Mark Selby

Mark Anthony Selby MBE (born 19 June 1983) is an English professional snooker player. Ranked world number one on multiple occasions, he has won a total of 22 ranking titles, placing him eighth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. He is a four-time World Snooker Champion, and has won the Masters three times and the UK Championship twice for a total of nine Triple Crown titles, putting him on a par with John Higgins, and behind only Ronnie O’Sullivan (21), Stephen Hendry (18) and Steve Davis (15).

After winning the England Under-15 Championship in 1998, Selby turned professional in 1999, aged 16. He made his Crucible debut in 2005, and reached his first World Championship final in 2007, when he was runner-up to John Higgins. He won his first major title at the 2008 Masters, and his first ranking title at the 2008 Welsh Open. Between 2014 and 2017, he won the World Championship three times in four years. He first became world number one in September 2011, and held onto the top ranking position for just over four years between February 2015 and March 2019. He has compiled more than 750 century breaks in professional competition, including five maximum breaks, one of which is the only ever to have been made during the final of the World Championships.

Selby is also a pool player; he was the 2006 World Eight-ball Pool Federation champion, and the runner-up at the Chinese Eight-ball World Championship in 2015, making him the only man to have been world champion in both snooker and pool.

## Career

### 1998–2007

A winner of the England under-15 championship in 1998, Selby joined the professional tour a year later at the age of 16 in 1999. In early 2002, he reached the semi-finals of the China Open, despite leaving his hotel room at 2 a.m. instead of 2 p.m. for one of his matches because of jetlag. In April 2003, aged 19, he reached his first ranking final at the Scottish Open, where he finished runner-up to David Gray, earning himself a place in the top 32 for the first time. He progressed to the final round of qualifying at the World Snooker Championships in 2002, 2003 and 2004, but failed to qualify for the knockout stages at the Crucible Theatre on all three occasions.

From late 2005, Selby was managed by former snooker professional and fellow Leicester resident Mukesh Parmar. He progressed to the main draw of the 2005 World Championship, losing 5–10 to John Higgins in the first round. He then faced Higgins in the first round again at the 2006 World Championship, this time defeating the reigning Grand Prix and Masters champion 10–4, before being eliminated in the second round by Mark Williams.

Selby reached the final of the 2007 World Championship, where he was defeated 13–18 by Higgins. He beat Stephen Lee 10–7 in the first round, after winning eight successive from 0–5 behind to lead 8–5. He defeated former World Champion Peter Ebdon 13–8 in the second round, with five centuries (three of them consecutive) to reach the quarter-finals, where he beat Ali Carter 13–12, from 11–8 ahead and 11–12 behind, in a third-round match that lasted well over nine hours. He won his semi-final match 17–16 against Shaun Murphy, after trailing 14–16, in another deciding frame that he took with a 64 break. In the final, John Higgins led 12–4 after the second session, but Selby won all six frames played in the third session on Monday afternoon before time ran out due to the length of the frames; he was therefore only 10–12 behind entering the final session, and closed to within one frame at 13–14 before eventually losing the match.

Higgins pointed out in his victory speech that Selby was "the most improved player on the tour". Selby's performance in the 2006–07 season earned him a place in the top 16 for the first time for the 2007–08 season, where he was ranked 11th. His victories over Lee, Ebdon, Carter and Murphy at the 2007 World Championship also won him the inaugural 888.com Silver Chip award for outstanding performance, awarded by the Snooker Writers' Association.

### 2007–08 season: First Masters title

Next season, Selby made it to the semi-finals in the 2007 Shanghai Masters, but was defeated by Dominic Dale, who went on to win the tournament. Selby also had a strong run in the UK Championship, reaching the semi-finals as well, where he met the eventual winner of the event, Ronnie O'Sullivan. Selby led 7–5, but fell 7–8 behind before levelling the match at 8–8; however, O'Sullivan made a 147 break in the deciding frame to win 9–8.

On 20 January 2008, Selby won his first major tournament, the Masters at Wembley Arena in London. En route to the final, he had edged out Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire and Ken Doherty, all on a 6–5 scoreline. In the final against Stephen Lee, after leading 5–3 at the break, Selby took control and reeled off five consecutive frames (eight in a row overall, from 2–3 behind) to achieve a decisive 10–3 victory. He produced a high standard of play in the final, compiling four century breaks in total; his final-frame effort, a total clearance of 141, equalled the highest break of the tournament.

Selby claimed his first world ranking title at the Welsh Open on 17 February 2008, winning a close-fought final 9–8 against Ronnie O'Sullivan after recovering from 5–8 behind. He also was a semi-finalist in the China Open, and a finalist in the inaugural Championship League event. However, he could not reproduce his Crucible success from the previous season; despite going into the 2008 World Championship as one of the bookmakers' favourites for the title, Selby was defeated 8–10 in the first round by Mark King.

### 2008–09 season

The following season Selby was defeated at the 2008 Shanghai Masters, once again in the semi-final stage by the event's eventual winner, this time Ricky Walden. Then at the beginning of the new year, he reached the final of the Masters again, where he was runner-up to O'Sullivan, losing the match 8–10 after leading 7–5. In the Welsh Open quarter-finals he was handed a writ by a member of the audience, supposedly his former manager George Barmby. Selby commented that all he could think about was the envelope that had been given to him before he was defeated 3–5 by Anthony Hamilton. Later on in the season, he made it to the final once more in the 2009 Championship League, and also reached the quarter-finals of the 2009 World Championship, losing 12–13 to John Higgins, who went on to win his third world title.

### 2009–10 season: Second Masters title

Selby recovered from 4–8 behind to beat Jamie Cope 9–8 in the first round of the 2009 UK Championship, but was beaten in the quarter-finals 3–9, yet again by O'Sullivan. On 17 January 2010, having reached the final for the third time in as many years, he won his second Masters title, in a repeat of the previous year's final where he had lost to O'Sullivan. This time, after falling behind 6–9, with O'Sullivan needing one more frame for another victory, Selby took the next four frames to win the championship 10–9. He came within reach of his second World Championship final in 2010, losing in the semi-finals 14–17 to Graeme Dott, despite pulling up to 10–11 and 13–14.

### 2010–11 season

In July 2010, Selby won the Six-red World Championship in Bangkok, with an 8–6 victory over Ricky Walden in the final. At the 2011 China Open, he beat Tian Pengfei, Robert Milkins, Ali Carter, and home favourite Ding Junhui, but was defeated 8–10 by Judd Trump in the final. At the 2011 World Championship, he set the record for the most century breaks compiled in a world championship match when he made six in his second-round tie with Hendry. This was also a record for a best-of-25-frames match, and took Selby's century tally for the season to 54, setting a new record for the most centuries compiled by one player in a single season.

### 2011–12 season

Selby started the season by winning the non-ranking Wuxi Classic with a 9–7 victory over Ali Carter. He won his second ranking event at the Shanghai Masters, where he defeated Mark Williams 10–9 in the final, winning the last three frames from 7–9 behind. With this victory, Selby replaced Williams as world number one, moving to the top of the world rankings for the first time in his career.

He also won the minor-ranking PTC Event 4 (the 2011 edition of the Paul Hunter Classic); having edged out Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the semi-finals, he achieved a 4–0 whitewash over Mark Davis in the final. Selby eventually finished fifth on the PTC Order of Merit and therefore qualified to the last 16 of the PTC Grand Final. He beat Ding Junhui 4–1, before losing 0–4 to eventual winner Stephen Lee in the quarter-finals.

Selby progressed to the quarter-finals of the Masters in January, where he lost 2–6 to Shaun Murphy. He was defeated by Murphy again the following month, in the quarter-finals of the German Masters, losing the match 3–5. After reaching the final of the Welsh Open, where he lost 6–9 to Ding, he met Murphy for the third time in less than six weeks, in the quarter-finals of the World Open, this time achieving a 5–0 whitewash. However, he then suffered a 5–6 semi-final defeat against Mark Allen, despite having built up a 5–2 lead.

Selby withdrew from the second round of the China Open because of a neck injury. His decision to withdraw was also a precautionary measure to make sure he was ready for the upcoming World Championship. He played Barry Hawkins in the first round and was defeated 3–10. After the match, Selby admitted that he had only managed nine hours of practice in preparation for the tournament, and there were certain shots that he was physically unable to play. Despite this disappointment, he finished the season still as world number one.

