With the introduction of Q School, Patrick came agonisingly close to regaining his tour place, twice losing his final match both in 2011 and 2012. Nevertheless, thanks to his high Q School ranking Patrick was able to compete in all the major ranking tournaments of the &lt;a href="2012%E2%80%9313%20snooker%20season"&gt;2012/13 season&lt;/a&gt; as an amateur. He enjoyed his best ever performance at the 2013 German Masters, where he beat Michael White and Martin Gould to qualify to the venue stages and was leading Ali Carter 3–1 before eventually losing 5–3. He also recorded an impressive 10–6 win against Luca Brecel at the World Championship qualifiers. Patrick was to end the season on a high note, as in the final round of Q School Event 3 he edged out Ashley Carty 4–3 to regain his place on the main tour.