To The Max By Chris Shaw: How A Redundancy Payout Inspired A Global Quest To Witness Snooker’s Ultimate 147 Break

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, in To the Max by Chris Shaw, discover how the former sports journalist turned a redundancy payout into an international pilgrimage across eighteen tournaments to witness snooker’s elusive maximum 147 break.

Getting fired often leads to a quiet panic, but former sports journalist Chris Shaw turned his redundancy payout into a global pilgrimage. Armed with spare funds and a lifelong passion for cuesports, he set out to witness a maximum 147 break live in a snooker tournament arena.

The resulting book, To the Max, chronicles his journey across 18 tournaments in six different countries. Shaw tracked matches through England, the wider Home Nations, Germany, and as far as Tianjin in China. He even set a personal target of logging 147 hours of live play during his travels.

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Capturing Snooker Perfection

A maximum break requires potting 15 reds with 15 blacks, followed by clearing all six colours. It is the absolute ceiling of achievement on a professional table. Shaw explores the mystique behind this specific feat through conversations with top-tier players, coaches, veteran journalists, and diehard fans.

The book details legendary moments from the sport’s history. It highlights Steve Davis making the first official televised maximum in 1982. It also revisits Ronnie O’Sullivan executing the fastest maximum in history back in 1997 during a blistering five-minute clearance.

Behind the Scenes of Professional Cuesports

Writing from the perspective of an industry insider who spent ten years covering sports journalism, Shaw digs into the human side of the World Snooker Tour. The pages recount bizarre and brilliant anecdotes from the circuit. One featured professional even discharged himself from a hospital ward just in time to make a maximum break at the venue.

Other chapters look at missed opportunities and botched attempts. The psychological pressure of standing on 140 points with just the final black remaining has caused many elite competitors to miss under the bright lights of the television cameras.

Find more from Chris Shaw now:

Kindle: https://amzn.to/4h6Lu7g

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3Usyro5

Hardcover: https://amzn.to/4csWvNL

Listen to Chris talking about To the Max with the broadcaster David Hendon on the Snooker Scene podcast To the Max with Chris Shaw–Snooker Scene Podcast – Apple Podcasts

Watch and listen to Chris talking about To the Max with the journalist and podcast host Nick Metcalfe Radio Snooker Video Special: Interview with ‘To the Max’ author Chris Shaw