Maximum break

Tournament games are won when one of the players manages to win more than half of the scheduled frames. For example, if a match is scheduled to have a maximum of seven frames, a player wins the game when winning a fourth frame, regardless of how many frames the other player has.

Match-winning maximum breaks

No.	Player	Tournament	Year	Round
01[104]	Stephen Hendry	Charity Challenge	1997	FinalTV (D)
02[105]	Mark Williams	World Championship	2005	Last 32TV
03[106]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	UK Championship	2007	Semi-finalTV (D)
04[107]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	World Championship	2008	Last 16TV
05[108]	Barry Hawkins	Players Tour Championship 2010/2011 – Event 3	2010	Last 32
06[109]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	World Open	2010	Last 64TV (Q)
07[32]	Matthew Stevens	Players Tour Championship 2011/2012 – Event 12	2011	Last 128
08[33]	Ding Junhui	Players Tour Championship 2011/2012 – Event 11	2011	Last 128TV
09[42]	Andy Hicks	UK Championship	2012	Last 80 (Q)
10[52]	Shaun Murphy	European Tour 2013/2014 – Event 8	2014	Last 16
11[110]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	Welsh Open	2014	FinalTV
12[55]	Ryan Day	Asian Tour 2014/2015 – Event 2	2014	Last 32
13[57]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	UK Championship	2014	Last 16TV
14[71]	John Higgins	Northern Ireland Open	2016	Last 64TV
15[74]	Mark Davis	Championship League	2017	Group Final (D)
16[76]	Mark Davis	Championship League	2017	Winners' Group (D)
17[82]	Martin Gould	Championship League	2018	Group 6 (D)
18[83]	Luca Brecel	Championship League	2018	Group 7
19[90]	Ronnie O'Sullivan	English Open	2018	Last 64TV
20[99]	Tom Ford	International Championship (Q)	2019	Last 128 (Q)
21[100]	Tom Ford	English Open	2019	Last 16 (D)

• The first known maximum break was made by Murt O'Donoghue at Griffith, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, on 26 September 1934.[111][5][112]
• Joe Davis compiled the first officially ratified 147 against Willie Smith in an exhibition match on 22 January 1955 at Leicester Square Hall, London.[7][113]
• The first officially ratified maximum in competition was made by Rex Williams against Manuel Francisco in a match, Professionals v. Amateurs, on 23 December 1965 in Cape Town.[112][114]
• John Spencer made the first maximum compiled in professional competition on 13 January 1979 at the Holsten Lager Tournament against Cliff Thorburn, but it was not officially ratified due to oversized pockets.[5] The break was not recorded, as the television-crew were away on a tea-break.[112][115]
• The first official maximum break in professional competition was made by Steve Davis in the 1982 Lada Classic against Spencer.[5] This was also the first televised 147.[7]
• In 1983, Cliff Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum break at the World Championships, a feat that has since been repeated by Jimmy White, Stephen Hendry (three times), Ronnie O'Sullivan (three times), Mark Williams and Ali Carter.[37][116]
• In March 1989, Cliff Thorburn became the first player to make two competitive maximum breaks. In November 1995 Stephen Hendry became the first player to make two televised maximum breaks.[23][24]
• Mark Williams became the first person to compile an official maximum break against a woman, at the Rhein–Main Masters in October 2010.[23][24]
• Thai female snooker player Nutcharut Wongharuthai made a 147 break during a practice match in March 2019, which is believed to be the first maximum break achieved by a woman in any match (either practice or tournament play).[117]