### 2012–13 season: First UK Championship, third Masters title

Selby announced he felt "90 per cent fit" just before the start of the season, as he continued his recovery from the disc bulge in his neck. His first event was the Wuxi Classic where he played Barry Hawkins in the last 32; having been eliminated from the World Championship by Hawkins two months earlier, Selby this time won 5–2, and then whitewashed Jamie Cope 5–0 to set up a quarter-final match with in-form Stuart Bingham, but lost in the deciding frame 4–5. He won seven matches in a row to reach the quarter-finals of the Six-red World Championship, where he was defeated 5–7 by Judd Trump. He then suffered a shock 3–5 first-round defeat to Jamie Burnett in the Australian Goldfields Open.

Selby lost his world number one ranking on 2 November 2012, when Trump claimed the top spot by reaching the final of the inaugural International Championship in China. However, just five weeks later, Selby regained the top ranking position by winning the UK Championship, for his third ranking title and most significant of his career to that date. He defeated Michael White 6–3, Ryan Day 6–4 after trailing 0–3, and Neil Robertson 6–4 from 0–4 behind, to reach the semi-finals. He then defeated Mark Davis 9–4 to progress to the final, where he beat Shaun Murphy 10–6 to win the tournament.

Selby also participated at the Players Tour Championship. He successfully defended his Paul Hunter Classic title with a 4–1 win over Joe Swail in the final. He then lost in the final of the Antwerp Open 1–4 against Mark Allen, and won the Munich Open by defeating Graeme Dott 3–4 in the final. He then finished number one on the Order of Merit, and qualified for the Finals, where he lost 3–4 against Jack Lisowski.

Selby then won his third Masters title, beating Bingham 6–5 from 1–5 behind in the first round, Mark Williams 6–1 in the quarter-finals, and Dott 6–5 from 1–4 behind in the semi-finals. He then defeated defending champion Neil Robertson 10–6 in the final. He reached the quarter-finals of the German Masters, but lost 1–5 against Hawkins. He lost in the last 32 of the Welsh Open 0–4 against Joe Perry, and lost his number one position to Trump. Selby then reached the quarter-finals of the World Open, but lost 3–5 against Robertson.

At the China Open, Selby became only the fourth player in history to miss the final black on a 147 attempt, and only the second – after Ken Doherty – to do so in a televised match, in a 5–1 defeat of Mark King. He then reached the final by defeating Ricky Walden 5–2, Williams 5–1 and Murphy 6–2, but lost 6–10 against Robertson. After the event he regained the number one spot from Trump. He finished off the season at the World Championship, where he beat Matthew Selt 10–4 in the first round, before losing 10–13 to Hawkins in the second round.

### 2013–14 season: First World Championship

In the first ranking event of the season, Selby was subjected to a 3–5 defeat to Andrew Pagett in the qualifying rounds of the Wuxi Classic in China. The tournament was the first to use a new format requiring the top 16 players to compete in the qualifying rounds at most ranking events. In minor-ranking tournaments, he was runner-up at the Yixing Open, losing 1–4 to Joe Perry, and at the Rotterdam Open, where he lost 3–4 to Mark Williams. He won the Antwerp Open in November, defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the final.

Having won the UK Championship and Masters in the previous season, Selby qualified to take part in the first edition of the revived Champion of Champions competition, where he lost to Stuart Bingham in the semi-finals 4–6. Defending his title at the UK Championship in December, Selby compiled snooker's 100th officially recognised maximum break in professional competition, in the seventh frame of his semi-final against Ricky Walden. He received £55,000 for the achievement, in addition to the tournament's highest break prize of £4,000. The next day, he lost 7–10 to world number one Neil Robertson in the final, having been ahead 5–1 and 6–3, missing his chance to regain the top position in the world rankings.

He began the defence of his title at the Masters by defeating Mark Davis in the first round and John Higgins in the quarter-finals, winning both matches 6–5 and extending his unbeaten record in deciding frames at the Masters to 11. He then beat Shaun Murphy 6–1 in the semi-finals to reach the final against O'Sullivan. After falling behind 1–7 in the first session, Selby lost the final 4–10, receiving the runner-up prize of £90,000. At the German Masters two weeks later, he was eliminated in the second round by Kurt Maflin 5–3. He defeated Alan McManus 5–1 in the quarter-finals of the World Open, and Marco Fu 6–4 in the semi-finals, but lost 6–10 in the final to Murphy.

At the World Championship, Selby defeated Michael White 10–9, Ali Carter 13–9, and McManus 13–5 to reach his first semi-final at the Crucible since 2010, where he met Robertson in a repeat of the UK Championship final five months earlier. This time Selby achieved a 17–15 victory to reach his second World Championship final and first for seven years. His opponent in the final was defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, who had held the world title for the past two years and had won all five of his previous world finals. Selby appeared "jaded" on the first day after a tough semi-final battle with Robertson the day before. O'Sullivan led 3–0, 8–3, and 10–5, but Selby then won six frames in a row to lead for the first time, eventually sealing an 18–14 victory for his first world title. He dedicated the win to his late father who had died when Selby was 16. With his World Championship victory, Selby became the ninth player to win snooker's Triple Crown of World, UK and Masters titles; he also returned to the world number one position.

### 2014–15 season

At the first ranking event of the season, the Wuxi Classic, Selby lost 3–5 to Liang Wenbo in the last 32. He won the minor-ranking Riga Open in August, defeating Mark Allen 4–3 in the final, but was defeated by Allen the following month in a final-frame in the semi-finals of the ranking Shanghai Masters tournament. He made an unexpected early exit from the ranking International Championship, when he was eliminated in the last 128 by 19-year-old tour rookie Oliver Lines, who had recovered from 0–4 behind to defeat him 6–4. Selby reached the quarter-finals of the invitational Champion of Champions tournament in November, but lost 1–6 against Judd Trump. He had a disappointing run at the UK Championship, losing 4–6 to David Morris in the last 64.

In his first-round encounter with Shaun Murphy at the Masters in January, Selby fell 1–5 behind before recovering to draw level at 5–5, but then lost the match in the deciding frame. This was the first time he had ever lost a deciding frame at the Masters, having won the match 6–5 on all 11 previous occasions. The following month, Selby won his fifth ranking title at the German Masters. He defeated Trump 5–4 in the quarter-finals, despite Trump making his second career 147 in the fifth frame of the match; this was the fifth time that Selby had witnessed an opponent completing a maximum against him (including both of Trump's), the most witnessed by any player. In the final, he came from 2–5 down against Murphy to win 9–7 and claim the title.

At the China Open in April, Selby became the first player to win a second ranking title in the 2014–15 season; after advancing to the final without meeting any player inside the world's top 16, he outplayed world number 56 Gary Wilson to win 10–2. He then began his title defence at the World Championship, with no first-time world champion having successfully defended the title the following year, and no winner of the China Open having won the World Championship in the same season. He led Kurt Maflin 8–4 in the first round, before Maflin won the next five frames to lead 9–8, but Selby took the 18th frame and the decider to win the match 10–9. His reign as World Champion ended in the second round, however, with a 9–13 defeat to Anthony McGill. Despite this setback, he finished the season as world number one for the fourth year running.

### 2015–16 season: Second World Championship

At the 2015 International Championship, Selby reached the semi-finals but then lost 4–9 to John Higgins. He did not drop a frame in reaching the third round of the UK Championship where he defeated Jamie Jones 6–5, later acknowledging that his opponent had deserved to win the match. He then eliminated Dechawat Poomjaeng and Matthew Selt both 6–1, before being whitewashed 6–0 by Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. In early 2016, Selby lost to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the quarter-finals of both the Masters and Welsh Open, but won the Gdynia Open with a 4–1 victory over Martin Gould.

In March, he withdrew from the PTC Finals and China Open for personal reasons. Returning to the tour at the World Championship in April, he beat Robert Milkins 10–6, Sam Baird 13–11, and Kyren Wilson 13–8, to face Marco Fu in the semi-finals. Selby drew level at 12–12 after winning a 76-minute frame, the longest in Crucible history, and won the match 17–15 with a successful on the in the final frame. He took an early 6–0 lead over Ding Junhui in the final, eventually winning the match 18–14 to claim his second world title. With his World Championship victory, Selby finished at number one in the world rankings for the fifth consecutive year.

### 2016–17 season: Third World Championship, second UK Championship

Selby won his first ranking title of the season at the Paul Hunter Classic, beating Tom Ford 4–2 in the final. His semi-final against Stuart Bingham at the Shanghai Masters in September, was a meeting between the top-two ranked players in the world, Selby winning 6–5, having trailed 3–5. After taking an early 3–1 advantage over Ding Junhui in the final, he eventually lost the match 6–10. The following month, he was defeated 2–6 by Judd Trump in the semi-finals of the European Masters. He then won 9–3 in another semi-final encounter with Bingham, to reach the final of the International Championship in Daqing, China, winning the event for the first time by overcoming Ding 10–1; Selby dominated their encounter, winning all of the last seven frames, in the most one-sided ranking event final since the 2012 World Open when Mark Allen had defeated Stephen Lee by the same scoreline. Selby made seven 50+ breaks, while Ding's highest was just 47.

