UK Championship 2026: 16 amateur places set for York, 28 November to 6 December

The 2026 UK Championship will hand 16 places to elite amateur players through WPBSA pathways, World Snooker Tour (WST) confirmed on Tuesday, 13 October. The final stages of the Triple Crown event will be played at the York Barbican from 28 November to 6 December 2026, with qualifying rounds in Leicester from 21 to 26 November.

Mark Selby is the defending champion. The UK Championship sits alongside the World Championship and the Masters as one of snooker's three Triple Crown titles.

How the draw works

• Top 16 seeded through: the world's top 16 after the International Championship go straight to the final stages in York.
• Everyone else qualifies in Leicester: 16 players come through the qualifying rounds to reach the last 32.
• Up to 16 amateurs join the qualifying field through the WPBSA routes below.

The amateur places confirmed so far

Q Tour Europe event winners. The winners of the first three WPBSA Q Tour Europe events this season qualify automatically. Two are in:

• Sanderson Lam, a former professional, winner of Event 1
• Aaron Busuttil of Malta, winner of Event 2
• Event 3 winner still to be decided

World amateur championships (WSF).

• Ryan Davies, 2026 WSF Championship semi-finalist
• Prin Ratmukda, 2026 WSF Junior Championship semi-finalist
• Daniel Boyes, 2026 WSF Junior Championship semi-finalist

European championships (EBSA).

• Vladislav Gradinari, Under-18 finalist
• Krzysztof Czapnik, Under-16 winner
• Riley Powell, Under-21 finalist

The last seven places go to the highest-ranked eligible players on the Q Tour Europe ranking list after Event 3. That list also supplies reserves if anyone above turns down a place, WST said.

Before York: the Northern Ireland Open

The next ranking event on the tour is the Northern Ireland Open, which runs from 18 to 25 October, according to the snooker.org results calendar. The last ranking title went to world champion Wu Yize, who beat Yuan Sijun in the Shenzhen Open final on 4 October for his first title since winning at the Crucible, the BBC reported.

Times in Pakistan

York is on UK time, which is four hours behind Pakistan while British Summer Time lasts and five hours behind from 25 October, when the UK clocks go back. All of the UK Championship falls after that change, so add five hours to any York start time: a session starting at 1pm UK time, for example, would begin at 6pm in Pakistan. WST has not yet published the order of play. For the full run of results and the calendar, see our earlier snooker calendar story.