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Billiard Disciplines
The etymology of "pool" is uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary speculates that "pool" and other games with collective stakes is derived from the French poule (literally translated "hen"), in which the poule is the collected prize, originating from jeu de la poule, a game that is thought to have been played during the Middle Ages. Supposedly, participants would put an equal amount of money into a pot and throw stones at a live chicken, and the person who successfully hit the chicken first would win the pooled money. Alternatively the term could derive from the verb to pool in the sense of combining objects or stakes. The oldest use of the word "pool" to describe a billiards-like game was made in 1797 in a Virginia newspaper. The OED defines it as generally "any of various types of billiards for two or more players" but goes on to note that the first specific meaning of "a game in which each player uses a cue ball of a distinctive colour to pocket the balls of the other player(s) in a certain order, the winner taking all the stakes submitted at the start of the contest" is now obsolete, and its other specific definitions are all for games that originate in the United States. In the British Empire for most of the nineteenth through early twentieth century, pool referred specifically to the game of life pool.Although skittle pool is played on a pocketless carom billiards table, the term pool later stuck to all new games of pocket billiards as the sport gained in popularity in the United States, and so outside the cue sports industry, which has long favored the more formal term pocket billiards, the common name for the sport has remained pool. The OxfordDictionaries.com definition no longer even provides the obsolete meaning found in the print edition, and refers only to the typical game "using two sets [each] of seven coloured and numbered balls ... with one black ball and a white cue ball" on a table with pockets.
With the exception of one-pocket, games typically called "pool" today are descended from two English games imported to the United States during the 19th century. The first was English billiards which became American four-ball billiards, essentially the same game but with an extra red object ball to increase scoring opportunities. It was the most popular billiards game in the mid-19th century until dethroned by the carom game straight rail. American four-ball tournaments tried switching to carom tables in the 1870s but this did not save it from being doomed to obscurity, the last professional tournament was held in 1876. Cowboy pool is a surviving member of this group of games.The second and more influential game was pyramid pool. By 1850 a variant called fifteen-ball pool became popular. Both games were supplanted by continuous pool in 1888, the immediate forerunner of straight pool (1910). New games introduced at the turn of the 20th century include Kelly pool and eight-ball. The distinctive appearance of pool balls with their many colors and division between solid and striped balls came about by 1889. Prior to this, object balls were uniformly deep-red and differentiated only by numbers. English pyramid pool and life pool players were the first to adopt balls with different colors. The stripes were the last addition.Pool is played on a six pocket table. Modern pool tables generally range in size from 3.5 by 7 feet (1.07 by 2.13 m), to 4.5 by 9 feet (1.37 by 2.74 m).
With the exception of one-pocket, games typically called "pool" today are descended from two English games imported to the United States during the 19th century. The first was English billiards which became American four-ball billiards, essentially the same game but with an extra red object ball to increase scoring opportunities. It was the most popular billiards game in the mid-19th century until dethroned by the carom game straight rail. American four-ball tournaments tried switching to carom tables in the 1870s but this did not save it from being doomed to obscurity, the last professional tournament was held in 1876. Cowboy pool is a surviving member of this group of games.The second and more influential game was pyramid pool. By 1850 a variant called fifteen-ball pool became popular. Both games were supplanted by continuous pool in 1888, the immediate forerunner of straight pool (1910). New games introduced at the turn of the 20th century include Kelly pool and eight-ball. The distinctive appearance of pool balls with their many colors and division between solid and striped balls came about by 1889. Prior to this, object balls were uniformly deep-red and differentiated only by numbers. English pyramid pool and life pool players were the first to adopt balls with different colors. The stripes were the last addition.Pool is played on a six pocket table. Modern pool tables generally range in size from 3.5 by 7 feet (1.07 by 2.13 m), to 4.5 by 9 feet (1.37 by 2.74 m).
Under World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) official equipment specifications, pool balls weigh from 5.5 to 6 oz (160 to 170 g) and have a diameter of 2.25 inches (57 mm), plus or minus 0.005 inches (0.13 mm). Modern coin-operated pool tables generally use one of three methods to distinguish and return the cue ball to the front of the table while the numbered balls return to an inaccessible receptacle until paid for again: the cue ball is larger and heavier than the other balls, or denser and heavier, or has a magnetic core.
Modern cue sticks are generally 58.5 inches (148.6 cm) long for pool while cues prior to 1980 were designed for straight pool and had an average length of 57.5 inches (146.1 cm). By comparison, carom billiards cues are generally shorter with larger tips, and snooker cues longer with smaller tips. Rotation gamesOne of many correct nine-ball racks: the 1 ball at the apex centered over the foot spot, the 9 ball at center, the other balls placed randomly, and all balls touching.
Rotation games require players to make legal contact with the lowest numbered ball on the table or a foul is called. The earliest rotation game, originally known as 61, started off as a variant of fifteen-ball pool during the mid-nineteenth century. The name "rotation" came from how the balls were placed around the table in its unracked offshoot Chicago. 61 has spawned many variations of its own such as American rotation, nine-ball, ten-ball, and Kelly pool. Of these, nine-ball is the most popular and the predominant professional game with ten-ball as the second-most prominent. There are many local and regional tours and tournaments that are contested with nine-ball. The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) publishes the world standardized rules. The European professional circuit has instituted rules changes to make it more difficult to achieve a legal break shot.
The largest nine-ball tournaments are the US Open Nine-ball Championship and the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for men and women. A hotly contested event is the annual Mosconi Cup, which pits invitational European and U.S. teams against each other in one-on-one and scotch doubles nine-ball matches over a period of several days. The Mosconi Cup games are played under the more stringent European rules, as of 2007.
The largest nine-ball tournaments are the US Open Nine-ball Championship and the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for men and women. A hotly contested event is the annual Mosconi Cup, which pits invitational European and U.S. teams against each other in one-on-one and scotch doubles nine-ball matches over a period of several days. The Mosconi Cup games are played under the more stringent European rules, as of 2007.
