The sport of professional snooker has had a world ranking system in place since 1976. Certain tournaments were given "ranking" status, with the results at those events contributing to a player's world ranking. The events that made up the 1976–77 snooker season were the first to award players with ranking points. Originally, the world rankings were decided based only on results in the World Snooker Championship, but other events were later added. The system used for the 2022–23 snooker season was first used in the 2010–11 season, where players won ranking points based entirely on prize money won from these events. The rankings are based on the prior two seasons, with eight revisions after specific tournaments throughout the season. These revisions are used as official rankings, with points awarded in the current season overwriting those from two years prior.
Ronnie O'Sullivan began the season as the highest ranked player and retained his position throughout the season, despite not winning any ranking titles or even making semi finals. O'Sullivan began the season with a lead of 26,500 points over second ranked Judd Trump, and finished the season above 2023 World Champion Luca Brecel by 9,500 points.
Ranking list Revision dates Seedings for each event were based on the world rankings, with totals being updated at specific revision dates. On these dates, ranking points from the 2020–21 snooker season were removed from a player's total.
+Revision dates Revision point Date After 2020/2021 points dropped1 30 July 2022 Championship League –2 22 August 2022 European Masters –3 3 October 2022 British Open European MastersEnglish Open4 24 October 2022 Northern Ireland Open Championship LeagueNorthern Ireland Open5 21 November 2022 UK Championship UK Championship6 5 December 2022 Scottish Open Scottish Open7 19 December 2022 English Open World Grand Prix8 23 January 2023 World Grand Prix –9 30 January 2023 Shoot Out Shoot Out10 6 February 2023 German Masters German Masters11 20 February 2023 Welsh Open Welsh Open12 27 February 2023 Players Championship Players Championship 13 20 March 2023 WST Classic WST Pro SeriesGibraltar Open14 3 April 2023 Tour Championship Tour Championship Total 2 May 2023 World Championship World ChampionshipSources:
Seeding list The following table contains the rankings which were used to determine the seedings for following tournaments. Other provisional and unofficial rankings are produced after each ranking event which are not noted here. Blank fields indicate that the player was not active on the tour, or had no ranking. The names are initially sorted by the scores at the end of the season.