At the UK Championship, he defeated John Higgins 6–5 in a high-quality quarter-final match that lasted five hours; Selby won on the colours in the deciding frame. After despatching Shaun Murphy 6–2 in the semi-finals, he developed a 7–2 advantage over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the event, which decreased to 7–4, followed by four breaks of 130 or more over the next five frames—two by each player—bringing the score to 9–7 in Selby's favour. He finished the match with a 107 break to claim his second UK title, completing the second Triple Crown of his career. After failing to progress to the semi-final stage of any of the next seven tournaments, he made it through to the final of the China Open in April, where he took the final three frames against Mark Williams to win 10–8 and claim his fourth ranking title of the season.

In the quarter-finals of the World Championship, he defeated Marco Fu 13–3 with a . He faced Ding in the semi-finals, taking a 16–13 lead before Ding closed the gap to 15–16 behind; Selby then won the 32nd frame to reach his third world final in four years. In a repeat of the 2007 final against John Higgins, which Selby had lost 13–18, he fell behind 4–10 before recovering to win 12 of the next 14 frames, eventually closing out the match 18–15 to win his third World Championship, becoming the fourth player—after Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan—to retain the world title at the Crucible. This was Selby's fifth ranking title of the season, tying him with Hendry and Ding as the only players to have won five ranking events in a single season. Selby earned £932,000 during the 2016–17 season, a record amount of prize money for any one season.

### 2017–18 season

In the 2017–18 snooker season, Selby was eliminated in the first round of the Hong Kong Masters after a 3–5 defeat to eventual champion Neil Robertson. His first ranking tournament of the season was the China Championship where he was defeated 4–5 by Zhou Yuelong in the second round. He failed to progress past the fourth round of the Paul Hunter Classic in defence of his title, losing 1–4 to eventual champion Michael White. He was defeated 2–5 by Lee Walker in the first round of the World Open, followed by a 2–4 defeat to Stuart Bingham in the quarter-finals of the European Masters, and a third round exit at the English Open where he lost 1–4 to Xiao Guodong.

Selby successfully defended his International Championship title in November, to claim his first ranking title of the season. After surviving a fightback from Mark Allen, who trailed 3–8 and 7–9 in the final, Selby prevailed 10–7. As reigning World Snooker Champion, he qualified automatically for the 2017 Champion of Champions, but was defeated 4–6 in the quarter-finals by Luca Brecel. Defending his title at the UK Championship, he was eliminated 3–6 by Scott Donaldson in the last 64.

In January, he played Mark Williams in the first round of the Masters, in a repeat of the previous year's event, where Selby had won their first-round encounter 6–5. However, this time the finishing score line was reversed as Selby lost the deciding frame 5–6. He retained his China Open championship in April, defeating Barry Hawkins 11–3 in the final. This was Selby's third China Open title in four years. Later that month, his two-year reign as World Champion ended in the first round of the World Championship, where he fell to Joe Perry 4–10, unable to recover from a 2–7 deficit in the first session. In winning the match, Perry became the first player to beat Selby at the World Championship since Anthony McGill had defeated him in the second round in 2015. Despite this disappointment, Selby still finished the season as world number one.

### 2018–19 season

At the World Open in August, Selby lost 4–5 to world number 53 Noppon Saengkham in the last 16, losing the deciding frame by just three points. He won his 15th ranking title at the China Championship in September, defeating John Higgins 10–9 in a very close-fought final. He reached the semi-finals of the Northern Ireland Open in November, losing 5–6 to Ronnie O'Sullivan on the final black. He faced disappointments in other tournaments, including an unexpected 3–6 loss to amateur James Cahill in the first round of the UK Championship. At the 2019 Masters, he lost 2–6 to Judd Trump in a "nervy" quarter-final, despite making a 110 break in the seventh frame of the match.

Selby lost the top ranking position to O'Sullivan on 24 March 2019, having been world number one since February 2015. O'Sullivan reclaimed the top spot by winning his 36th ranking title at the Tour Championship; Selby had himself been eliminated in the first round by Neil Robertson in a final-frame decider, after squandering a four-frame lead. He had an opportunity to regain the top spot at the China Open less than two weeks later, but lost 3–6 to Craig Steadman in the qualifying round which had been held over from the original qualification stage in February. At the World Championship, Selby beat Zhao Xintong 10–7 in the first round before being defeated 10–13 by Gary Wilson in the second round. As a result of this mediocre performance, he ended the season as world number six, having also been outranked by John Higgins, Neil Robertson, Mark Williams and Judd Trump.

### 2019–20 season

In the 2019–20 season, Selby reached the semi-finals of the International Championship, losing 4–9 to Judd Trump, and in defending his title at the China Championship, he lost 3–6 to Shaun Murphy, again in the semi-finals. He defeated David Gilbert 9–1 in the final of the English Open to win the Steve Davis Trophy. The following week, he lost 2–5 to Stuart Bingham in the last 16 of the World Open. In the Champion of Champions, he fell short 2–6 to Mark Allen in the group final. Despite recovering from 1–4 behind to tie at 4–4, he was defeated in the quarter-finals of the Northern Ireland Open by John Higgins. He took more than six minutes to play one of his shots in the seventh frame of this match, leading to criticism from the Eurosport commentator Neal Foulds. He won the Scottish Open in December, beating Jack Lisowski 9–6 in the final to pick up the Stephen Hendry Trophy. Having also won the English Open earlier in the season, he became the first player to win more than one tournament in the Home Nations Series in a single season.

At the beginning of 2020, he lost in the first round of the Masters against Ali Carter in January, and failed to qualify at the German Masters later the same month. At the European Masters, he lost in the second round to Barry Hawkins; after losing the first four frames, he staged a comeback to level at 4–4 but then lost the deciding frame. He qualified for the World Grand Prix, where he lost 3–4 to Xiao Guodong in the first round despite making two centuries. In February, Selby reached the quarter-final stage of the last Home Nations event, the Welsh Open, where he was defeated 1–5 by Ronnie O'Sullivan. He also qualified for the Players Championship, based on the one-year ranking list; in the first round, he whitewashed Mark Williams 6–0, but was then knocked out in the quarter-finals by Stephen Maguire in a deciding frame 5–6. In March, he also participated at the Gibraltar Open, but was eliminated in the third round by Lyu Haotian 1–4.

After the prolonged break caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Selby participated in the 2020 Championship League, going out of the tournament after the first group stage. He qualified for the 2020 Tour Championship ranked third on the one-year ranking list. He beat Yan Bingtao 9–6 in the quarter-finals before being defeated 2–9 by Mark Allen in the semi-finals. At the World Championship, Selby defeated debutant Jordan Brown 10–6 in the first round, Noppon Saengkham 13–12 in the last 16, and Neil Robertson 13–7 in the quarter-finals. In the semi-final, he met Ronnie O'Sullivan, who took a 5–3 lead after the first session, but Selby won the second session to take a 9–7 lead. During the third session, he established a 13–9 advantage before O'Sullivan won the last two frames of the session. Selby then took a 16–14 lead, leaving himself one frame away from his fifth World Championship final, but he lost the final three frames of the match. After the game, Selby accused his opponent of being "disrespectful" after O'Sullivan had played several hit-and-hope shots while being snookered. Selby finished the season as world number four.

### 2020–21 season: Fourth World Championship

After the delayed start to the new season, Selby won his 18th ranking title at the 2020 European Masters in September, defeating Martin Gould 9–8 in the final. The score was level at 4–4 by the end of the afternoon session, despite Selby taking an early 4–0 lead. The two players were evenly matched throughout the evening session, but Selby eventually won the match in the final-frame decider with a break of 72. The win moved Selby to a joint sixth place, alongside Neil Robertson, on the list of players with the most world ranking titles.

In October, he began the defence of his title at the 2020 English Open. After defeating Fan Zhengyi, Chang Bingyu, Liang Wenbo, Hossein Vafaei and Zhou Yuelong, he lost 5–6 to Robertson in the semi-finals. Despite losing the title, Selby retained the number one spot in the one-year ranking list. He also progressed through the first two group stages of the ranking Championship League tournament. In the third group stage, although he beat Judd Trump 3–0, he lost 1–3 to Zhou Yuelong and 0–3 to Zhao Xintong, finishing at the bottom of the group.

