Century break

Ronnie O'Sullivan has scored the most century breaks in professional snooker tournaments.

In snooker, a century break (sometimes referred to as a ton) is a score of 100 points or more within one visit at the table without missing a shot and requires potting at least 25 consecutive balls. The ability to score century breaks is regarded as a mark of the highest skill in snooker, while the first career century has been described by Ronnie O'Sullivan as the "ultimate milestone for any snooker player".^[1]

Over 20,000 century breaks have been recorded by snooker players throughout professional tournaments.^[2] In 2014, Neil Robertson became the first person to have scored over 100 century frames throughout a single season, a threshold that only some 60 other players had surpassed throughout their entire careers. Ronnie O'Sullivan holds the record for the most career centuries with over 950 century breaks.

Rules

Snooker table with balls placed in their starting positions

A century break is a score of 100 points or more within one visit at the table, without missing a shot.^[3] The player does this by potting red balls and coloured balls alternately, where the coloured balls are repositioned on their starting locations. After repositioning the coloured ball paired to the last red on the table, the six coloured balls are potted in order of their increasing value. Because a break is defined as series of consecutive pots by a player during a single frame,^[4] scoring 100 points over the course of a whole frame does not necessarily constitute a century break, as it must be done on a single turn at the table. Points for a foul shot by the opponent do not count in a player's break.

Under normal circumstances, the highest possible century in snooker is 147 (a "maximum break"), composed of 15 reds (one point each), 15 blacks (seven points each) and the six remaining colours; yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black potted consecutively (two through seven points each for a total of 27). If for example only the least-valued colour (yellow, two points) would be used instead of the black ball, the break value would only be 72 points. This means that only a single century break is possible in a frame of snooker under a limited number of combinations, but it requires the potting of at least 25 consecutive balls (10 x (1 + 7) + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 100).^[1] To score one, there must be at least ten reds on the table when the player comes to play since if there are only nine reds left, only 99 (= 9 × (1 + 7) + 27) points may be scored. An exception exists if the opponent fouls and leaves the incoming player snookered on all the remaining reds. In such a situation, the player can nominate one of the other colours as a red, known as a "free ball", which carries the same value as a red for just that shot, and therefore, a century break is still possible with only nine reds left.

Breaks above 147 are possible (up to 155) when an opponent fouls and leaves a free ball with all fifteen reds still remaining on the table, creating a situation identical to as if there were 16 red balls on the table. This has happened only once in professional competition, when Jamie Burnett made a 148 at the qualifying stage of the 2004 UK Championship.^[5]

Players with 100 century breaks in professional competition

A "century of centuries" refers to a total of 100 breaks of at least 100 points each.^[1] Only 15 players had reached this milestone in professional snooker tournaments by December 2001.^[6] With an increase in the occurrence of centuries in the past decades,^[1] another 27 players achieved this landmark by October 2011,^[7] and by the end of the 2013/2014 season the total number of players reaching this threshold had grown to 52.^[8] Only Neil Robertson has achieved one hundred centuries^[9] in a single season, during 2013/2014. By the end of the 2017 Shanghai Masters 63 players had reached 100 century breaks. ^[10] The following players are reported to have passed 100 breaks and at least the given threshold above this.

Threshold Player Ref 950 Ronnie O'Sullivan [11] 700 Stephen Hendry (775†) [12] John Higgins [13] 500 Neil Robertson [14] Mark Selby [15] Judd Trump [16] 400 Ding Junhui [17] Marco Fu [18] Shaun Murphy [19] 350 Steve Davis (355†) [20][21] Peter Ebdon [22] Mark Williams [23] Stephen Maguire [1][24] 300 Mark Allen [25] Jimmy White [1][26] Ken Doherty [1][27] Stuart Bingham [28] Ryan Day [29] 250 Matthew Stevens [30] Anthony Hamilton [10] Key Exact tally for a retired player

Threshold Player Ref 200 John Parrott (221†) [10] Barry Hawkins [31] Alan McManus [10] Ali Carter [10] Joe Perry [10] Fergal O'Brien [10] Ricky Walden [10] Mark Davis [25] Dominic Dale [10] 150 Stephen Lee (184†) [10] James Wattana [10] Graeme Dott [10] Robin Hull [10] Jamie Cope [10] Liang Wenbo [10] Martin Gould [10] David Gilbert [32] Tom Ford [33] Michael Holt [34]

Threshold Player Ref 100 Dave Harold (143†) [10] Willie Thorne (126†) [35] Paul Hunter (114†) [36] Darren Morgan (111†) [10] Jamie Burnett (136†) [10] Ian McCulloch (105†) [37] Andy Hicks [10] Tony Drago [10] Barry Pinches [10] Nigel Bond [38] Mark King [39] Kurt Maflin [40] Robert Milkins [10] Michael White [10] Andrew Higginson [10] Joe Swail [10] Anthony McGill [10] Xiao Guodong [10] Alfie Burden [10] Jimmy Robertson [10] Jack Lisowski [10] Ben Woollaston [10] Rod Lawler [10] Gerard Greene [10]

Records

References

External links

Look up century break in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.