Ask anyone about snooker and they might not be able to tell you much, but one of the things that they will be able to mention is that the highest break possible for a player is 147.
By the end of 2025, Ronnie O’Sullivan had achieved the 147 break on 15 occasions, making him the record holder for the feat at the time.
What a lot of people might not realise, though, is that technically the highest break actually comes in at 155 in snooker, even if you need certain things to drop your way in order for that to happen.
The question is, what needs to happen and why don’t we talk about it more?
What is a Break in Snooker?
We have doubtless all heard people talk about getting a ‘break’ in a game of snooker, but not everyone will know exactly what that means. If you do, there’s a good chance that you will already know about the fact that a 147 is actually not the biggest break that you can achieve and therefore won’t be reading this page.
In simple terms, a break is defined as the number of points that a player can rack up in a single visit to the table. Imagine a scenario in which someone goes up, for example, pots a red for one point, the black for seven and then another red before missing, they will have a break of nine.
@learningbillards369 The Best Break in Snooker History #snooker #billiards #8ballpool #9ballpool #trickshot #bida ♬ original sound – O’Sullivan Snooker
The maximum break is thought of as 147 because that is how many points someone can score if no other balls have been potted when they step up to the snooker table. Each red ball is worth 15 points, whilst a player who follows that up by potting 15 blacks would add 120 points to their score.
From then, they will need to pot the red another six times, which comes before each of the colours. That adds another 27 points to their total, adding up to 147. If they do that in one visit to the table then they will be said to have achieved the maximum break, but that is only under normal circumstances.
Why is 155 the Highest Break?
We traditionally think of a 147 as being the highest break that someone can get in one visit to the table, but that isn’t actually true. In reality, a player could get a 155 if specific circumstances go their way. The first thing that will need to happen is that their opponent will need to foul in such a manner that a player gets a ‘free ball’.
At that point, they can pot a red followed by a black for eight points, before then going on to sweep up the table as in a normal ‘maximum break’. The first thing to point out is that, at the time of writing at any rate, it has never been achieved in professional snooker.
@worldsnookertourMark Selby scores 155 in ONE FRAME! #snooker #amazing #markselby #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #cuesports♬ original sound – World Snooker Tour
In fact, only a few players have been able to notch up a 155 on camera, which was achieved by the Thai player Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. He was playing a practice match at a local snooker club back in 2021 when he achieved the seemingly unachievable when he scored a 155.
When he spoke to others at the time of the incident, he initially feared that no one would believe him as it wasn’t filmed. It was at that point that someone realised that the club’s CCTV cameras had filmed the occasion, allowing a former professional in the form of Mike Dunn to post the maximum break to social media.
There’s a Reason it Doesn’t Happen Often
Although some snooker fans have cheekily suggested that a break even higher than 155 is possible, involving all players being colourblind and the brown ball being mistaken for a red and a few other shenanigans, the actual highest break is 155.
A break can be anywhere between 148 and 154, with 147 chosen as the one that everyone talks of because it can happen without the opponent making any mistakes. That, of course, is key to the break of 155 – one of the participants has to make an error in order for their opponent to be handed a free ball.
Only one player in history has hit snooker’s elusive 155 break on camera #snooker https://t.co/yeX0YRryWx pic.twitter.com/JIf1EoxnfH
— Jeff Thompson (@jeffjthompson) March 22, 2024
In the world of professional snooker, players can obviously make mistakes. Yet it would be massively misleading to suggest that such mistakes happen with any degree of regularity. Instead, players will miss balls or accidentally pot the wrong one, but the likelihood of a professional player doing something to give their opponent a free ball is extremely low.
That is why you rarely see it in practice matches, let alone during an actual tournament. These are players playing at the top level of the game, with a 147 considered to be akin to a hole-in-one in golf, with a 155 being even rarer.