At the Champion of Champions tournament in November, Selby recovered from 0–4 and 3–5 behind, winning the last three frames of his quarter-final match against Kyren Wilson to progress 6–5, only to be defeated by Robertson in another final-frame decider at the semi-final stage of the competition. In December, after yet another loss to Robertson at the quarter-finals of the UK Championship, he successfully defended his Scottish Open title, beating Yuan Sijun, Nigel Bond, Mark Joyce, Lyu Haotian, Ricky Walden and Jamie Jones to reach the final, then defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–3 to claim his 19th ranking tournament win. The following week, Selby reached the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix, where he was defeated 4–6 by Jack Lisowski, despite compiling the highest break of the tournament, a 143 in the seventh frame of the match.

He reached the final of the Snooker Shoot Out in February but his early 24-point lead was eclipsed by Ryan Day's 67-point winning break in the last four minutes of the match. Aiming to secure a record 12th successive ranking final win, Selby expressed doubts about whether the Shoot Out should be classed as a ranking event. Afterwards, he exited both the Welsh Open and the Players Championship at the quarter-final stage, then the Tour Championship with one more semi-final defeat by Robertson, repeating his last year results for all three events.

Selby won his fourth world title in May 2021, defeating Shaun Murphy 18–15 in the final of the World Championship in front of a capacity crowd at the Crucible Theatre. He became one of only five players to have won the championship four or more times at the Crucible, and said in his post-match interview: "to win it four times is something I could only have dreamed of."

### 2021–22 season

In contrast with his last two snooker years, this was a poor season for Selby. His first tournament was the British Open. He was defeated in the second round, but returned to the top of the rankings for the first time since March 2019. After that, he suffered many early round exits, failed to qualify for tournaments or has withdrawn from them. Selby said that snooker seemed "irrelevant right now" to him, as he spoke about his struggles with depression that was affecting his life and snooker form. He reached the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix in December though, but after levelling the match at 2–2, he was defeated 3–6 by Neil Robertson. The only other highlights of the season were his quarter-final appearances at the 2021 Champion of Champions, where he made his 700th century break in his opening match against David Gilbert, becoming the sixth player to reach that milestone, and the 2022 Masters, where Selby avenged his 6–3 loss to Stephen Maguire from last year's tournament by beating the Scotsman by the exact same scoreline, but then he suffered a 6–1 defeat by Barry Hawkins.

### 2022–23 season

Compared to his last season performance, Selby's form had improved, as he reached the quarter-finals of the British, the Northern Ireland and the Scottish Open, the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions, then went on and won the English Open for the second time, claiming his first ranking trophy since his World Championship win in 2021. In the semi-final of the tournament, he also recorded his first win over Neil Robertson in two years, after seven consecutive losses to him, including this year's Northern Ireland and Scottish Open defeats. Towards the end of the season, Selby also won the inaugural WST Classic tournament, beating Pang Junxu 6–2 in the final. In the next event, the 2023 Tour Championship, he made it to the semi-final, losing 9–10 to Shaun Murphy, forcing a decider after being 6–9 down.

At the 2023 World Snooker Championship, Selby defeated Mark Allen 17–15 in a semi-final that lasted for over 13 and a half hours in total, with the final session ending at 12:48 a.m. In frame 16 of the final against Luca Brecel, Selby scored a maximum break, his first maximum at the Crucible, and the first ever compiled in a World Championship final. Trailing 16–10 at one point, Selby managed to close the gap to 16–15; however Brecel won the following two frames to win 18–15.

## Personal life

Born in Leicester on 19 June 1983, Selby began playing pool at the age of eight and snooker aged nine. Malcolm Thorne, brother of Leicester-born snooker player Willie Thorne, spotted Selby's snooker ability and offered him free practice at his brother's snooker club, which Selby took full advantage of, practising in the evenings after school. Abandoned by his mother at the age of eight, Selby lost his father to cancer when he was 16, after which he lived with family friend and snooker coach, Alan Perkins. He contemplated suicide after his father's death, but Perkins encouraged him to devote himself to snooker, telling him his father would have wanted him to keep playing and trying his best. Two months later, Selby joined the main professional tour, having left school with no qualifications. His nickname, "The Jester from Leicester", was given to him by snooker compere Richard Beare because Selby liked to have "a laugh and a joke" with him.

Selby's wife Vikki Layton, who often attends his major matches, is a former Irish international pool player born in Ipswich. They began dating in 2006 after meeting on the professional circuit. They became engaged in August 2010 after Selby proposed on a gondola in Venice, and were married in Cancún, Mexico in May 2011. They have one daughter, Sofia, who was born in 2014.

Selby has been a fan of Leicester City F.C. since childhood. His 2014 World Championship victory happened on the day that Leicester City celebrated their promotion to the Premier League with an open-top bus parade. Two years later, he won his second world title just 13 minutes after the team sealed their first Premier League title. Selby is also a fan of darts and has played in exhibition matches at Ibstock in Leicestershire, beating Eric Bristow in 2007 and taking on Raymond van Barneveld in 2009.

Selby was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to snooker and charity.

## Performance and rankings timeline

Below is a list of competition results for professional seasons starting from 1999.

## Career finals

Below is a list of professional finals played by Selby.

### Ranking finals: 33 (22 titles)

### Minor-ranking finals: 10 (7 titles)

### Non-ranking finals: 17 (9 titles)

### Pro-am finals: 1

### Team finals: 1

### Amateur finals: 1 (1 title)

## Pool career

As well as being a professional snooker player, Selby is also adept at playing pool, specifically blackball (also known as English eight-ball) and Chinese eight-ball. In June 2006, he won the WEPF World Eight-ball championship at the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool, beating Chris Melling 10–5 in the semi-finals and Darren Appleton 11–7 in the final.

In February 2015, Selby was runner-up at the inaugural Chinese Eight-ball World Championship in Yushan, China. Having defeated Liu Haitao 15–13 in the semi-finals, he lost 19–21 to Appleton in the final. Selby had edged into the lead, 19–18, before Appleton won three consecutive to cross the finishing line.

After not competing in pool tournaments for several years, Selby entered the Ultimate Pool Pairs Cup, teaming up with brother-in-law Gareth Potts. Selby and Potts won the tournament after defeating Karl Sutton and Shaun Chipperfield in the final, played on 19 December 2022. This was just one day after Selby won the English Open in snooker, meaning he had won two live televised titles in two days in two different cuesports.

### Pool finals: 2 (1 title)

## See also

English snooker player (born 1983)

Members of the Order of the British Empire

People from Oadby and Wigston (district)

Winners of the professional snooker world championship


Aposematism

Aposematism is the advertising by an animal to potential predators that it is not worth attacking or eating. This unprofitability may consist of any defenses which make the prey difficult to kill and eat, such as toxicity, venom, foul taste or smell, sharp spines, or aggressive nature. These advertising signals may take the form of conspicuous coloration, sounds, odours, or other perceivable characteristics. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both predator and prey, since both avoid potential harm.

The term was coined in 1877 by Edward Bagnall Poulton for Alfred Russel Wallace's concept of warning coloration. Aposematism is exploited in Müllerian mimicry, where species with strong defences evolve to resemble one another. By mimicking similarly coloured species, the warning signal to predators is shared, causing them to learn more quickly at less of a cost.

A genuine aposematic signal that a species actually possesses chemical or physical defences is not the only way to deter predators. In Batesian mimicry, a mimicking species resembles an aposematic model closely enough to share the protection, while many species have bluffing deimatic displays which may startle a predator long enough to enable an otherwise undefended prey to escape.

There is good evidence for aposematism in terrestrial animals; its existence in marine animals is possible but disputed.

## Etymology

The term aposematism was coined by the English zoologist Edward Bagnall Poulton in his 1890 book The Colours of Animals. He based the term on the Ancient Greek words ἀπό apo 'away' and σῆμα sēma 'sign', referring to signs that warn other animals away.

## Defense mechanism

The function of aposematism is to prevent attack, by warning potential predators that the prey animal has defenses such as being unpalatable or poisonous. The easily detected warning is a primary defense mechanism, and the non-visible defenses are secondary. Aposematic signals are primarily visual, using bright colors and high-contrast patterns such as stripes. Warning signals are honest indications of noxious prey, because conspicuousness evolves in tandem with noxiousness. Thus, the brighter and more conspicuous the organism, the more toxic it usually is. This is in contrast to deimatic displays, which attempt to startle a predator with a threatening appearance but which are bluffing, unsupported by any strong defences.

The most common and effective colors are red, yellow, black, and white. These colors provide strong contrast with green foliage, resist changes in shadow and lighting, are highly chromatic, and provide distance dependent camouflage. Some forms of warning coloration provide this distance dependent camouflage by having an effective pattern and color combination that do not allow for easy detection by a predator from a distance, but are warning-like from a close proximity, allowing for an advantageous balance between camouflage and aposematism. Warning coloration evolves in response to background, light conditions, and predator vision. Visible signals may be accompanied by odors, sounds or behavior to provide a multi-modal signal which is more effectively detected by predators.