• More than one official maximum break has been compiled in the same event on twenty occasions:
  • The 2008 World Snooker Championship was the first event where two maximum breaks were televised.[118] Two maximum breaks were also televised at the 2019 Welsh Open.
  • Three official maximums at the same WPBSA (World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association) event have been achieved twice: at the 2012 UK Championship, when Andy Hicks and Jack Lisowski both compiled one each in qualifying and John Higgins compiled one at the last 16 of the televised stages.[119] Similarly, at the 2017 German Masters, Ali Carter and Ross Muir both compiled one each during qualifying and Tom Ford during the televised stages.[75]
  • Mark Davis became the only player to make two official maximum breaks in professional competition at the same event when he compiled two 147s at the 2017 Championship League.[120]
  • The 2012 FFB Snooker Open, 2017 German Masters and 2018 Paul Hunter Classic are the only WPBSA events where two maximums were made on the same day.[32][73] Three maximum breaks were compiled on 8 February 1998 during the Buckley's Bitter Challenge, an unofficial event, by Matthew Stevens, Ryan Day and Tony Chappel.[121]
• There have been at least five non-tournament matches where more than one maximum was compiled. Peter Ebdon compiled two maximum breaks during an 11-frame exhibition match at Eastbourne Police Club on 15 April 1996. In 2003 he also compiled two consecutive maximum breaks against Steve Davis in an exhibition match.[5][112] In 2009 Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan compiled consecutive maximum breaks at an exhibition match in Ireland.[122] Mark King and Joe Jogia achieved the same feat at the Grove Open later in the same year. The only player known to compile more than two maximum breaks on a single occasion is Adrian Gunnell, who compiled three maximums in four frames at a club in Telford in 2003 while practising against Ian Duffy.[123][124]
• Higgins and O'Sullivan are the only players to record maximum breaks in consecutive ranking events. Higgins made one during his defeat by Mark Williams in the LG Cup final, and then one in his second round match at the 2003 British Open.[125][126] O'Sullivan made one at the Northern Ireland Trophy and another at the UK Championship in 2007.[106][127] Since top 16 players were seeded through to the second round at the 2003 British Open, Higgins' maximums also came in consecutive ranking matches, albeit not in the same tournament.
• Higgins' maximum breaks at the 2003 LG Cup and 2004 Grand Prix made him the first player to record maximums in the same tournament in successive years (the LG Cup being the sponsor's name for that year's Grand Prix). Since Higgins made the maximums in the 2003 final and the 2004 first round, he made maximums in successive rounds of the same tournament but not at the same event.[128] Stuart Bingham made maximum breaks in the China Open in both 2018 and 2019.

• Hendry, Mark Williams, O'Sullivan (on six occasions), Barry Hawkins, Matthew Stevens, Ding Junhui, Andy Hicks, Shaun Murphy, Ryan Day, John Higgins, Mark Davis (on two occasions), Martin Gould, Luca Brecel and Tom Ford (on two occasions) have all made maximums to win matches. Only six of these have come in final-frame deciders, however: Hendry's at the 1997 Charity Challenge, O'Sullivan's at the 2007 UK Championship, both of Davis' at the 2017 Championship League, Gould's at the 2018 Championship League and Ford's at the 2019 English Open.
• Only Hendry, John Higgins, Stuart Bingham, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson have made maximums in finals of tournaments. Hendry has made three: the first at the 1997 Charity Challenge,[104] the second at the 1999 British Open[129] and the third at the 2001 Malta Grand Prix;[130] Higgins has made two: the first at the 2003 LG Cup[125] and the second at the 2012 Shanghai Masters;[131] Bingham at the 2012 Wuxi Classic;[132] O'Sullivan in the final frame of the 2014 Welsh Open;[110] Murphy at the 2014 Ruhr Open[56] and Robertson at the 2015 UK Championship. Robertson's maximum is the only one to be compiled in the final of a Triple Crown event.[63]

• Ronnie O'Sullivan's first 147 break against Mick Price in their second round tie at the 1997 world championship set a still-standing world record for the fastest maximum in the history of the game. Guinness World Records recorded the time of the break at 5 minutes and 20 seconds.[133] However, an investigation undertaken by Deadspin in 2017 revealed that the time recorded by Guinness is incorrect because the timer was started too early on the BBC footage.[134] Breaks are not officially timed in snooker and the official rules of snooker do not specify how they should be timed, instead leaving the timing to the discretion of the broadcaster.[13] The only timing methodology World Snooker sanctions in its events is the one employed in shot clock events where timing for a player's shot begins when the balls have come to rest from his opponent's previous shot. Under this convention the break would have been timed at 5 minutes and 15 seconds.[13] However, World Snooker has since suggested that a break starts when the player strikes the cueball for the first time in a break which would result in a time of 5 minutes and 8 seconds,[13] and this is the time that World Snooker now officially acknowledges.[135]

• Sean Maddocks is recognised by Guinness World Records as the youngest player to make a maximum break in competition, which he achieved at the LiteTask Pro-Am series, in Leeds, UK, on 9 July 2017, at the age of 15 years and 90 days.[136][137] O'Sullivan previously held the record as the youngest player to achieve a maximum break in any recognised competition, a feat he achieved at the 1991 English Amateur Championship when he was 15 years and 98 days old.[138][139] However, despite being the official world record-holder, Maddocks may not actually be the youngest player to have made one; Judd Trump is on record as having compiled a 147 at the Potters Under-16 Tournament in 2004 at the age of 14 years and 206 days.[140] The youngest player to make an official 147 in professional competition is Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon at the 2010 Rhein–Main Masters at the age of 16 years and 312 days.[140] The youngest player to have made a televised 147 is Ding Junhui at the age of 19 years and 9 months in the 2007 Masters.[141][142]
• The oldest player to make an official maximum in professional competition is Mark Davis, who compiled one in the 2017 Championship League at the age of 44.[74]