The Snooker World Cup 1985 was held at Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The last edition of the mega event was organised at Amari Watergate Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand, in 1996. It is scheduled according to the round-robin algorithm, also called all-play-all, in which each member of a team meets with equivalent member of the other team and their individual performance in a match affects the overall result.

The World Cup 2011 will feature 20 two-man teams representing 19 countries from around the world. The criteria of selecting players has not been finalised yet. Thailand is staging the Snooker World Cup as a part of their King’s 84th birthday celebrations. The total prize money for the winning team is $700,000 (21 million baht).

The Snooker World Cup was created by Mike Watterson, a businessman, entrepreneur and snooker commentator in 1997. Mike is the one who organised the first UK championship and also brought World Snooker Championship to the Crucible.

World cup was an annual event featuring three-man teams representing their country until 1996. It changed into a four-man team event in 1999 and 2000 with the name, ‘the Nations Cup’. However, in 2001, it was re-changed into a three-man team contest. It is the one and only ‘team event’ in the game of snooker.