The World Championship uses a longer format, with matches ranging from the best of 19 frames in the first round to best of 35 for the final, which is played over four sessions of play held over two days. This "rolling" list is maintained and updated throughout the season, with points from tournaments played in the current season replacing points earned from the corresponding tournaments of two seasons ago. Certain other events, such as those in the Players Series, use the one-year ranking list to qualify; these use the results of the current season to denote participants. 64 on the official ranking list, or finishing as one of the top eight prize money earners during the most recent season, guaranteed a tour place for the next season, this being assessed after the World Championship. If you would like to play the animation again, double click the refresh button in the top right corner. Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated by a referee, who is charged with ensuring the proper conduct of players and making decisions "in the interests of fair play".

Most matches in current professional tournaments are played as the best of 7, 9, or 11 frames, with finals usually the best of 17 or 19 frames. If the scores are equal when all of the object balls have been potted, the black is used as a tiebreaker. In this situation, called a "re-spotted black", the black ball is returned to its designated spot and the cue ball is played in-hand, what is billiards meaning that it may be placed anywhere on or within the lines of the "D" to start the tiebreak. The game continues until one of the players either pots the black ball to win the frame, or commits a foul (losing the frame). The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "snooker", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball.

The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after they are potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. Points in snooker are gained from potting the object balls in the correct sequence. A player could achieve a break of 15, for example, by first potting a red followed by a black, then another red followed by a pink, before failing to pot the next red. A maximum break in snooker is achieved by potting all reds with blacks, then potting all six colours, yielding 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum". Typical commercial and residential locks have five or six pin stacks (although four and seven aren't unheard of), with from four to ten distinct cut depths used on each. Players had twenty-five seconds to take each shot, with five time-outs per player per match.

A snooker match generally consists of a predetermined number of frames. Some early world finals had much longer matches, such as the 1947 World Snooker Championship, which was played over the best of 145 frames. Players on the World Snooker Tour generally gain a two-year "tour card" for participation in the events. Players can qualify for the tour by virtue of their position in the world rankings from prior seasons, by winning continental championships, or through the Challenge Tour or Q School events. Beginning in the 2014-15 season, some players have also received invitational tour cards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the sport; these cards are issued at the discretion of the World Snooker Board, and have been awarded to players including Steve Davis, James Wattana, Jimmy White, and Stephen Hendry. World Snooker Ltd is responsible for the professional tour which is owned by both the WPBSA and Matchroom Sport.