Straight pool
Also known as 14.1 continuous, this game originated as a slight modification of continuous pool, another offshoot of fifteen-ball pool. The shooter may attempt to shoot at any object ball on the table. The goal is to reach a set number of points determined by agreement before the game. One point is scored for each object ball pocketed where no foul is made. A typical game might require a player to score 100 points to win. In professional competition, straight pool is usually played to 125 points. Straight pool is a call-pocket game, meaning the player must indicate the intended object ball and pocket on every shot.
Also known as 14.1 continuous, this game originated as a slight modification of continuous pool, another offshoot of fifteen-ball pool. The shooter may attempt to shoot at any object ball on the table. The goal is to reach a set number of points determined by agreement before the game. One point is scored for each object ball pocketed where no foul is made. A typical game might require a player to score 100 points to win. In professional competition, straight pool is usually played to 125 points. Straight pool is a call-pocket game, meaning the player must indicate the intended object ball and pocket on every shot.
Eight-ball
The most commonly played pool game is eight-ball, which appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is often thought of as synonymous with "pool". The game has numerous variations, mostly regional. It is the second most played professional pool game, after nine-ball, and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.
The goal of eight-ball, which is played with a full rack of fifteen balls and the cue ball, is to claim a suit (commonly stripes or solids in the US, and reds or yellows in the UK), pocket all of them, then legally pocket the 8 ball, while denying one's opponent opportunities to do the same with their suit, and without sinking the 8 ball early by accident. In the United Kingdom the game is commonly played in pubs, and it is competitively played in leagues on both sides of the Atlantic.
The most prestigious tournaments including the World Open are sponsored and sanctioned by the International Pool Tour. Rules vary widely from place to place (and between continents to such an extent that British-style eight-ball pool/blackball is properly regarded as a separate game in its own right). Pool halls in North America are increasingly settling upon the World Pool-Billiard Association International Standardized Rules. But tavern eight-ball (also known as "bar pool"), typically played on smaller, coin-operated tables and in a "winner keeps the table" manner, can differ significantly even between two venues in the same city. The growth of local, regional and national amateur leagues may alleviate this confusion eventually.
One-pocket
One-pocket owes its origins to 18th century cramp (handicapped) games. It is a strategic game for two players in which each player is assigned one of the corner pockets on the table. This is the only pocket into which that player can legally pocket balls. The first player to pocket the majority of the balls (8) into their pocket wins the game. The game requires far more defensive strategy than offensive strategy, much unlike eight-ball, nine-ball, or straight pool. Most times, accomplished players choose to position balls near their pocket instead of trying to actually pocket them. This allows them to control the game by forcing their opponent to be on defense instead of taking a low percentage shot that could result in a loss of game. These low percentage shots are known as "flyers" by one-pocket aficionados.
Bank pool
Bank pool can be played with a full rack (can be a long game), but is more typically played with nine balls (frequently called "nine-ball bank"). The balls are racked in nine-ball formation, but in no particular order. The object of the game is simple: to be the first player to bank five balls in any order (eight balls when played with a full rack). Penalties and fouls are similar to one pocket in that the player committing the foul must spot a ball for each foul. This must be done before the incoming player shoots.
Bank pool can be played with a full rack (can be a long game), but is more typically played with nine balls (frequently called "nine-ball bank"). The balls are racked in nine-ball formation, but in no particular order. The object of the game is simple: to be the first player to bank five balls in any order (eight balls when played with a full rack). Penalties and fouls are similar to one pocket in that the player committing the foul must spot a ball for each foul. This must be done before the incoming player shoots.
Artistic pool
Artistic pool is the competitive discipline of trick shots inspired by its carom equivalent. Played on pool or snooker tables, players must complete a set number of shots of varying difficulty.
Carom
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France. There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, one-cushion, balkline, three-cushion and artistic billiards. Carom billiards is popular in Europe, particularly France, where it originated. It is also popular in Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam, but is now considered obscure in North America, having been supplanted by pool in popularity. The Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) is the highest international governing body of competitive carom billiards. The word carom, which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled "carrom". Sources differ on the origin. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole, which are used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India), also known as star fruit. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation.In modern French, the word carambolage means 'successive collision', currently used mainly in reference to carom or cannon shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes. Table The billiard table used for carom billiards is a pocketless version, and is typically 3.0 by 1.5 metres (10 ft × 5 ft).[5]Most cloth made for carom billiard tables is a type of baize that is typically dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool with no nap, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed. The slate bed of a carom billiard table is often heated to about 5 °C (9 °F) above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. An electrically heated table is required under international tournament rules 'in order to ensure the best possible rolling', although temperatures are not specified. It is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards, and even local billiard halls often have this feature in countries where carom games are popular. Queen Victoria (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer Jr. The New York Times announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used. Balls A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponentThe three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of one white cue ball, a second yellow cue ball and a third, red object ball. Historically, the second cue ball was white with red or black spots to differentiate it; both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play. The balls are significantly larger and heavier than their pool or snooker counterparts, with a diameter of 61 to 61.5 millimetres (2.40 to 2.42 in), and a weight ranging between 205 and 220 grams (7.2 and 7.8 oz) with a typical weight of 210 g (7.5 oz). Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including early formulations of celluloid, Bakelite, and crystalate, and more modern phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic), and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental or animal-welfare concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material is volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture. Cues Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from cues used in other cue sports. Carom cues tend to be shorter and lighter overall, with a shorter ferrule, a thicker butt and joint, a wooden joint pin (in high-end examples), and collarless wood-to-wood joint. They have a sharply conical taper, and a smaller tip diameter as compared with pool cues. Typical carom cues are 140–140 cm (54–56 in) in length and 470–520 g (16.5–18.5 oz) in weight – lighter for straight rail, heavier for three-cushion – with a tip 11–12 mm (0.43–0.47 in) in diameter. These dimensions make the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier balls used in carom billiards. It also acts to reduce deflection (sometimes called "squirt"), which is displacement of the cue ball's path away from the parallel line formed by the cue stick's direction of travel. It is a factor that occurs every time english is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of side-spin, coupled with great speed; this is a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pool. Straight Rail Straight rail is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. The object of straight rail is simple: one point, called a "count", is scored each time a player's cue ball makes contact with both object balls (the second cue ball and the third ball) on a single stroke. A win is achieved by reaching an agreed upon number of counts. At straight rail's inception there was no restriction on the manner of scoring. However, the technique of crotching, or freezing two balls into the corner where the rails meet—the crotch—vastly increasing counts, resulted