Talk:2023 UK Championship

Seeds for qualifiers?

Why aren't the seedings for the qualifiers noted, like last year? "Numbers in parentheses after the players' names denote the top 32 seeded players"? There are currently no numbers in parentheses after the players' names. MisterRerack (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The top 16 are seeded through to the main stage, and the 17-32 seeds are playing in round 3 of the qualifying. The previous UK Championship pages had all the seeding information, but I only added the top 32 seeds to this one because most other tournament pages only note the top 32 seeds. A couple recent ones: English Open, Wuhan Open, Northern Ireland Open, International Championship. AmethystZhou (talk) 18:18, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

The format for the UK Championship now matches the World Championship, which always includes the seeds for the qualifiers, from #17-#112 seeded and players ranked #113-#128 drawn randomly with the 16 (or so) amateurs, to make up 144 players competing in total. MisterRerack (talk) 00:18, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, the Home Nations only have 32 seeds, the UK Championship (like the World Championship) has 112 seeds! MisterRerack (talk) 10:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you're probably right. If you want to put them all in then carry on, but be sure to use the same tooltip style as the top 32, not just plain parentheses as you just did for two players.  Alan  (talk) 11:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I didn't know that, very interesting. Please feel free to add the seedings to all the players. Thank you! AmethystZhou (talk) 18:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I've just done some of those. There are more to do.  Alan  (talk) 19:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I did all of the players in the last 144 using the seeds from snooker.org. The rest should be a bit easier. If nobody else does it, I'll do it tomorrow morning. Got to go now.  Alan  (talk) 20:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Just a note, the bottom ranked 16 players (#113-#128) should NOT have a seeding number, as they are NOT seeded, but drawn randomly, along with the 16 amateurs. MisterRerack (talk) 23:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

All done.  Alan  (talk) 10:14, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry I hadn't notice this discussion before editing the page. However the outcome of the discussion is incorrect. Seeeded players are those who take a fixed position in the draw based on their ranking. Now that the UK Championship format has changed to match the World Championship format, the main draw has 16 seeded players only. Yes for the qualifying draw, other players are seeded (from 17 all the way down to 112). But this becomes irrelevant once the qualifying tournament is complete as all 16 qualifiers enter the main draw unseeded and are drawn into positions at random. Rio309w (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

That's a great point and thanks for correcting the seeding system! Although I think it's somewhat useful (and interesting) to see the "seeding" numbers of all players, such as Mark Williams (9) vs. Jamie Clarke (60), etc. I added some clarification to the text above the table that we are using the qualifying stage seedings for the qualifiers. AmethystZhou (talk) 01:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know where it says that "Seeded players are those who take a fixed position in the draw based on their ranking"? Seems to me that a group of players, seeded in a certain range can still be drawn randomly into a certain range of places (as here) and still be regarded as seeds. After all that happened in the qualifying rounds. Nigej (talk) 07:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

If the qualifiers were seeded for the main draw, then the draw bracket would have been as shown here - https://www.printyourbrackets.com/32seeded.html - for example Ding would have been seeded 17th and played Tom Ford etc.

Because this isn't how the UKC draw is done, i.e. there is no re-seeding ahead of the main draw, then the numbers shown in brackets beside the qualifiers are irrelevant. As AmethystZhou says, some readers may find them "interesting"; other like myself will find it misleading, and it's inconsistent with the presentation of the Wiki page for every Snooker World Championship (and UK Championships from when it used to be 32-bracket main draw before they changed format to 128). Rio309w (talk) 09:39, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Hang on - we've never previously listed qualifiers seedings once they get to the main draw. Why do it here? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:46, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Another question is, why don't we list qualifiers seedings elsewhere? The seeding of a qualifier getting to a final or semi-final is more interesting/noteworthy than a top 16 player. MisterRerack (talk) 08:56, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Seems to me that you're still taking a very restrictive use of the term "seeding". Surely they can still be seedings even if the system doesn't use a formal 1v32 16v17 system (or whatever). Fundamentally seeding is simply a way of ordering the players/teams, 1,2,3 4, etc, the specifics of the draw is something else, depending on the event, sport etc. We saw that last night with the UEFA Euro 2024#Final draw. The teams were seeded and those seedings used to allocate them to a "pot" from which they were drawn randomly into a particular group. Nigej (talk) 08:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Realistically we should just copy from the sources what the draw is. If they don't mention what the qualification seeding was for the main draw (like they usually don't), then we shouldn't either. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:16, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Lee, best way to resolve is by copying whatever the official source (presumably WST) says in terms of seeds in the main draw.

(In response to Nigej... The difference with a group stage draw such as Euro24 is it only uses 'partial' seeding, i.e. teams are placed into pots based on ranking but come the draw all teams within a pot are treated randomly. It doesn't use full seeding - France weren't seeded first, England second, Belgium third etc, as that had no relevance to the draw. Whereas in a flat knockout draw such as the snooker UKC, the top X individuals are each given a specific, unique seeding as this explicitly determines their position in the draw). Rio309w (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I do think we shouldn't list these seeds as the event is re-seeded at the last 32 without the qualifiers listed. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that's true. Someone above said "there is no re-seeding ahead of the main draw" and surely that's true, its just that the 16 qualifiers are allocated places randomly (i.e. they're put into a "pot" in football-speak), a bit like the 9 to 16 seeds in the Masters. Ding was 17th seed for the UK and he was still the 17th seed when he played the final. Whether we include it, is another matter. One could argue that we don't need any seedings added after the first round since the whole draw is done by then, why keep saying that Ronnie is the 3rd seed? Nigej (talk) 13:22, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The event is not "re-seeded" at the last 32, that is Round 5 of the entire event, and the Top 16 are seeded in their positions. You wouldn't say Round 3 is "re-seeded" for players ranked #17-#48, would you?

Each season/year all players can get into the Top 16 and "qualify" (by their ranking) of being seeded into Round 5 (last 32), like how players can become ranked #17-48 and "qualify" to be seeded into Round 3 (last 80), or become ranked #49-80 and "qualify" to be seeded into Round 2 (last 112), or if ranked #81-#112 earn the right to play one of the 16 amateurs in Round 1.

There is no instance of players being "re-seeded". Ding was seeded #17 for the event from the start, and was still the #17 seed for Round 5 (last 32) when BBC coverage began. We should either keep the all the seedings or have none at all. MisterRerack (talk) 15:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)