Unpalatability, broadly understood, can be created in a variety of ways. Some insects such as the ladybird or tiger moth contain bitter-tasting chemicals, while the skunk produces a noxious odor, and the poison glands of the poison dart frog, the sting of a velvet ant or neurotoxin in a black widow spider make them dangerous or painful to attack. Tiger moths advertise their unpalatability by either producing ultrasonic noises which warn bats to avoid them, or by warning postures which expose brightly coloured body parts (see Unkenreflex), or exposing eyespots. Velvet ants (actually parasitic wasps) such as Dasymutilla occidentalis both have bright colors and produce audible noises when grabbed (via stridulation), which serve to reinforce the warning. Among mammals, predators can be dissuaded when a smaller animal is aggressive and able to defend itself, as for example in honey badgers.

## Prevalence

### In terrestrial ecosystems

Aposematism is widespread in insects, but less so in vertebrates, being mostly confined to a smaller number of reptile, amphibian, and fish species, and some foul-smelling or aggressive mammals. Pitohuis, red and black birds whose toxic feathers and skin apparently comes from the poisonous beetles they ingest, could be included. It has been proposed that aposematism played a role in human evolution, body odour carrying a warning to predators of large hominins able to defend themselves with weapons.

Perhaps the most numerous aposematic vertebrates are the poison dart frogs (family: Dendrobatidae). These neotropical anuran amphibians exhibit a wide spectrum of coloration and toxicity. Some species in this poison frog family (particularly Dendrobates, Epipedobates, and Phyllobates) are conspicuously coloured and sequester one of the most toxic alkaloids among all living species. Within the same family, there are also cryptic frogs (such as Colostethus and Mannophryne) that lack these toxic alkaloids. Although these frogs display an extensive array of coloration and toxicity, there is very little genetic difference between the species. Evolution of their conspicuous coloration is correlated to traits such as chemical defense, dietary specialization, acoustic diversification, and increased body mass.

Some plants are thought to employ aposematism to warn herbivores of unpalatable chemicals or physical defences such as prickled leaves or thorns. Many insects, such as cinnabar moth caterpillars, acquire toxic chemicals from their host plants. Among mammals, skunks and zorillas advertise their foul-smelling chemical defences with sharply contrasting black-and-white patterns on their fur, while the similarly-patterned badger and honey badger advertise their sharp claws, powerful jaws, and aggressive natures. Some brightly coloured birds such as passerines with contrasting patterns may also be aposematic, at least in females; but since male birds are often brightly coloured through sexual selection, and their coloration is not correlated with edibility, it is unclear whether aposematism is significant.

The sound-producing rattle of rattlesnakes is an acoustic form of aposematism. Sound production by the caterpillar of the Polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus, may similarly be acoustic aposematism, connected to and preceded by chemical defences. Similar acoustic defences exist in a range of Bombycoidea caterpillars.

### In marine ecosystems

The existence of aposematism in marine ecosystems is controversial. Many marine organisms, particularly those on coral reefs, are brightly coloured or patterned, including sponges, corals, molluscs and fish, with little or no connection to chemical or physical defenses. Caribbean reef sponges are brightly coloured, and many species are full of toxic chemicals, but there is no statistical relationship between the two factors.

Nudibranch molluscs are the most commonly cited examples of aposematism in marine ecosystems, but the evidence for this has been contested, mostly because (1) there are few examples of mimicry among species, (2) many species are nocturnal or cryptic, and (3) bright colours at the red end of the colour spectrum are rapidly attenuated as a function of water depth. For example, the Spanish Dancer nudibranch (genus Hexabranchus), among the largest of tropical marine slugs, potently chemically defended, and brilliantly red and white, is nocturnal and has no known mimics.

Mimicry is to be expected as Batesian mimics with weak defences can gain a measure of protection from their resemblance to aposematic species. Other studies have concluded that nudibranchs such as the slugs of the family Phyllidiidae from Indo-Pacific coral reefs are aposematically coloured. Müllerian mimicry has been implicated in the coloration of some Mediterranean nudibranchs, all of which derive defensive chemicals from their sponge diet.

The crown-of-thorns starfish, like other starfish such as Metrodira subulata, has conspicuous coloration and conspicuous long, sharp spines, as well as cytolytic saponins, chemicals which could function as an effective defence; this evidence is argued to be sufficient for such species to be considered aposematic. It has been proposed that aposematism and mimicry is less evident in marine invertebrates than terrestrial insects because predation is a more intense selective force for many insects, which disperse as adults rather than as larvae and have much shorter generation times. Further, there is evidence that fish predators such as blueheads may adapt to visual cues more rapidly than do birds, making aposematism less effective.

Blue-ringed octopuses are venomous. They spend much of their time hiding in crevices whilst displaying effective camouflage patterns with their dermal chromatophore cells. However, if they are provoked, they quickly change colour, becoming bright yellow with each of the 50-60 rings flashing bright iridescent blue within a third of a second. It is often stated this is an aposematic warning display, but the hypothesis has rarely if ever been tested.

## Behavior

The mechanism of defense relies on the memory of the would-be predator; a bird that has once experienced a foul-tasting grasshopper will endeavor to avoid a repetition of the experience. As a consequence, aposematic species are often gregarious. Before the memory of a bad experience attenuates, the predator may have the experience reinforced through repetition. Aposematic organisms often move in a languid fashion, as they have little need for speed and agility. Instead, their morphology is frequently tough and resistant to injury, thereby allowing them to escape once the predator is warned off.

Aposematic species do not need to hide or stay still as cryptic organisms do, so aposematic individuals benefit from more freedom in exposed areas and can spend more time foraging, allowing them to find more and better quality food. They may also be able to make use of conspicuous mating displays, including vocal signals, which may then develop through sexual selection.

## Origins of the theory

### Wallace, 1867

In a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace dated 23 February 1867, Charles Darwin wrote, "On Monday evening I called on Bates & put a difficulty before him, which he could not answer, & as on some former similar occasion, his first suggestion was, 'you had better ask Wallace'. My difficulty is, why are caterpillars sometimes so beautifully & artistically coloured?" Darwin was puzzled because his theory of sexual selection (where females choose their mates based on how attractive they are) could not apply to caterpillars since they are immature and hence not sexually active.

Wallace replied the next day with the suggestion that since some caterpillars "...are protected by a disagreeable taste or odour, it would be a positive advantage to them never to be mistaken for any of the palatable catterpillars [sic], because a slight wound such as would be caused by a peck of a bird's bill almost always I believe kills a growing . Any gaudy & conspicuous colour therefore, that would plainly distinguish them from the brown & green eatable , would enable birds to recognise them easily as at a kind not fit for food, & thus they would escape seizure which is as bad as being eaten."

Since Darwin was enthusiastic about the idea, Wallace asked the Entomological Society of London to test the hypothesis. In response, the entomologist John Jenner Weir conducted experiments with caterpillars and birds in his aviary, and in 1869 he provided the first experimental evidence for warning coloration in animals. The evolution of aposematism surprised 19th-century naturalists because the probability of its establishment in a population was presumed to be low, since a conspicuous signal suggested a higher chance of predation.

### Poulton, 1890

Wallace coined the term "warning colours" in an article about animal coloration in 1877. In 1890 Edward Bagnall Poulton renamed the concept aposematism in his book The Colours of Animals. He described the derivation of the term as follows:

> The second head (Sematic Colours) includes Warning Colours and Recognition Markings: the former warn an enemy off, and are therefore called Aposematic [Greek, apo, from, and sema, sign]

## Evolution

Aposematism is paradoxical in evolutionary terms, as it makes individuals conspicuous to predators, so they may be killed and the trait eliminated before predators learn to avoid it. If warning coloration puts the first few individuals at such a strong disadvantage, it would never last in the species long enough to become beneficial.

### Supported explanations

There is evidence for explanations involving dietary conservatism, in which predators avoid new prey because it is an unknown quantity; this is a long-lasting effect. Dietary conservatism has been demonstrated experimentally in some species of birds and fish.

Further, birds recall and avoid objects that are both conspicuous and foul-tasting longer than objects that are equally foul-tasting but cryptically coloured. This suggests that Wallace's original view, that warning coloration helped to teach predators to avoid prey thus coloured, was correct. However, some birds (inexperienced starlings and domestic chicks) also innately avoid conspicuously coloured objects, as demonstrated using mealworms painted yellow and black to resemble wasps, with dull green controls. This implies that warning coloration works at least in part by stimulating the evolution of predators to encode the meaning of the warning signal, rather than by requiring each new generation to learn the signal's meaning. All of these results contradict the idea that novel, brightly coloured individuals would be more likely to be eaten or attacked by predators.