in an 1862 rule which allowed only three counts before at least one ball had to be driven away. Techniques continued to develop which increased counts greatly despite the crotching prohibition, especially the development of a variety of "nurse" techniques. The most important of these, the rail nurse, involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them only a small amount on each count, keeping them close together and positioned at the end of each stroke in the same or near the same configuration such that the nurse can be replicated again and again. Straight rail is still popular in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as pentathlons in which straight rail is featured as one of five billiards disciplines at which players compete, the other four being 47.1 balkline, cushion caroms, 71.2 balkline, and three-cushion billiards. Straight rail was played professionally in the United States from 1873 to 1879, but is uncommon there today. Balkline In 1879, a variant called the "champion's game" or "limited-rail" was introduced with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse. The game employed diagonal lines at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted. Ultimately, however, despite its divergence from straight rail, the champion's game simply expanded the dimensions of the balk space defined under the existing crotch prohibition which was not sufficient to stop nursing. Balkline succeeded the champion's game, adding more rules to curb nursing techniques. In the balkline games, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing pairs of balklines lengthwise and widthwise across the table parallel from each rail. This divides the table into nine rectangular balkspaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the table surface in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the object balls are within that region. Additionally, rectangles are drawn where each balkline meets a rail, called anchor spaces, which developed to stop a number of nursing techniques that exploited the fact that if the object balls straddled a balkline, no count limit was in place. For the most part, the differences between one balkline game to another is defined by two measures: the spacing of the balklines and the number of points that are allowed in each balk space before at least one ball must leave the region. Generally, balkline games and their particular restrictions are given numerical names indicating both of these characteristics; the first number indicated either inches or centimeters depending on the game, and the second, after a dot or a slash, indicates the count restriction in balk spaces, which is always either one or two. For example, in 18.2 balkline, one of the more prominent balkline games and of US origin, the name indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches distant from each rail, and only two counts are allowed in a balk space before a ball must leave. By contrast, in 71.2 balkline, of French invention, lines are drawn 71 centimeters distant from each rail, also with a two-count restriction for balk spaces. In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominant carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s, when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards and pool. Balkline is still popular in Europe and the Far East. One-cushion One-cushion carom, or simply cushion carom, also arose in the late 1860s as another alternative to the repetitive play of straight rail, inspired by an early variant of English billiards. The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail cushion being struck before the hit on the second object ball. One-cushion carom is still popular in Europe. Three-cushion In three-cushion carom, the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three rail cushions being contacted before the contact of the cue ball with the second object ball.Three-cushion is a very difficult game. Averaging one point per inning is professional-level play, and averaging 1.5 to 2 is world-class play. Wayman C. McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri, is credited with popularizing the game in the 1870s. At least one publication categorically states he invented the game as well. The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place 14–31 January 1878, in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and Leon Magnus the winner. The high run for the tournament was just 6 points, and the high average a 0.75. The game was infrequently played, with many top carom players of the era voicing their dislike of it, until the 1907 introduction of the Lambert Trophy. By 1924, three-cushion had become so popular that two giants in other billiard disciplines agreed to take up the game especially for a challenge match. On 22 September 1924, Willie Hoppe, the world's balkline champion (who later took up three-cushion with a passion), and Ralph Greenleaf, the world's straight pool title holder, played a well advertised, multi-day, match to 600 points. Hoppe was the eventual winner with a final score in of 600–527.Three-cushion billiards retains great popularity in parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and is the most popular carom billiards game played in the US today. UMB, as the governing body of the sport, had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s. Artistic billiards In artistic billiards players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty. Each set shot has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a 4-point minimum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There is a total of 500 points available to a player. Each shot in an artistic billiards match is played from a well-defined position (in some venues within an exacting two millimeter tolerance), and each shot must unfold in an established manner. Players are allowed three attempts at each shot. In general, the shots making up the game, even 4-point shots, require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform. World title competition first started in 1986 and required the use of ivory balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in competition overall is 427 set by Walter Bax on 12 March 2006, at a competition held in Deurne, Belgium, beating his own previous record of 425. The game is played predominantly in western Europe, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France. There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, one-cushion, balkline, three-cushion and artistic billiards. Carom billiards is popular in Europe, particularly France, where it originated. It is also popular in Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam, but is now considered obscure in North America, having been supplanted by pool in popularity. The Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) is the highest international governing body of competitive carom billiards. The word carom, which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled "carrom". Sources differ on the origin. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole, which are used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India), also known as star fruit. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation.In modern French, the word carambolage means 'successive collision', currently used mainly in reference to carom or cannon shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes. Table The billiard table used for carom billiards is a pocketless version, and is typically 3.0 by 1.5 metres (10 ft × 5 ft).[5]Most cloth made for carom billiard tables is a type of baize that is typically dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool with no nap, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed. The slate bed of a carom billiard table is often heated to about 5 °C (9 °F) above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. An electrically heated table is required under international tournament rules 'in order to ensure the best possible rolling', although temperatures are not specified. It is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards, and even local billiard halls often have this feature in countries where carom games are popular. Queen Victoria (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer Jr. The New York Times announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used. Balls A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponentThe three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of one white cue ball, a second yellow cue ball and a third, red object ball. Historically, the second cue ball was white with red or black spots to differentiate it; both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play. The balls are significantly larger and heavier than their pool or snooker counterparts, with a diameter of 61 to 61.5 millimetres (2.40 to 2.42 in), and a weight ranging between 205 and 220 grams (7.2 and 7.8 oz) with a typical weight of 210 g (7.5 oz). Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including early formulations of celluloid, Bakelite, and crystalate, and more modern phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic), and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental or animal-welfare concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material is volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture. Cues Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from cues used in other cue sports. Carom cues tend to be shorter and lighter overall, with a shorter ferrule, a thicker butt and joint, a wooden joint pin (in high-end examples), and collarless wood-to-wood joint. They have a sharply conical taper, and a smaller tip diameter as compared with pool cues. Typical carom cues are 140–140 cm (54–56 in) in length and 470–520 g (16.5–18.5 oz) in weight – lighter for straight rail, heavier for three-cushion – with a tip 11–12 mm (0.43–0.47 in) in diameter. These dimensions make the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier balls used in carom billiards. It also acts to reduce deflection (sometimes called "squirt"), which is displacement of the cue ball's path away from the parallel line formed by the cue stick's direction of travel. It is a factor that occurs every time english is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of side-spin, coupled with great speed; this is a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pool. Straight Rail Straight rail is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. The object of straight rail is simple: one point, called a "count", is scored each time a player's cue ball makes contact with both object balls (the second cue ball and the third ball) on a single stroke. A win is achieved by reaching an agreed upon number of counts. At straight rail's inception there was no restriction on the manner of scoring. However, the technique of crotching, or freezing two balls into the corner where the rails meet—the crotch—vastly increasing counts, resulted in an 1862 rule which allowed only three counts before at least one ball had to be driven away. Techniques continued to develop which increased counts greatly despite the crotching prohibition, especially the development of a variety of "nurse" techniques. The most important of these, the rail nurse, involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them only a small amount on each count, keeping them close together and positioned at the end of each stroke in the same or near the same configuration such that the nurse can be replicated again and again. Straight rail is still popular in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as pentathlons in which straight rail is featured as one of five billiards disciplines at which players compete, the other four being 47.1 balkline, cushion caroms, 71.2 balkline, and three-cushion billiards. Straight rail was played professionally in the United States from 1873 to 1879, but is uncommon there today. Balkline In 1879, a variant called the "champion's game" or "limited-rail" was introduced with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse. The game employed diagonal lines at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted. Ultimately, however, despite its divergence from straight rail, the champion's game simply expanded the dimensions of the balk space defined under the existing crotch prohibition which was not sufficient to stop nursing. Balkline succeeded the champion's game, adding more rules to curb nursing techniques. In the balkline games, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing pairs of balklines lengthwise and widthwise across the table parallel from each rail. This divides the table into nine rectangular balkspaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the table surface in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the object balls are within that region. Additionally, rectangles are drawn where each balkline meets a rail, called anchor spaces, which developed to stop a number of nursing techniques that exploited the fact that if the object balls straddled a balkline, no count limit was in place. For the most part, the differences between one balkline game to another is defined by two measures: the spacing of the balklines and the number of points that are allowed in each balk space before at least one ball must leave the region. Generally, balkline games and their particular restrictions are given numerical names indicating both of these characteristics; the first number indicated either inches or centimeters depending on the game, and the second, after a dot or a slash, indicates the count restriction in balk spaces, which is always either one or two. For example, in 18.2 balkline, one of the more prominent balkline games and of US origin, the name indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches distant from each rail, and only two counts are allowed in a balk space before a ball must leave. By contrast, in 71.2 balkline, of French invention, lines are drawn 71 centimeters distant from each rail, also with a two-count restriction for balk spaces. In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominant carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s, when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards and pool. Balkline is still popular in Europe and the Far East. One-cushion One-cushion carom, or simply cushion carom, also arose in the late 1860s as another alternative to the repetitive play of straight rail, inspired by an early variant of English billiards. The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail cushion being struck before the hit on the second object ball. One-cushion carom is still popular in Europe. Three-cushion In three-cushion carom, the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three rail cushions being contacted before the contact of the cue ball with the second object ball.Three-cushion is a very difficult game. Averaging one point per inning is professional-level play, and averaging 1.5 to 2 is world-class play. Wayman C. McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri, is credited with popularizing the game in the 1870s. At least one publication categorically states he invented the game as well. The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place 14–31 January 1878, in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and Leon Magnus the winner. The high run for the tournament was just 6 points, and the high average a 0.75. The game was infrequently played, with many top carom players of the era voicing their dislike of it, until the 1907 introduction of the Lambert Trophy. By 1924, three-cushion had become so popular that two giants in other billiard disciplines agreed to take up the game especially for a challenge match. On 22 September 1924, Willie Hoppe, the world's balkline champion (who later took up three-cushion with a passion), and Ralph Greenleaf, the world's straight pool title holder, played a well advertised, multi-day, match to 600 points. Hoppe was the eventual winner with a final score in of 600–527.Three-cushion billiards retains great popularity in parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and is the most popular carom billiards game played in the US today. UMB, as the governing body of the sport, had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s. Artistic billiards In artistic billiards players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty. Each set shot has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a 4-point minimum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There is a total of 500 points available to a player. Each shot in an artistic billiards match is played from a well-defined position (in some venues within an exacting two millimeter tolerance), and each shot must unfold in an established manner. Players are allowed three attempts at each shot. In general, the shots making up the game, even 4-point shots, require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform. World title competition first started in 1986 and required the use of ivory balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in competition overall is 427 set by Walter Bax on 12 March 2006, at a competition held in Deurne, Belgium, beating his own previous record of 425. The game is played predominantly in western Europe, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Pyramid
Pyramid pool, or simply pyramids, is a form of pool that was played mainly in the 19th century. It was one of several pool games that were popular at this time, and was forerunner to modern games such as eight-ball, blackball, straight pool, and Russian pyramid. Along with black pool, it was one of the progenitor cue sports of snooker.
RulesObject balls were racked in a triangle with any remaining balls placed at the back of the triangle. It could be played by several players, with an agreed stake per ball pocketed, or with just two players in which case the winner is the one to first sink over half the balls. Teams were also allowed if there were an even number of players. In early versions of the game, when one object ball remained, the game shifted so one player took possession of the original cue ball, while the other used the object ball, as they attempted to sink the other player's designated ball. This rule was dropped in the United States during the late 19th century. An early version of pyramid pool awarded the entire pool to the player that sank the last ball. Originally, balls did not need be to called. The calling of shots was added in the early 1880s in the United States.
HistoryThe earliest rules were recorded in Vienna in 1795 under the name à la Figaro or à la pyramide. In Continental Europe, the game was played with a red cue ball and unnumbered white object balls. Any number of object balls could be used, but the earliest minimum was twelve with later rule books recommending fifteen, twenty-one, or twenty-four balls. The game arrived in English-speaking countries by 1850 but the colours were reversed with the cue ball being white and the object balls red.
