Ronnie O'Sullivan has made a record 17 maximum breaks, including two in one match this season [Getty Images]John Skilbeck - BBC Sport senior journalistTue, December 2, 2025 at 6:21 AM UTC·7 min readWhen does a 147 become a 180?
When you're Ronnie O'Sullivan, making more history. That's when.
In a year when snooker's maximum break, once considered as suppositious as the Himalayan Yeti, has repeatedly shown up for the cameras, it fell to O'Sullivan to show that nobody does it better.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhen he sank his second maximum in barely two hours at the Saudi Arabia Masters in August, O'Sullivan secured a record £180,333 in bonuses.
As his 50th birthday arrives in December, O'Sullivan retains an audacious streak that sets him apart. Nearly three decades after his famous five-minute 147 at the Crucible, he remains pure box office.
But O'Sullivan, who begins his bid for a record-extending ninth title on Tuesday, is not alone in knowing the route to a maximum. There have been an eye-watering 25 already on the professional tour in 2025, obliterating the calendar year best of 14 - 2024's tally.
Chang Bingyu's 147 in November came in a UK Championship qualifier in Wigan. It took the tour's 2025-26 season total to a record 16 - the campaign began in late June and runs until May.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEngland's Shaun Murphy has made two maximums in 2025 - timeless brilliance from the 2005 world champion and this year's Masters winner.
Ireland's Aaron Hill has also had two 147s in 2025, and if you're thinking "who's Aaron Hill?", you're probably not alone.
He's the world number 43, but he's had wins against Judd Trump and O'Sullivan. Remember the name.
BBC Sport has spoken to Murphy and Hill about this rush of maximums.
So what's happening, given the recipe - 15 reds and blacks followed by the colours in order - remains untouched?
And what next, if the code to snooker's one-time final frontier has been cracked?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement'Everyone on the tour now could make one'
"You can imagine Moira Stuart in 1983 coming on the Six O'Clock News and telling the nation Cliff Thorburn's had a 147 at the Crucible. It would now get missed because it's just like, 'oh, there's been another 147'."
That's the verdict of Murphy, fourth on the all-time list with 10 maximums.
He is not wrong. Thorburn's maximum was a defining moment for 1983's armchair sports fan, alongside Steve Cram and Daley Thompson winning World Athletics Championship golds in Helsinki.
It was only the second official maximum, Steve Davis making the first at the Lada Classic in Oldham 15 months earlier. Davis' reward? One of the sponsor's cars.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThere were just eight 147s across the 1980s, a snooker decade bursting with soap opera drama and towering characters.
For sheer quality, nothing touches the current era.
One long-time Crucible spectator, who also attended World Championship qualifiers at Stockport in the early 1980s, recently said of the latter: "You were lucky if you saw a fifty break all day. People think it was the glory days, but the standard was terrible."
At the World Championship qualifiers this year, Wales' Jackson Page became the first player to have two 147s in the same tour match.
Page did not reach the Crucible but earned £167,000 in bonuses and £15,000 for reaching the final qualifying round - total earnings just £18,000 short of Mark Williams' prize as the tournament's runner-up.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Players are chasing their career records and the tour are putting incentives out there," says Murphy.
"People are more aware of these challenges. They're practising for them."
Alex Higgins never had a maximum break on tour. Nor did fellow world champions Terry Griffiths, Dennis Taylor, Joe Johnson, John Spencer and Ray Reardon.
Davis was one and out.
Yet Hill made two inside four weeks. The 23-year-old from Cork cannot believe Higgins never had a maximum.
But Hill says: "There will be a lot of players who haven't had one. It was always a goal to have my name on the board of those who have. The buzz is great.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"Everyone on the tour now could make one. We're almost expecting one in every tournament. It's everyone egging each other on."
Is Hill pleasingly rich now? Not quite.
His maximums came at September's English Open and October's Xi'an Grand Prix, events with £5,000 high-break prizes and no bonuses. Rubbing it in, there were other maximums, so the money was shared with Ali Carter at the English Open and split three ways in China.
Is there a 147 society on tour? A WhatsApp group unlocked by a first maximum?
"There won't be anything like that. Players aren't that friendly!" Hill says.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHow do you make a 147?
I think if there is a knack to it, it's seeing it early, like with a 59 in golf when you make a few birdies in the first few holes and think 'I'm on for something good here'.
If you come to the table early and take a couple of reds and couple of blacks, and you see the black's available to both pockets and the reds aren't on cushions, we all think 'hang on a minute, there's a 147 on here'.
I've always been proud of the one I made in the Shoot Out a couple of seasons ago because I tried to make it from the very first pot.
To have the personal challenge of 'let's see how far down the 147 journey you can get', and then get it in the cauldron of the Shoot Out, was pretty special.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI think I'd had three or four double gin and tonics - that had something to do with it. It's not quite as serious as some events and the hospitality was being well used.
When you're on a maximum, everyone in the room knows it and it heightens their attention.
Everyone's focus zooms in on you. When I made one at the Masters this year at Ally Pally the whole room went silent.
Are maximums losing their magic? I don't think so.
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What's next if the 147 code has been cracked?
Snooker awaits its first official maximum by a woman. China's Bai Yulu had a 145 at the recent International Championship.
Two 147s in the same match has been achieved. Two in successive frames next?
The 155 (a 147 plus eight points from a free-ball scenario at the start of a frame) has never been achieved in competition. Footage exists of Thailand's Thepchaiya Un-Nooh making one in practice.
The 167 is "probably the next step", says Murphy. At the Riyadh Season Championship, a player must follow a 147 with a 20-point golden ball to earn $1m (£760,000), snooker's biggest prize.
Ronnie O'Sullivan, he's coming for you...
Aaron Hill lost in the UK Championship qualifiers this time but is tipped for a bright future [Getty Images]Murphy suggests the surge of maximums is easily explained.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"I just think everyone's getting better," he says. "Some of the players down the rankings that the general public have never heard of, on their day they can beat anyone."
World Snooker Tour points to improving "quality and consistency of playing conditions", crediting table-fitting teams and suppliers.
The players are the ones sinking the balls though.
Hill has two maximums. O'Sullivan holds the record of 17.
Watch out Ronnie, he's coming for you.
It is said in jest, but Hill fancies the chase.
"At the end of my career, I believe I'll be well up there with maximum breaks," he says.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAt the very least - and Murphy is the same - Hill will go about his daily business with the thought in the back of his mind that the next frame is rich in promise.
Sink the red, add the black. Rinse and repeat.
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