### Alternative hypotheses

Other explanations are possible. Predators might innately fear unfamiliar forms (neophobia) long enough for them to become established, but this is likely to be only temporary.

Alternatively, prey animals might be sufficiently gregarious to form clusters tight enough to enhance the warning signal. If the species was already unpalatable, predators might learn to avoid the cluster, protecting gregarious individuals with the new aposematic trait. Gregariousness would assist predators to learn to avoid unpalatable, gregarious prey. Aposematism could also be favoured in dense populations even if these are not gregarious.

Another possibility is that a gene for aposematism might be recessive and located on the X chromosome. If so, predators would learn to associate the colour with unpalatability from males with the trait, while heterozygous females carry the trait until it becomes common and predators understand the signal. Well-fed predators might also ignore aposematic morphs, preferring other prey species.

A further explanation is that females might prefer brighter males, so sexual selection could result in aposematic males having higher reproductive success than non-aposematic males if they can survive long enough to mate. Sexual selection is strong enough to allow seemingly maladaptive traits to persist despite other factors working against the trait.

Once aposematic individuals reach a certain threshold population, for whatever reason, the predator learning process would be spread out over a larger number of individuals and therefore is less likely to wipe out the trait for warning coloration completely. If the population of aposematic individuals all originated from the same few individuals, the predator learning process would result in a stronger warning signal for surviving kin, resulting in higher inclusive fitness for the dead or injured individuals through kin selection.

A theory for the evolution of aposematism posits that it arises by reciprocal selection between predators and prey, where distinctive features in prey, which could be visual or chemical, are selected by non-discriminating predators, and where, concurrently, avoidance of distinctive prey is selected by predators. Concurrent reciprocal selection (CRS) may entail learning by predators or it may give rise to unlearned avoidances by them. Aposematism arising by CRS operates without special conditions of the gregariousness or the relatedness of prey, and it is not contingent upon predator sampling of prey to learn that aposematic cues are associated with unpalatability or other unprofitable features.

## Mimicry

Aposematism is a sufficiently successful strategy to have had significant effects on the evolution of both aposematic and non-aposematic species.

Non-aposematic species have often evolved to mimic the conspicuous markings of their aposematic counterparts. For example, the hornet moth is a deceptive mimic of the yellowjacket wasp; it resembles the wasp, but has no sting. A predator which avoids the wasp will to some degree also avoid the moth. This is known as Batesian mimicry, after Henry Walter Bates, a British naturalist who studied Amazonian butterflies in the second half of the 19th century. Batesian mimicry is frequency dependent: it is most effective when the ratio of mimic to model is low; otherwise, predators will encounter the mimic too often.

A second form of mimicry occurs when two aposematic organisms share the same anti-predator adaptation and non-deceptively mimic each other, to the benefit of both species, since fewer individuals of either species need to be attacked for predators to learn to avoid both of them. This form of mimicry is known as Müllerian mimicry, after Fritz Müller, a German naturalist who studied the phenomenon in the Amazon in the late 19th century.

Many species of bee and wasp that occur together are Müllerian mimics. Their similar coloration teaches predators that a striped pattern is associated with being stung. Therefore, a predator which has had a negative experience with any such species will likely avoid any that resemble it in the future. Müllerian mimicry is found in vertebrates such as the mimic poison frog (Ranitomeya imitator) which has several morphs throughout its natural geographical range, each of which looks very similar to a different species of poison frog which lives in that area.

## See also

- Handicap principle

Honest signalling of an animal's powerful defences


Thief II

Thief II: The Metal Age is a 2000 stealth video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Like its predecessor Thief: The Dark Project, the game follows Garrett, a master thief who works in and around a steampunk metropolis called the City. The player assumes the role of Garrett as he unravels a conspiracy related to a new religious sect. Garrett takes on missions such as burglaries and frameups, while trying to avoid detection by guards and automated security.

Thief II was designed to build on the foundation of its predecessor. In response to feedback from players of Thief, the team placed a heavy focus on urban stealth in the sequel, and they minimized the use of monsters and maze-like levels. The game was made with the third iteration of the Dark Engine, which had been used previously to develop Thief and System Shock 2. Thief II was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo, as part of an extended contract between Looking Glass and Eidos to release games in the Thief series. Looking Glass neared bankruptcy as the game was developed, and the company was kept running by advances from Eidos.

Thief II received positive reviews from critics, and its initial sales were stronger than those of its predecessor. However, the game's royalties were processed slowly, which compounded Looking Glass's financial troubles. As a result, the company closed in May 2000, with plans for Thief III cancelled. The third game in the series, entitled Thief: Deadly Shadows, was developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos in 2004. Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age, a widely praised expansion mod for Thief II, was released in 2005. In 2014, Square Enix published a reboot of the series, developed by Eidos Montréal.

## Gameplay

Thief II is a stealth game that takes place from a first-person perspective in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical environment. The player seeks to complete mission objectives and to evade the notice of opponents such as guards. The player must minimize the visibility and audibility of the player character, Garrett, to escape detection. Players try to avoid lit areas and loud flooring in favor of shadows and quiet flooring. A light monitor on the heads-up display (HUD) indicates the player character's visibility. While it is possible for the player character to engage in direct combat, he is easily defeated.

The game's 15 missions take place in large levels that can be confronted in multiple ways. Guards may be knocked out with a blackjack or killed with a bow or sword, and their fallen bodies may be picked up and hidden. In addition to human enemies, the game features security automatons and surveillance cameras. While completing objectives such as frameups and blackmail, the player steals valuables that may be used to purchase thieving gear between missions. The player's main tools are specialized arrows, including water arrows to douse lights, moss arrows to dampen the player character's footsteps and rope arrows to reach higher ground.

Thief II is designed to be played methodically, and the player plans ahead by scouting, reading the game's map and observing patrol patterns. The player character has a zooming mechanical eye, which connects to throwable "Scouting Orb" cameras. One Scouting Orb may be deployed at a time; when it lands, the player views the game world from its perspective until normal play is resumed. The player can listen for noises, such as footsteps and humming, to determine the locations of enemies. On the highest of the game's three difficulty levels, killing humans results in a game over, and in certain missions the player must not knock out any guards.

## Plot

### Setting and characters

Like its predecessor Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II is set in a steampunk metropolis called the City, whose appearance resembles that of both medieval and Victorian era cities. Magic and steam technology exist side by side, and three factions—the manipulative and enigmatic Keepers, the technology-focused Hammerites and the "pagan" worshippers of the Pan-like Trickster god—are in operation. Thief II takes place one year after the first game. In the aftermath of the Trickster's defeat and the failure of his plan to revert the world to a wild, primitive state, a schism in the Hammerite religion spawns the "Mechanist" sect, which fanatically values technological progress. The new inventions of the Mechanists are used by a resurgent police force to crack down on crime. The pagans are in disarray, and have been driven into the wilderness beyond the City. From there, they engage in guerrilla warfare against the Mechanists. The Keeper faction is dormant as the game begins.

The game continues the story of Garrett (voiced by Stephen Russell), the cynical master thief who defeated the Trickster. Pursuing Garrett is the new sheriff, Gorman Truart (voiced by Sam Babbitt), who has imposed a zero tolerance policy on crime. Viktoria (voiced by Terri Brosius), the former ally of the Trickster, eventually joins with Garrett to combat the Mechanists. The game's primary antagonist is the founder of the Mechanists, Father Karras (also voiced by Russell), a mentally unstable inventor who despises the natural world.

### Story

The game begins as Garrett continues his life as a thief. However, he is betrayed by his fence and ambushed after an early mission, and he determines that Truart, the local sheriff, is hunting him. Keepers take Garrett to hear a prophecy about the "Metal Age", which he ignores. As Garrett leaves, Artemus, the Keeper who brought him into the order, informs him that Truart had been hired to kill him, and he gives Garrett a letter that directs him to eavesdrop on a Mechanist meeting. There, Garrett overhears Truart and Father Karras discussing the conversion of street people into mindless "Servants", who wear masks that emit a red vapor capable of reducing themselves and any nearby organic material to rust. Truart promises to provide Karras with twenty victims for the Servant project, not realizing that Karras is recording his words for use in blackmail. Garrett steals the recording from a safe deposit box, in order to coerce Truart into revealing his employer.

