Snooker in : How a frame starts

Joe Davis with 15 (1927-1946); Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry share the modern record of 7 Snooker is the slowest-burning of the great cue sports and the most punishing. Twenty-two balls sit on a table twelve feet by six, with templated pockets only a few millimetres wider than the balls themselves, and the striker must alternate red and colour, red and colour, assembling a score the opponent can only sit and watch. A perfect visit — fifteen reds, fifteen blacks and the six colours in order — is worth exactly 147, and every one made in professional competition is logged as an event in its own right. The game was invented by bored British Army officers in India in 1875 and codified in Britain a generation later.

Its geography is changing fast. Britain and Ireland supplied almost every champion for a century, and Sheffield still hosts the world final over four sessions and two days. But China now sends more players to the professional tour than any country except England, Zhao Xintong became the first Asian world champion in 2025, Belgium's Luca Brecel had broken the British monopoly two years earlier, and Saudi Arabia has bought its way onto the calendar with the richest event outside the World Championship. A 128-player tour that was once a British television curiosity is now a genuinely global circuit.

The object of a frame is to score more points than your opponent by potting balls in a fixed order. Reds are worth one point each and stay down once potted; the six colours are worth two to seven and are returned to their spots until the last red has gone. A player keeps the table for as long as they keep potting the correct ball, so the game is less about single shots than about sequences — the break — and the ability to leave the cue ball in the right place for the next one.