments. Ranking tournaments are those that are used for the official system of ranking professional snooker players which is used to determine automatic qualification and seeding for tournaments on the World Snooker Tour.
The first rankings were produced after the 1976 World Snooker Championship and were based on performances in the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Championships. This has led to the 1974 World Snooker Championship being regarded as the first ranking tournament.
The same rudimentary system was used for a number of years, but the rankings for the 1983âÂÂ84 season included performances in two additional tournaments during the 1982âÂÂ83 season. The UK Championship became a ranking tournament in 1984, contributing points to the following season's rankings for the first time.
In the 1992âÂÂ93 season, and from 2010âÂÂ11 to 2015âÂÂ16, a number of events were classified as "minor-ranking tournaments". These contributed to the world rankings but to a lesser degree than the standard ranking tournaments. From 2010 to 2016, the minor-ranking events were all part of the Players Tour Championship. These events are not included in the list below.