However, Garrett finds Truart murdered at his estate. Evidence at the crime scene leads him to spy on the police officer Lt. Mosley. Garrett sees Mosley deliver a suspicious letter, which is carried through a portal by a wounded pagan. Garrett enters the portal and finds himself outside the City, and he follows the pagan's trail of blood to Viktoria, who persuades Garrett to join her against the Mechanists. On a lead from Viktoria, he infiltrates Karras' office to learn about the "Cetus Project", and inadvertently discovers that Karras is giving Servants to the City's nobles. Garrett travels to a Mechanist base to find out more about the Cetus Project, which is revealed to be a submarine. In order to locate and kidnap a high-ranking Mechanist named Brother Cavador, Garrett stows away in the vehicle.

After delivering Cavador to Viktoria, Garrett steals a Servant mask to learn about a Mechanist technology called a "Cultivator". Meanwhile, Karras hides inside the Mechanist cathedral in preparation for his plan. Garrett and Viktoria learn that it is the Cultivators inside Servant masks which emit red vapor, or "rust gas". Karras had provided Servants to nobles with gardens in order to set off an apocalyptic chain reaction. Viktoria plans to lure the Servants into the hermetically sealed Mechanist cathedral before Karras activates their masks, but Garrett believes this to be too dangerous and leaves. Viktoria goes to the cathedral alone and dies while filling it with plants, and Garrett completes her plan, killing Karras in the rust gas. Afterward, Garrett is approached by Artemus, who explains that Karras' scheme and Viktoria's death had been prophesied. Garrett demands to know the rest of the Keepers' prophecies as the game ends.

## Development

### Early production

Looking Glass Studios began designing Thief II in January 1999. The team's goal was to build on the foundation of Thief: The Dark Project, a game that Thief II project director Steve Pearsall later said was an experiment. He explained that the team had played it safe by including certain "exploration ... or adventure oriented" missions with "jumping and climbing puzzles" in Thief, and that the new game was significantly more focused on stealth. Combat was given less prominence than in the original. Based on feedback from players and reviewers of Thief, the team decided to scale back the use of maze-like levels and monsters such as zombies in favor of urban environments and human enemies. Pearsall stated that Thief's monsters were negatively received because, unlike the game's human enemies, they did not clearly indicate when they noticed the player. The team sought to remedy this problem by improving the audio cues given by non-human enemies in the sequel.

Production of Thief II commenced in February. Looking Glass chose to compose the game's team of "half the original designers and half new blood", according to executive producer James Poole. The company tried to select people who meshed well both personally and creatively, in an attempt to guarantee a smooth development cycle. Adrenaline Vault editor-in-chief Emil Pagliarulo was hired as a junior designer, in part because of his positive review of Thief. Rich "zdim" Carlson and Iikka Keränen joined from Ion Storm's Daikatana team, and Looking Glass contractor Terri Brosius was hired as a full-time designer. One-third of the team was female, which Pearsall believed contributed to a strong group dynamic. As was typical at Looking Glass, the Thief II team worked in a wall-less space called a "pit", which allowed them to converse easily. Describing the work environment at the time, writer Laura Baldwin noted that "conversations dash madly about the room, [and] when someone is demonstrating something interesting everyone gravitates over to look."

During the first months of development, the team regularly gathered to watch films pertinent to Garrett's character and to the game's visual design, such as The Third Man, The Castle of Cagliostro, M and Metropolis. Pearsall said that the latter two films were Thief II's "biggest aesthetic influences", while the main inspiration for its plot was Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose. The team also drew influence from Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The game's story was written in the three-act structure: Garrett was intended to transition from his "cynical self" in the first act to a private investigator in the second, and to a character similar to James Bond in the third. The City's technology and architecture were influenced by the appearance of Victorian London, and certain areas were given an Art Deco theme to provide "sort of a 'Batman' feel", in reference to the 1989 film. Lead artist Mark Lizotte captured over two-thousand photographs during his vacation in Europe, and these were the basis for many of the game's textures.

Thief II was built with the third iteration of the Dark Engine, which had been used previously for Thief and System Shock 2. According to Pearsall, the Dark Engine had become "a very well understood development environment", which made for an easier production process. Engine updates created for System Shock 2, such as support for 16-bit color, were carried over to Thief II. The average character model in Thief II was given close to double the polygons of the average model in Thief, with much of the added detail focused on characters' heads. This was an attempt to give the characters a "more organic" look. Certain artificial intelligence (AI) routines written into the Dark Engine, which allowed enemies to notice changes in the environment such as open doors, had not been used in Thief or in System Shock 2 but were implemented in Thief II. Weather effects such as fog and rain were added, and technology from Flight Unlimited III was used to generate the sky and clouds.

### Announcement and continued development

Thief II was announced during the Electronic Entertainment Expo on May 13, 1999, as part of a contract between Looking Glass and Eidos Interactive to release four new games in the Thief series, beginning with Thief Gold. The deal had been signed on May 7, roughly three months after Thief II entered production. A tech demo of the game, which Bruce Geryk of Games Domain described as "about three rooms with some Mages", was displayed on the show floor. The demo was used to showcase the updated Dark Engine, which featured support for colored lighting, higher polygon models and larger environments. The team revealed their intention to include more levels with human enemies, and announced a projected release date of spring 2000. Plans to include a cooperative multiplayer mode were also detailed at the show. IGN's Jason Bates noted that the Thief II display attracted "a bit of a buzz and a small crowd of dedicated onlookers".

By July, the team had begun initial construction of the game's levels. Thief II's increased focus on stealth necessitated new level design concepts: the most stealth-based missions in Thief had centered on urban burglary, but Pearsall explained that this "would get tired pretty fast" if repeated in every level. The team diversified Thief II by designing missions with such objectives as kidnapping, blackmail and eavesdropping. The first two levels were designed to seamlessly introduce new players to the core game mechanics, without a tutorial mission that might lose the interest of experienced players. When creating a mission, the team would often begin by deciding on the player's objective, after which they would produce a rough level design. The mission would then undergo a peer review to determine if it should be added to the game. Each of the game's levels was a team effort rather than the work of a single designer. Designer Randy Smith explained that, while Thief's levels had been designed to fit a pre-existing story, the Thief II team "tried to think of really good missions first" and then adjusted the plot to suit them. He noted that it was highly difficult to harmonize the two.

The game's sound team was composed of Kemal Amarasingham, Damin Djawadi and audio director Eric Brosius. According to Brosius, each member of the audio department did "everything", without clear demarcations between roles. Like Thief, Thief II features a sound engine that simulates propagation in real-time. To achieve this effect, each level's geometry was input both to the level editor and to a "separate [sound] database", which mapped how sound would realistically propagate based on "the physical room characteristics [... and] how all the different rooms and areas are connected together". For example, noise travels freely through an open door but is blocked when the door is closed. The team used the new "occlusion" feature in EAX 2.0 to make Thief II's sound environment more realistic and to allow the player to listen through doors. The game features more sound effects, music and speech than the original Thief. Thief II's score, as with that of its predecessor, was designed to "blur ambient [sound] and music" together. However, Brosius later stated that, while Thief's soundtrack is composed of "simple and hypnotic" loops only a few seconds in length, Thief II features longer and "more thoughtfully" constructed pieces. He believed that this method had positive aspects, but that it resulted in a less immersive audio environment.

Artist Dan Thron returned to create the game's cutscenes, with assistance from Jennifer Hrabota-Lesser. Thron later called Hrabota-Lesser "one of the greatest artists I've ever seen". The cutscenes, which Computer Games Magazine called "unique", feature multiple layers of artwork and footage of live actors filmed against a green screen. These components were combined and animated in Adobe After Effects. The technique had been developed for the original Thief, as an evolution of designer Ken Levine's suggestion to use motion comic cutscenes. David Lynch's films Eraserhead and The Elephant Man were important influences on their style.

### Final months

By October 1999, the team had cut the game's multiplayer feature. Pearsall explained that Looking Glass did not "have the resources to do a new kind of multiplayer and ship a finely tuned single-player game". Plans were announced in January 2000 to release a multiplayer-only Thief game shortly after the completion of Thief II. As Thief II's development continued, Looking Glass experienced extreme financial troubles. The company's Marc LeBlanc later said that "Eidos was writing a check every week to cover our burn rate" during the last months of the project. The game's final cost was roughly \$2.5 million. According to company head Paul Neurath, Eidos informed Looking Glass that "it was not an option" for Thief II to miss its release date, and that there would be "dire consequences if [we] missed by even a day". An anonymous Looking Glass staffer later told Salon.com that Eidos "told us basically to ship [Thief II] by their fiscal quarter or die".

