How are tournament draws made?

[crocodile]

I have for some time been wondering how the draws for, in particular, the tournaments with a starting field of 128 (typical case in point: the current Welsh Open) and 64 players are made.

Are they made simply at random by a person drawing balls out of a bag? If so, then for example no. 4 and no. 6 in the rankings could be drawn against each other in the first round, which surely should not be allowed to happen.

I have the theory that the first 16 in the rankings (but, if so, which 16? The first 16 from the last two seasons or the first 16 from the current 2019-20 season?) are first segregated out and the rest of the draw indeed takes place on a random basis, but in such a way that none of the top 16 play against each other in the first (and maybe also second) round. Could well be though that I'm completely wrong.

Does anyone know, or is the procedure described somewhere, on a snooker website for example?

[Nifty50]

I have for some time been wondering how the draws for, in particular, the tournaments with a starting field of 128 (typical case in point: the current Welsh Open) and 64 players are made.

Are they made simply at random by a person drawing balls out of a bag? If so, then for example no. 4 and no. 6 in the rankings could be drawn against each other in the first round, which surely should not be allowed to happen.

I have the theory that the first 16 in the rankings (but, if so, which 16? The first 16 from the last two seasons or the first 16 from the current 2019-20 season?) are first segregated out and the rest of the draw indeed takes place on a random basis, but in such a way that none of the top 16 play against each other in the first (and maybe also second) round. Could well be though that I'm completely wrong.
Does anyone know, or is the procedure described somewhere, on a snooker website for example?

I was told by a pro that the current top 16 are seeded. Thereafter a random draw. Don’t know anything more than that so not much help to you I’m afraid. Looking at the Welsh draw Robertson is seed 1 and goes in top half of draw as defending champion. Trump is seed 2 and goes in bottom half of draw. There’s some matches like O’Brian v Joyce which would indicate picked out of the hat at random. Seed 65 v Seed 69.

[Odrl]

Actually, the top 32 are strictly seeded so that 1 would play 32 in the last 32, 2 would play 31, and so on. Then the winner of 1 vs 32 would play the winner of 16 vs 17 in the last 16, assuming all the seeds won of course. The rest of the players seem to be drawn randomly.

[Odrl]

Just to add, this applies to all the home nations events. Other events with the flat128 format are done differently. The UK Championship, for instance, is strictly seeded throughout the draw, so that 1 plays 128 in the opening round. I believe the events where qualifiers are played separately from the venue stage have players from the 1-64 group drawn randomly against players from the 65-128 group in the opening round, but I'm not 100% sure on that. :smile:

[crocodile]

Just to add, this applies to all the home nations events. Other events with the flat128 format are done differently. The UK Championship, for instance, is strictly seeded throughout the draw, so that 1 plays 128 in the opening round. I believe the events where qualifiers are played separately from the venue stage have players from the 1-64 group drawn randomly against players from the 65-128 group in the opening round, but I'm not 100% sure on that. :smile:

Thanks a lot for your posts - makes a bit more sense now!

[Mr Snooker]

I have for some time been wondering how the draws for, in particular, the tournaments with a starting field of 128 (typical case in point: the current Welsh Open) and 64 players are made.

Are they made simply at random by a person drawing balls out of a bag? If so, then for example no. 4 and no. 6 in the rankings could be drawn against each other in the first round, which surely should not be allowed to happen.

I have the theory that the first 16 in the rankings (but, if so, which 16? The first 16 from the last two seasons or the first 16 from the current 2019-20 season?) are first segregated out and the rest of the draw indeed takes place on a random basis, but in such a way that none of the top 16 play against each other in the first (and maybe also second) round. Could well be though that I'm completely wrong.

Does anyone know, or is the procedure described somewhere, on a snooker website for example?

The N0 1 seed for events is the defending Champion and the N0 2 seed for events is The world champion and then the seeds are placed in order of their current ranking.

[Mr Snooker]

I read that the players ranked between 17-48 in the world rankings will have to play two qualifying rounds to get to the Crucible this year, Does this mean the draw will be seed 17 will play seed 48 and seed 18 will play seed 47 to qualify for the Crucible, if they win their first round match. Also how will the rest of the qualifying draw be made, I guess that players seeded from 49-80 to will be randomly drawn against seeds 81- 112 or a WPBSA Qualifier. If any one knows any different please let me know thanks WPBSA Qualifiers here https://wst.tv/wpbsa-qualifiers-anno...-championship/