Legacy
In 1875, this game combined with black pool to form snooker. In the United States, pyramid pool developed into fifteen-ball pool, a precursor to rotation and straight pool. Since the middle of the 20th century, the American version of pyramid pool has been known as basic pool or basic pocket billiards which now uses modern pool balls.
Snooker
Snooker gained its identity in 1875 when army officer Neville Chamberlain, stationed in Ootacamund, Madras, and Jabalpur, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.
The World Snooker Championship first took place in 1927. Joe Davis, a key figure and pioneer in the early growth of the sport, won fifteen successive world championships between 1927 and 1946. The "modern era" of snooker began in 1969 after the broadcaster BBC commissioned the television series Pot Black, later airing daily coverage of the World Championship, which was first televised in 1978. Key figures in the game were Ray Reardon in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, each winning the World Championship at least six times. Since 2000, Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the most world titles.
Top professional players compete in regular tournaments around the world, earning millions of pounds on the World Snooker Tour, a circuit of international events featuring competitors of many different nationalities. The World Championship, the UK Championship, and the Masters together make up the Triple Crown Series, considered by many players to be the most highly valued titles. Although the main professional tour is open to women, female players also compete on a separate women's tour organised by World Women's Snooker. Competitive snooker is also available to non-professional players, including seniors and people with disabilities. The popularity of snooker has led to the creation of many variations based on the standard game, but using different rules or equipment, including six-red snooker, the short-lived "snooker plus", and the more recent Snooker Shoot Out version.
History
Snooker originated in the second half of the 19th century. In the 1870s, billiards was popular among British Army officers stationed in Jubbulpore, India, and several variations of the game were devised during this time. A similar game, which originated at the Officers' Mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in 1875, combined the rules of two pool games: pyramid pool, played with fifteen red balls positioned in a triangle; and black pool, which involved the potting of designated balls. Snooker was further developed in 1882 when its first set of rules was finalised by British Army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain, who helped devise and popularise the game at Stone House in Ootacamund on a table built by Burroughes & Watts that had been brought to India by boat. The word snooker was, at the time, a slang term used in the British Army to describe new recruits and inexperienced military personnel; Chamberlain used it to deride the inferior performance of a young fellow officer at the table.
Snooker featured in an 1887 issue of the Sporting Life newspaper in England, which led to a growth in popularity. Chamberlain was revealed as the game's inventor, 63 years after the fact, in a letter to The Field magazine published on 19 March 1938. Snooker became increasingly popular across the Indian colonies of the British Raj, and in the United Kingdom, but it remained a game mainly for military officers and the gentry; many gentlemen's clubs that had a snooker table would not allow non-members inside to play. (Reflecting the game's aristocratic origins, the majority of tournaments on the professional circuit still require players to wear waistcoats and bow ties, although the necessity for this attire has been questioned.) To cater for the growing interest, smaller and more open snooker clubs were formed. The Billiards Association (formed 1885) and the Billiards Control Club (formed 1908) merged to form the Billiards Association and Control Club (BA&CC) and a new, standardised set of rules for snooker was first established in 1919. The possibility of a drawn game was abolished by the use of a re-spotted black as a tiebreaker. These rules are similar to the ones used today, although rules for a minimal point penalty were imposed later.
Played in 1926 and 1927, the first World Snooker Championship—then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker—was won by Joe Davis. A Women's Professional Snooker Championship (now the World Women's Snooker Championship) was created in 1934 for top female players. As a professional English billiards and snooker player himself, Davis raised the game from a recreational pastime to a professional sporting activity. Davis won all fifteen tournaments held until 1946, when he retired from the championships. However, snooker declined in popularity in the post-war era; the 1952 World Snooker Championship was contested by only two players and was replaced by the World Professional Match-play Championship, which was also discontinued in 1957. In an effort to boost popularity of snooker, Davis introduced a variation known as "snooker plus" in 1959, which added two extra colours, but this version of the game was short-lived. A world championship for top amateur players, now known as the IBSF World Snooker Championship, was founded in 1963, and the official world championship was revived on a challenge basis in 1964.
The BBC first launched its colour television service in July 1967. In 1969, David Attenborough, then the controller of BBC2, commissioned the snooker tournament television series Pot Black, primarily to showcase the potential of the BBC's new colour television service, as the green table and multi-coloured balls provided an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of the new broadcasting technology. The series became a ratings success and was, for a time, the second-most popular show on BBC2 behind Morecambe and Wise. In the same year, the 1969 World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format, with eight players competing. Due to these developments, the year 1969 is taken to mark the beginning of snooker's modern era. The World Snooker Championship moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has been staged ever since, and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to receive daily television coverage.[33] Snooker quickly became a mainstream sport in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and much of the Commonwealth, and has remained consistently popular since the late 1970s, with most of the major tournaments being televised. In 1985, an estimated 18.5 million viewers stayed up until the early hours of the morning to watch the conclusion of the World Championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis, a record viewership in the UK for any broadcast on BBC Two or any broadcast after midnight.
As professional snooker grew as a mainstream sport, it became heavily dependent on tobacco advertising. Cigarette brand Embassy sponsored the World Snooker Championship for 30 consecutive years from 1976 to 2005, one of the longest-running deals in British sports sponsorship. In the early 2000s, a ban on tobacco advertising led to a reduction in the number of professional tournaments, which decreased from twenty-two events in 1999 to fifteen in 2003. The sport had become more popular in Asia with the emergence of players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu, and still received significant television coverage in the UK—the BBC dedicated 400 hours to snooker in 2007, compared to just 14 minutes 40 years earlier. However, the British public's interest in snooker had waned significantly by the late 2000s. Warning that the sport was "lurching into terminal crisis", The Guardian newspaper predicted in 2010 that snooker would cease to exist as a professional sport within ten years. In the same year, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in the World Snooker Tour, pledging to revitalise the "moribund" professional game.