By January, Pearsall confirmed that the game had reached beta, and that most of the team's energy was being spent "tuning, polishing, and fixing bugs". He noted in early February that Thief II had been produced almost entirely on schedule. The company slipped behind near the end of the project and entered crunch time to make up the loss. On February 24, Thief II producer Michael McHale announced that the game had reached "feature freeze", and that the team was in "super crunch mode". Numerous game testers from Eidos joined the project. However, McHale said that the team was energized and that "spirits [were] high". Certain employees slept in the office and avoided bathing so that the game could reach its March deadline. LeBlanc later stated his belief that the game was rushed, and that its quality suffered as a result. Nevertheless, the team met their goal, and the game was released on March 23, 2000. Eidos expedited the company's payment for completing the game.

## Reception

Thief 2 debuted high on the bestsellers list for computer games, and its initial sales were better than those of its commercially successful predecessor. By November 2000, its global sales had surpassed 220,000 copies; PC Zone described these figures as "commercial acclaim." The United States alone accounted for 67,084 sales by the end of 2000, which drew in revenues of \$2.37 million. The game later received a "Silver" sales award by the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Thief II also received positive reviews from critics, with an aggregate score of 87/100 on Metacritic.

Computer Gaming World's Thomas L. McDonald wrote that "everything in Thief II is bigger, sharper, better, and more effective" than in its predecessor. He enjoyed its story and called its levels "vast and intricate", with "astonishingly complex and often beautiful" architecture; but he found the game's graphics to be somewhat lackluster. McDonald summarized Thief II as a unique "gamer's game". Jim Preston of PC Gamer US considered the game to be "more focused and polished than the original", and he praised the removal of "zombie battles". While he faulted its graphics, he summarized it as "one hell of a good game".

Jasen Torres of GameFan wrote, "If you liked Thief, you'll love Thief 2: The Metal Age; it's more of the stuff that made Thief great, with less of the annoying stuff". He applauded the removal of "zombie killer" missions and believed the game's sound to be "superior to any other game". He considered its story to be "good" but "nothing great" and its graphics to be "decent"; but he commented that the game was "really all about the gameplay", which he praised as "quite compelling and fun". Benjamin E. Sones of Computer Games Magazine considered the game's story to be "quite good", but he faulted Looking Glass for failing to detail the events of the first game for new players. He wrote that Thief II's graphics were passable but that its sound design was "phenomenal". Sones praised its missions as "very well crafted", and noted that they gave the impression of being in "a living, breathing world." He summarized, "It may not be perfect, but Thief 2 has got it where it counts".

Charles Harold of The New York Times called the game a "refreshing alternative to games that glorify violence". He found its story to be "slight", but he lauded its world as "amazingly alive" and its AI as a "remarkable impersonation of real intelligence". Writing for GamePro, Barry Brenesal commented that Thief II "provides a solid gaming experience" but "doesn't startle like its predecessor". He wrote that its missions featured a "great deal of variety", and he praised their "ability to casually suggest a much larger world", but he complained that they were linear. He considered the game's writing to be "among the best in the business". While Brenesal enjoyed the game's textures and lighting, he noted the low detail of the game's human models, whose animations he found to be "arthritic". PC Zone's Paul Presley wrote that the game's levels were larger but easier than those of Thief, and he considered their objectives to be somewhat linear. He found Thief II's graphics to be dated and wrote that its lack of real-time lighting "tends to give each environment a sort of 'false' quality". However, he believed that the game "still has enough atmosphere to immerse you", and he praised its sound design. Presley considered the game to be a straightforward rehash of its predecessor, and he finished, "A more clear-cut case of sequel-itis there has never been."

Jim Preston reviewed the PC version of the game for Next Generation, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "Great, skulking gameplay, useful new tools, and clever level design make Thief II an excellent first-person 'sneaker.'"

## Post-release

While Thief II performed well commercially, Looking Glass was not set to receive royalties for several months. The company had struggled financially since the commercial failures of its self-published games Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri and British Open Championship Golf. Looking Glass's Flight Unlimited III had flopped at retail, and the development of Jane's Attack Squadron had gone over budget and fallen behind schedule. A deal to co-develop the stealth game Deep Cover with Irrational Games had recently collapsed. According to Looking Glass's Tim Stellmach, the delay in Thief II royalties "faced [us] with the prospect of running out of money." Looking Glass management signed a deal in which Eidos Interactive would acquire the company, but Eidos fell into a sudden financial crisis, in part because of the failure of Ion Storm's \$40 million game Daikatana. These factors led to the closure of Looking Glass on May 24, 2000, with the planned Thief II successors Thief II Gold and Thief III cancelled.

### Later installments

The Thief series had been planned as a trilogy, and work on Thief III was "in a fairly advanced stage" when Looking Glass closed, according to PC Zone's Keith Pullin. Randy Smith and Terri Brosius were appointed as lead designers, and they developed the game's concept over several months. In an open letter published after the company's bankruptcy, Smith wrote that the third game would have taken place in an "open-ended, self-directed city", and that its plot would have centered on the Keepers. Brosius suggested that Thief III would have seen Garrett "accept[ing] that there are consequences to his actions", and that he would likely have become "ready to give, rather than always take." The player would have uncovered the game's story gradually, while exploring a free-roam environment. Serious plans had been made to include co-operative multiplayer, and a new engine, Siege, had been in production. When Looking Glass closed, its assets were liquidated and the Thief intellectual property was sold at auction. This raised doubts that the Thief trilogy would be completed, a situation that Salon.com writer Wagner James Au compared to Lucasfilm closing after the release of The Empire Strikes Back. However, following rumors, Eidos announced on August 9, 2000 that it had purchased the rights to Thief.

Development of Thief III was delegated to the Warren Spector-supervised Ion Storm, which had recently completed Deus Ex. According to Spector, Thief III would have been given to Core Design or Crystal Dynamics had he not accepted it. The game was announced for Windows and the PlayStation 2. On August 10, Spector commented that Ion Storm's first goal was to assemble a core team, composed in part of former Looking Glass employees, to design and plot the game. Thief II team members Randy Smith, Lulu Lamer, Emil Pagliarulo and Terri Brosius were hired to begin the project. On August 16, Ion Storm announced its hires, and stated that concept work on Thief III would begin in September. The team planned to "wrap up [the] loose ends" of the series, and they built directly upon the Thief III concept work done at Looking Glass. Thief III was eventually renamed Thief: Deadly Shadows, and it was released for Windows and the Xbox on May 25, 2004.

In May 2009, after several months of rumors, a fourth game in the Thief series was announced by Deus Ex: Human Revolution developer Eidos Montréal. It was unveiled in the April 2013 issue of Game Informer. The game, entitled Thief, is a reboot of the Thief series; and it does not feature the Hammerites, pagans or Keepers. Its plot follows Garrett (voiced by Romano Orzari in place of Stephen Russell) in the aftermath of an accident that leaves his protégé, Erin, missing. Garrett has amnesia after this incident, and the City is beset by a plague called the Gloom. The game was released for Windows and the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in February 2014.

### Fan expansion

Soon after the bankruptcy of Looking Glass, a fan group called the Dark Engineering Guild began developing an expansion mod to Thief II, entitled Thief 2X: Shadows of the Metal Age. Initially, they hoped to fill the void left by the cancellation of Thief III, but they continued to work on the mod after the announcement and release of Thief: Deadly Shadows. Released in 2005 after five years in development, the mod follows Zaya, a young woman who is robbed while visiting the City and who then seeks revenge. She is mentored by a pagan hermit named Malak, who trains her as a thief but who has ulterior motives. The team designed Zaya to be physically capable and to have a "middle-eastern/north-African look", but made an effort to avoid similarities to Mulan. Chronologically, the story starts near the end of Thief and ends in the middle of Thief II, thereby depicting the rise of Gorman Truart and the early days of the Mechanists. Thief 2X features 13 missions, with new animated cutscenes and roughly 3,000 new lines of recorded dialogue.

The mod was praised by critics and by the Thief fan community. Brett Todd of PC Gamer US awarded it "Mod of the Month" and wrote: "It doesn't quite have the mysterious allure of the original games, but it's awfully close". A writer for Jolt Online Gaming praised the mod's visuals and considered its missions to be "incredibly well designed". While the writer commented that Thief 2X did not perfectly follow the series' tone and that its voice acting was "not the best", they finished by saying that fans of the Thief series had "no excuse not to play T2X". PC Gamer UK's Kieron Gillen wrote that he had expected the mod to be cancelled, given that the "web is full of [...] five-percent finished masterworks from people who aimed far, far too high". After Thief 2X's release, he lauded it as the best Thief fan work and as "one of the most impressive achievements of any fan community for any game".

## See also

- The Dark Mod
- Emergent gameplay
- Immersive sim

2000 video game

Video games developed in the United States