Seven-time champion Stephen Hendry hit a maximum 147 break in his World Championship quarter-final clash with Shaun Murphy at the Crucible.
The Scot has now had nine maximums in his career, including one other in Sheffield in the 1995 semi-finals.
Hendry, 40, will earn £147,000 for the feat, with another £10,000 likely for the tournament's highest break.
The final black glanced both jaws before dropping as Hendry opened a 5-2 lead in the opening session.
World Championship 147s
1983: Cliff Thorburn v Terry Griffiths
1992: Jimmy White v Tony Drago
1995: Stephen Hendry v Jimmy White
1997: Ronnie O'Sullivan v Mick Price
2003: Ronnie O'Sullivan v Marco Fu
2005: Mark Williams v Robert Milkins
2008: Ronnie O'Sullivan v Mark Williams
2008: Ali Carter v Peter Ebdon
2009: Stephen Hendry v Shaun Murphy
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After sinking a tricky pink with his penultimate shot, Hendry was left with an awkward cut back into the bottom corner to complete the clearance.
An anxious moment followed as the black briefly threatened to squirm free, before the crowd stood to acclaim the veteran.
The chance of a 147 came when a cannon off his fifth black opened up the pack and a pair of plant shots squeezed home to put the maximum within reach.
"It's a tremendous feeling and I'm absolutely delighted," he said.
It is the ninth maximum in the history of the competition with Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ali Carter both achieving the feat last year.
Cliff Thorburn, Jimmy White and Mark Williams are the only other players to clinch perfect frames at the sport's greatest tournament.
"You have to grade maximums at the Crucible as the best because of the pressure of this venue," six-time champion Steve Davis told BBC Sport.
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"Especially when you consider where the pack was at the start, Stephen is one of only two or three players who would have made that break, and from five reds out it was immaculate."
Currently ranked sixth in the world, Hendry has started the tournament well and managed a 140 break in defeating China's Ding Junhui in the previous round.
This season he has gone out of the UK Championship, the Masters and the Welsh Open at the first round, but throughout his illustrious career Hendry's World Championship performances have regularly outshone the rest of his season's form.
He reached a record 12th semi-final in last year's competition and reached the quarter-finals of the China Open earlier this month in the run-up to this year's event.
On the Crucible's other table Mark Allen followed up his victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan byestablishing a 5-3 lead over Wales' Ryan Day.
After sharing the first six frames, the Northern Irishman put together runs of 51 and 80 to edge into a slender lead before the pair resume this evening.
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