The defending champion was English player Steve Davis, who had won the title twice previously.

Rex Williams secured the championship's highest break, scoring a 138 in the 12th frame of his first-round loss to White.

[a] As defending champion, Steve Davis was seeded first for the event; the remaining 15 were allocated based on world rankings for the previous season.

[6] The prize fund for the event was the largest for any snooker tournament to that date, at £200,000 with the winner receiving £44,000.

[12] John Parrott progressed after winning three rounds, beating Dennis Hughes 10–3, Clive Everton 10–2 and the 1978 World Snooker Championship runner-up Perrie Mans 10–0.

[3] Neal Foulds, aged 20, the British junior snooker champion,[13] also won three matches to make his Crucible debut,[14] defeating Doug French 10–5, Les Dodd 10–4 and Jim Meadowcroft 10–2.

[3][15] Canadian John Bear, was scheduled to play but did not, and Roy Andrewartha received a walkover for the match.

[3] Mike Watterson, who as promoter of the world championship from 1977 to 1983 had first selected the Crucible as the tournament venue,[16][17] defeated Bernard Bennett 10–5 in the first round before losing 8–10 to Warren King.

[7] Andrewartha, Foulds, Parrott, King, Marcel Gauvreau, Joe Johnson, Paul Mifsud, Mario Morra, and Eddie Sinclair made their World Championship debuts in qualifying.

[1] David Taylor, who was trailing 3–5 to Marcel Gauvreau after their first session, won seven frames in a row to win 10–5 and gain his first ranking points of the season.

[20] Roy Andrewartha, a time and motion analyst who played professional snooker part-time, lost 4–10 to Eddie Charlton.

[21] Neal Foulds took the last three frames of their first session to lead former world champion Alex Higgins 5–3, and having the more consistent long potting in the match, won 10–9 after the scores had been level at 7–7.

[21] Silvino Francisco defeated Tony Meo, who to that point had been the fourth-highest earner on the snooker circuit that season, 10–5.

[23] Virgo's defeat came at the end of a season in which he failed to win any ranking points, and he dropped out of the top 16, to 18th.

[24] Eight-time champion Fred Davis made his last appearance at the World Championships, losing 4–10 to Bill Werbeniuk in the first round.

[26] Knowles, who had been the only player to beat Steve Davis in the World Championship in the previous three years, lost 7–10 to John Parrott.

Knowles had recently featured in a three-part series in the tabloid newspaper The Sun, where he boasted of his sexual adventures and was dismissive of most other competitors in the tournament.

[33] Reardon, having his least successful season in 17 years as a snooker professional, made a 109 break in the eighth frame to lead 5–3 at the end of the first session against Francisco.

White attributed his illness to some sandwiches he had eaten and some cough syrup he had used to recover from a throat infection.

[38] The match finished 16–14, with White becoming the youngest player to reach a professional snooker World Championship final.

Davis won a close frame by clearing the colours to lead 17–15, then White took the next with a break of 65 to reduce his deficit to 16–17.

[50] He was the youngest player to compete in a world championship final;[42] however, by losing the match he missed his chance to supersede Alex Higgins as the youngest-ever winner.

[51] Davis received £44,000 for winning the tournament, taking his prize money for the 1983–84 season to £159,511, more than double that of the second-highest earner, White, who made £78,725.

[53][54] White, however, stated that he played poorly on the first day of the final because of the lengthy semi-final win over Stevens.

[43][57][58] White later recounted that he had used crack cocaine to cope with the loss, claiming to have spent £32,000 on the drug over a three-month period.

Numbering in brackets shows player's seed, whilst those in bold denote match winners.