Over the following decade, the number of professional tournaments increased, with 44 events held in the 2019–20 season.Snooker tournaments were adapted to make them more suitable for television audiences, with some tournaments being played over a shortened duration, or the Snooker Shoot Out, which is a timed, one-frame competition.The prize money for professional events increased, with the top players earning several million pounds over the course of their careers. However, lower-ranked professional players struggled to make a living from the sport, especially after paying tournament entry fees, travel, and other expenses.Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128-player professional tour is financially unsustainable.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the professional tour was confined to events played within the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the 2022–23 season, only two professional ranking tournaments were played outside the UK, the European Masters in Fürth and the German Masters in Berlin, while lucrative Chinese events remained off the calendar. Stephen Maguire in 2023 criticised the World Snooker Tour and World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, claiming that "the game is dying right in front of our eyes", and stating that some players ranked within the world's top 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments.
Snooker referees are an integral part of the sport, and some have become well-known personalities in their own right. Len Ganley, John Street, and John Williams together refereed 17 of the first 20 World Snooker finals held at the Crucible Theatre. Since 2000, non-British and female referees have become more prominent in the sport. Dutch referee Jan Verhaas became the first non-Briton to referee a World Championship final in 2003, while Michaela Tabb became the first woman to do so in 2009.[62] Tabb was the only woman refereeing on the professional tour when she joined it in 2002, but tournaments now routinely feature female referees such as Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston.
Gameplay
A standard full-size snooker table measures 12 ft × 6 ft (365.8 cm × 182.9 cm), with a rectangular playing surface measuring 11 ft 8.5 in × 5 ft 10.0 in (356.9 cm × 177.8 cm).[63] The playing surface is surrounded by small cushions along each side of the table. The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushions is 2 ft 10.0 in (86.4 cm). The table has six pockets, one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the two longer side cushions. One drawback of using a full-size table is the amount of space required to accommodate it, which limits the locations where the game can easily be played. The minimum room size that allows space on all sides for comfortable cueing is 22 ft × 16 ft (6.7 m × 4.9 m). While pool tables are common to many pubs, snooker tends to be played either in private settings or in public snooker halls. The game can also be played on smaller tables, with variant table sizes include 10 ft × 5 ft (305 cm × 152 cm), 9 ft × 4.5 ft (274 cm × 137 cm), 8 ft × 4 ft (244 cm × 122 cm), and 6 ft × 3 ft (183 cm × 91 cm)
The cloth on a snooker table is usually a form of tightly woven woollen green baize, with a directional nap that runs lengthwise from the baulk end of the table to the far end near the black ball spot. The nap affects the speed and trajectory of the balls, depending on the direction of the shot and whether any side spin is placed on the ball. Even if the cue ball is struck in precisely the same manner, the effect of the nap will differ according to whether the ball is directed towards the baulk line or towards the opposite end of the table. A snooker ball set consists of twenty-two unmarked balls: fifteen reds, six colour balls, and one white cue ball. The six colours are one each of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black, although the brown and blue balls were not a part of the original rules. Each ball has a diameter of 2+1⁄16 inches (52.5 mm). At the start of the game, the red balls are racked into a tightly packed equilateral triangle and the six colours are positioned at designated spots on the table. The cue ball is placed inside the "D" ready for the break-off shot. Each player has a cue stick (or simply a "cue"), not less than 3 ft (91.4 cm) in length, which is used to strike the cue ball. The tip of the cue must only make contact with the cue ball and is never used for striking any of the reds or colours directly.
Snooker accessories include: chalk for the tip of the cue, used to help apply spin on the cue ball; various sorts of rest, such as the swan or spider for playing shots that are difficult to play by hand; extensions for lengthening the cue stick; a triangle for racking the reds; and a scoreboard which is typically attached to a wall near the snooker table. A traditional snooker scoreboard resembles an abacus and records the points scored by each player for the current frame in units and twenties, as well as the frame scores. A simple scoring bead is sometimes used, called a "scoring string" or "scoring wire". Each segment of the string (bead) represents one point as the players can move one or several beads along the string.
Rules
A player wins a frame by scoring more points than their opponent. At the start of a frame, the object balls are positioned on the table. Starting with the cue ball in the "D", the first player executes a break-off shot by striking the cue ball with the tip of their cue, aiming to hit any of the red balls in the triangular pack. The players then take alternating turns at playing shots, with the aim of potting a red ball into a pocket and thereby scoring one point. Failure to make contact with a red ball constitutes a foul, which results in penalty points being awarded to the opponent.At the end of each shot, the cue ball remains in the position where it has come to rest (unless it has entered a pocket, where it is returned to the "D") ready for the next shot. If the cue ball finishes in contact with an object ball, or a ball that could be an object ball, a touching ball is called. The player must then play away from that ball without moving it, or else the player will concede penalty points. When playing away from a touching ball, the player is not required to strike another object ball.
When a red ball enters a pocket, the striker[d] must then pot a coloured ball (or "colour") of their choice.[e] If successful, the value of the potted colour is added to the player's score, and the ball is returned to its designated spot on the table. (If a designated spot is unavailable, the colour is respotted on the spot of the highest available colour; if no spots are available, the colour is respotted as close as possible to its own spot without touching the obstructing ball towards the top cushion.) The player must then pot another red ball followed by another colour. The process of alternately potting reds and colours continues until the striker fails to pot the desired object ball or commits a foul—at which point the opponent comes to the table to start the next turn—or when there are no red balls remaining. Points accumulated by potting successive object balls are called a "break" (see Scoring below). At the start of each player's turn, the objective is to first pot a red ball, unless all reds are off the table, or the player has been awarded a free ball, which allows them to nominate another object ball instead of a red. The cue ball may contact an object ball directly or it can be made to bounce off one or more cushions before hitting the required object ball.
The game continues until every red ball has been potted and only the six colours and the cue ball are left on the table. The colours must next be potted in the ascending order of their values, from lowest to highest, i.e. yellow first (worth two points), then green (three points), brown (four points), blue (five points), pink (six points), and finally black (seven points); each colour remains in the pocket after being potted. When the final ball is potted, the player with the most points wins the frame. If there are not enough points remaining on the table for a player to win the frame, that player may offer to concede the frame while at the table (but not while their opponent is still at the table); a frame concession is a common occurrence in professional snooker. Players will often play on even when there are not enough points available for them to win, hoping to force their opponent into playing foul shots by laying snookers. These are shots that are designed to make playing a legal shot harder, such as leaving another ball between the cue ball and the object ball.
