What is a century in snooker has confused some newer fans and some veterans for a while. We plan on clearing things up with that very answer and offer some extra interesting information, such as who has the most century breaks in snooker and give you a list of snooker players with over 100 centuries.
With over 20,000 snooker centuries record in professional snooker, you may be deluded to consider such an achievement as commonplace among players.
If you were to think that, you couldn’t be further from the truth, such a high number of centuries or century breaks is a testament to the skill level of the professional players.

Even with 20,000 centuries being recorded, that’s still a small number when compared to the amount of snooker frames record where a century could have been reached.
What is a century in snooker
Snooker is a point-based game, so as you may have guessed, 100 points are needed to achieve a century break in snooker.
This is only half the story, as them points need to be earned during a single sitting at the table.
Let me summarize what is a century in snooker. A century in snooker is achieved when a player is able to pot a total of 100 points or more in a single visit to the table. To achieve a century or a century break, 100 points must be accumulated over one visit, not over multiple visits to the table.
how to make a century in snooker, is achieved by a player potting a red, followed by a color, followed by a red – repeating this process until a 100 points are achieved or a century break without missing a shot.
The fastest way to achieve this would be to pot:
12 reds and 12 blacks consecutively then another red ball and finally the brown ball, in a single visit to the table.
The accumulation of this combination of balls would amount to 100 points.
The points gained would ensure you score a century break.
As you can see, to pot 26 balls consecutively without missing is not easy to achieve, even for professional snooker players.
There are other combinations of color balls you can pot to achieve a maximum, knowing the snooker ball values will help with that
Also consider that snooker is an extremely tactical game, if a player is unable to pot a ball while at the table then he may look to place you in a snookered position, making the chances to break build an even harder one.
Hopefully, that will give you some scope as to what is a century in snooker, but note that despite its difficulty, players do regularly get centuries.
In 2014, professional snooker player Neil Robertson became the first person to get a century of centuries in a single snooker season.
Even with such an achievement, he still falls far short of players like Steven Hendry and John Higgins in terms of the most century breaks in snooker.
Who has the most century breaks in snooker
Which snooker player has reached such an accolade? With only approximately (at the time of writing this) has 71 professional players had recorded as reaching the incredible milestone of a century of centuries, in other words, 100 or more century frames in snooker.
Now you have a better understanding of what is a century in snooker, you surely can appreciate the talent required to be the king of century breaks. So who has the most century breaks in snooker?
That would be none other than arguably one of the most talented players ever to play the beautiful game; Ronnie O’Sullivan.
How many centuries has Ronnie made? Well, he has smashed all the competition out of the water. He is the only player to score over 1000 century breaks. He beats this closest rival by more than 250-century breaks. As of writing this, he has recorded a total of 1,049 centuries.
Check out the man himself as he makes history as the first people to reach 1000 century breaks in snooker.
List of snooker players with over 100 centuries
As mentioned above, Ronnie is the player with the most century breaks in snooker, but what about the other players to achieve a 100 or more century breaks.
I have compiled a list of snooker players with over 100 centuries to their name
Our friends at snookerinfo have helped with this information.
A list of snooker players with over 100 centuries recorded over their professional careers.
# | Name | Country | Number of centuries |
1 | Ronnie O’Sullivan | ENG | 1,049 |
2 | John Higgins | SCOT | 790 |
3 | Stephen Hendry | SCOT | 775 |
4 | Judd Trump | ENG | 713 |
5 | Neil Robertson | ENG | 709 |
6 | Mark Selby | ENG | 624 |
7 | Ding Junhui | CHINA | 532 |
8 | Shaun Murphy | ENG | 517 |
9 | Marco Fu | HK | 501 |
10 | Mark J Williams | WALES | 486 |
11 | Stuart Bingham | ENG | 454 |
12 | Mark Allen | N.IRE | 450 |
13 | Stephen Maguire | SCO | 441 |
14 | Ryan Day | WALES | 378 |
15 | Peter Ebdon | ENG | 377 |
16 | Ken Doherty | IRE | 346 |
17 | Barry Hawkins | ENG | 342 |
18 | Steve Davis | ENG | 338 |
19 | Matthew Stevens | WALES | 321 |
20 | Joe Perry | ENG | 320 |
21 | Jimmy White | ENG | 319 |
22 | Allister Carter | ENG | 309 |
23 | Anthony Hamilton | ENG | 294 |
24 | David B Gilbert | ENG | 280 |
25 | Ricky Walden | ENG | 277 |
26 | Liang Wenbo | CHINA | 259 |
27 | Mark Davis | ENG | 256 |
28 | Graeme Dott | SCOT | 227 |
29 | Fergal O’Brien | IRE | 227 |
30 | Alan McManus | SCOT | 227 |
31 | Tom Ford | ENG | 222 |
32 | John Parrott | ENG | 221 |
33 | Dominic Dale | ENG | 219 |
34 | Michael Holt | ENG | 210 |
35 | Martin Gould | ENG | 210 |
36 | Kyren Wilson | ENG | 198 |
37 | Jack Lisowski | ENG | 184 |
38 | Stephen Lee | ENG | 184 |
39 | Kurt Maflin | ENG/NOR | 176 |
40 | Xiao Guodong | CHINA | 171 |
41 | Robin Hull | FIN | 166 |
42 | James Wattana | THAI | 166 |
43 | Jamie Cope | ENG | 164 |
44 | Robert Milkins | ENG | 157 |
45 | Gary Wilson | ENG | 153 |
46 | Andy Hicks | ENG | 153 |
47 | Anthony McGill | SCOT | 152 |
48 | Michael White | WALES | 150 |
49 | Mark King | ENG | 149 |
50 | Barry Pinches | ENG | 146 |
51 | Jimmy Robertson | ENG | 144 |
52 | Dave Harold | ENG | 143 |
53 | Jamie Burnett | SCOT | 136 |
54 | Luca Brecel | BEL | 135 |
55 | Andrew Higginson | ENG | 135 |
56 | Tony Drago | MALTA | 132 |
57 | Ben Woollaston | ENG | 129 |
58 | Nigel Bond | ENG | 126 |
59 | Willie Thorne | ENG | 126 |
60 | Joe Swail | N.IRE | 124 |
61 | Tian Pengfei | CHINA | 120 |
62 | Alfie Burden | ENG | 118 |
63 | Matthew Selt | ENG | 114 |
64 | Paul Hunter | ENG | 114 |
65 | Gerard Greene | ENG | 112 |
66 | Darren Morgan | WALES | 111 |
67 | Thepchaiya Un-Nooh | THAI | 109 |
68 | Rod Lawler | ENG | 108 |
69 | Ian McCulloch | ENG | 105 |
70 | Mark Joyce | ENG | 104 |
71 | Zhou Yuelong | CHINA | 100 |
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you found value in this article and fully understand what is a century in snooker as well as things like how many centuries has Ronnie made.
Notching up the points to score 100 or more points in a single visit is not easy to do, not by any means. So those who manage this are truly skilled players.

Rob is an avid player and fan of all cue sports, particularly 8-ball, and snooker. He has competed in a few local 8-ball tournaments and although he is not a professional, he can compete with the best of them.