The latest 147 break to be made in Sheffield was in 2022 when Neil Robertson completed his first Crucible Maximum. Ronnie O’Sullivan has made three of the twelve maximum breaks to be achieved at The Crucible, but it is his first 147 in 1997 that stands out as he made the complete clearance in an amazing five minutes and twenty seconds! The break began with an outrageous fluke, but the rest of the break was perfection and the elation Thorburn displays when potting the final black is pure theatre. One of the most iconic moments in the history of the world championship at The Crucible is when Cliff Thorburn made the first 147 break at the venue. Once the action makes it to The Crucible the number of frames played in each round is as follows: OLBG's expert snooker tipsters will have tips on all the matches at The Crucible. The final qualifying round, also known as 'Judgement Day', is played over nineteen frames. The first three rounds of qualifying matches are played over the best of eleven frames. Once the 32 players are known the sixteen qualifiers are drawn at random to play each of the sixteen seeds.Įach of the qualifiers has to win up to four matches to make it to the first round proper at The Crucible. The remaining sixteen spots are up for grabs in a qualifying tournament that is played shortly before the main event. The reigning champion is always the number one seed. The top 16 players in the World Rankings automatically play in the tournament at The Crucible and are seeded 1-16. The World Championship has been played at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield since 1977. Number of qualifiers that made it to second round in the last ten years:ĭon't forget that we have a special, extra £200 competition for the World Snooker Championship. Big shocks in the first round regularly happen such as amateur James Cahill beating Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2019, Robert Milkins beating Neil Robertson in 2018 and Rory McLeod beating Judd Trump in 2017.Īs many as 50% (2012) of the first round matches have gone to qualifiers recently so there will always be shocks. The last qualifier to make it to the Final was Ding Junhui in 2016.ĭon't be fooled though into thinking that all the seeds must be certainties to go through to the second round. Only two qualifiers have ever won the World Championship - Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005.

Ronnie O'Sullivan (2) 10 v David Gilbert 5 John Higgins (6) 10 v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 7

J ack Lisowski (14) 10 v Matthew Stevens 8

First Round (best of 19 frames) Seedings in bracketsĪnthony McGill (13) 10 v Liam Highfield 7

World snooker championship