If the scores are equal when all of the object balls have been potted, the black is used as a tiebreaker. In this situation, called a "re-spotted black", the black ball is returned to its designated spot and the cue ball is played in-hand, meaning that it may be placed anywhere on or within the lines of the "D" to start the tiebreak. The referee then tosses a coin and the winner of the toss decides who takes the first strike. The game continues until one of the players either pots the black ball to win the frame, or commits a foul (losing the frame).
Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated by a referee, who is charged with ensuring the proper conduct of players and making decisions "in the interests of fair play". The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after they are potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. Another duty of the referee is to recognise and declare a stalemate when neither player is able to make any progress in the frame. If both players agree, the balls are returned to their starting positions and the frame is restarted (known as a "re-rack"), with the same player taking the break-off shot as before. Professional players usually play the game in a sporting manner, declaring fouls they have committed which the referee has not noticed, acknowledging good shots from their opponent, and holding up a hand to apologise for a fortunate shot, known as a "fluke".
Scoring
Color ValueRed snooker ball Red 1 pointYellow snooker ball Yellow 2 pointsGreen snooker ball Green 3 pointsBrown snooker ball Brown 4 pointsBlue snooker ball Blue 5 pointsPink snooker ball Pink 6 pointsBlack snooker ball Black 7 points
Points in snooker are gained from potting the object balls in the correct sequence. The total number of consecutive points (excluding fouls) that a player amasses during one visit to the table is known as a "break". A player could achieve a break of 15, for example, by first potting a red followed by a black, then another red followed by a pink, before failing to pot the next red. Breaks of 100 points or more are referred to as a century break, and are recorded over the career of a professional player. A maximum break in snooker is achieved by potting all reds with blacks, then potting all six colours, yielding 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum". As of 25 September 2022, there have been 178 officially confirmed maximum breaks achieved in professional competition.
Penalty points are awarded to a player when a foul is committed by the opponent. A foul can occur for various reasons, such as sending the cue ball into a pocket, or failing to hit the object ball. The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "snooker", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball. Fouls incur a minimum of four penalty points unless a higher-value object ball is involved in the foul, up to a maximum of seven penalty points where the black ball is concerned.When a foul is committed, the offender's turn ends and the referee announces the penalty. All points scored in the break before the foul was committed are awarded to the striker, but no points are scored for any ball pocketed during the foul shot.
If dissatisfied with the position left after a foul, the next player may nominate the opponent who committed the foul to play again from where the balls have come to rest. If the referee has also called a "miss"—meaning that the referee has deemed the opponent not to have made their best possible attempt to hit the object ball—the player has the option of having the balls replaced to their original positions and forcing the opponent to play the shot again. If, after a foul, the next player cannot cleanly strike both sides of the object ball, the referee may call a free ball, allowing the player to nominate any other ball in place of the object ball they might normally have played. If a player is awarded a free ball with all 15 red balls still in play, they can potentially make a break exceeding 147, with the highest possible being a 155 break, achieved by nominating the free ball as an extra red, then potting the black as the additional colour after potting the free-ball red, followed by the 15 reds with blacks, and finally the colours. Jamie Cope was the first player to achieve a verified 155 break during a practice frame in 2005, with other players such as Alex Higgins claiming to have made a similar break.
One game of snooker is called a "frame". A snooker match generally consists of a predetermined number of frames. Most matches in current professional tournaments are played as the best of 7, 9, or 11 frames, with finals usually the best of 17 or 19 frames. The World Championship uses a longer format, with matches ranging from the best of 19 frames in the first round to best of 35 for the final, which is played over four sessions of play held over two days. Some early world finals had much longer matches, such as the 1947 World Snooker Championship, which was played over the best of 145 frames.
The World Snooker Championship first took place in 1927. Joe Davis, a key figure and pioneer in the early growth of the sport, won fifteen successive world championships between 1927 and 1946. The "modern era" of snooker began in 1969 after the broadcaster BBC commissioned the television series Pot Black, later airing daily coverage of the World Championship, which was first televised in 1978. Key figures in the game were Ray Reardon in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, each winning the World Championship at least six times. Since 2000, Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the most world titles.
Top professional players compete in regular tournaments around the world, earning millions of pounds on the World Snooker Tour, a circuit of international events featuring competitors of many different nationalities. The World Championship, the UK Championship, and the Masters together make up the Triple Crown Series, considered by many players to be the most highly valued titles. Although the main professional tour is open to women, female players also compete on a separate women's tour organised by World Women's Snooker. Competitive snooker is also available to non-professional players, including seniors and people with disabilities. The popularity of snooker has led to the creation of many variations based on the standard game, but using different rules or equipment, including six-red snooker, the short-lived "snooker plus", and the more recent Snooker Shoot Out version.
History
Snooker originated in the second half of the 19th century. In the 1870s, billiards was popular among British Army officers stationed in Jubbulpore, India, and several variations of the game were devised during this time. A similar game, which originated at the Officers' Mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in 1875, combined the rules of two pool games: pyramid pool, played with fifteen red balls positioned in a triangle; and black pool, which involved the potting of designated balls. Snooker was further developed in 1882 when its first set of rules was finalised by British Army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain, who helped devise and popularise the game at Stone House in Ootacamund on a table built by Burroughes & Watts that had been brought to India by boat. The word snooker was, at the time, a slang term used in the British Army to describe new recruits and inexperienced military personnel; Chamberlain used it to deride the inferior performance of a young fellow officer at the table.
Snooker featured in an 1887 issue of the Sporting Life newspaper in England, which led to a growth in popularity. Chamberlain was revealed as the game's inventor, 63 years after the fact, in a letter to The Field magazine published on 19 March 1938. Snooker became increasingly popular across the Indian colonies of the British Raj, and in the United Kingdom, but it remained a game mainly for military officers and the gentry; many gentlemen's clubs that had a snooker table would not allow non-members inside to play. (Reflecting the game's aristocratic origins, the majority of tournaments on the professional circuit still require players to wear waistcoats and bow ties, although the necessity for this attire has been questioned.) To cater for the growing interest, smaller and more open snooker clubs were formed. The Billiards Association (formed 1885) and the Billiards Control Club (formed 1908) merged to form the Billiards Association and Control Club (BA&CC) and a new, standardised set of rules for snooker was first established in 1919. The possibility of a drawn game was abolished by the use of a re-spotted black as a tiebreaker. These rules are similar to the ones used today, although rules for a minimal point penalty were imposed later.
Played in 1926 and 1927, the first World Snooker Championship—then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker—was won by Joe Davis. A Women's Professional Snooker Championship (now the World Women's Snooker Championship) was created in 1934 for top female players. As a professional English billiards and snooker player himself, Davis raised the game from a recreational pastime to a professional sporting activity. Davis won all fifteen tournaments held until 1946, when he retired from the championships. However, snooker declined in popularity in the post-war era; the 1952 World Snooker Championship was contested by only two players and was replaced by the World Professional Match-play Championship, which was also discontinued in 1957. In an effort to boost popularity of snooker, Davis introduced a variation known as "snooker plus" in 1959, which added two extra colours, but this version of the game was short-lived. A world championship for top amateur players, now known as the IBSF World Snooker Championship, was founded in 1963, and the official world championship was revived on a challenge basis in 1964.
The BBC first launched its colour television service in July 1967. In 1969, David Attenborough, then the controller of BBC2, commissioned the snooker tournament television series Pot Black, primarily to showcase the potential of the BBC's new colour television service, as the green table and multi-coloured balls provided an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of the new broadcasting technology. The series became a ratings success and was, for a time, the second-most popular show on BBC2 behind Morecambe and Wise. In the same year, the 1969 World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format, with eight players competing. Due to these developments, the year 1969 is taken to mark the beginning of snooker's modern era. The World Snooker Championship moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has been staged ever since, and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to receive daily television coverage.[33] Snooker quickly became a mainstream sport in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and much of the Commonwealth, and has remained consistently popular since the late 1970s, with most of the major tournaments being televised. In 1985, an estimated 18.5 million viewers stayed up until the early hours of the morning to watch the conclusion of the World Championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis, a record viewership in the UK for any broadcast on BBC Two or any broadcast after midnight.
As professional snooker grew as a mainstream sport, it became heavily dependent on tobacco advertising. Cigarette brand Embassy sponsored the World Snooker Championship for 30 consecutive years from 1976 to 2005, one of the longest-running deals in British sports sponsorship. In the early 2000s, a ban on tobacco advertising led to a reduction in the number of professional tournaments, which decreased from twenty-two events in 1999 to fifteen in 2003. The sport had become more popular in Asia with the emergence of players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu, and still received significant television coverage in the UK—the BBC dedicated 400 hours to snooker in 2007, compared to just 14 minutes 40 years earlier. However, the British public's interest in snooker had waned significantly by the late 2000s. Warning that the sport was "lurching into terminal crisis", The Guardian newspaper predicted in 2010 that snooker would cease to exist as a professional sport within ten years. In the same year, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in the World Snooker Tour, pledging to revitalise the "moribund" professional game.
Over the following decade, the number of professional tournaments increased, with 44 events held in the 2019–20 season.Snooker tournaments were adapted to make them more suitable for television audiences, with some tournaments being played over a shortened duration, or the Snooker Shoot Out, which is a timed, one-frame competition.The prize money for professional events increased, with the top players earning several million pounds over the course of their careers. However, lower-ranked professional players struggled to make a living from the sport, especially after paying tournament entry fees, travel, and other expenses.Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128-player professional tour is financially unsustainable.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the professional tour was confined to events played within the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the 2022–23 season, only two professional ranking tournaments were played outside the UK, the European Masters in Fürth and the German Masters in Berlin, while lucrative Chinese events remained off the calendar. Stephen Maguire in 2023 criticised the World Snooker Tour and World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, claiming that "the game is dying right in front of our eyes", and stating that some players ranked within the world's top 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments.
Snooker referees are an integral part of the sport, and some have become well-known personalities in their own right. Len Ganley, John Street, and John Williams together refereed 17 of the first 20 World Snooker finals held at the Crucible Theatre. Since 2000, non-British and female referees have become more prominent in the sport. Dutch referee Jan Verhaas became the first non-Briton to referee a World Championship final in 2003, while Michaela Tabb became the first woman to do so in 2009.[62] Tabb was the only woman refereeing on the professional tour when she joined it in 2002, but tournaments now routinely feature female referees such as Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston.
Gameplay
A standard full-size snooker table measures 12 ft × 6 ft (365.8 cm × 182.9 cm), with a rectangular playing surface measuring 11 ft 8.5 in × 5 ft 10.0 in (356.9 cm × 177.8 cm).[63] The playing surface is surrounded by small cushions along each side of the table. The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushions is 2 ft 10.0 in (86.4 cm). The table has six pockets, one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the two longer side cushions. One drawback of using a full-size table is the amount of space required to accommodate it, which limits the locations where the game can easily be played. The minimum room size that allows space on all sides for comfortable cueing is 22 ft × 16 ft (6.7 m × 4.9 m). While pool tables are common to many pubs, snooker tends to be played either in private settings or in public snooker halls. The game can also be played on smaller tables, with variant table sizes include 10 ft × 5 ft (305 cm × 152 cm), 9 ft × 4.5 ft (274 cm × 137 cm), 8 ft × 4 ft (244 cm × 122 cm), and 6 ft × 3 ft (183 cm × 91 cm)
The cloth on a snooker table is usually a form of tightly woven woollen green baize, with a directional nap that runs lengthwise from the baulk end of the table to the far end near the black ball spot. The nap affects the speed and trajectory of the balls, depending on the direction of the shot and whether any side spin is placed on the ball. Even if the cue ball is struck in precisely the same manner, the effect of the nap will differ according to whether the ball is directed towards the baulk line or towards the opposite end of the table. A snooker ball set consists of twenty-two unmarked balls: fifteen reds, six colour balls, and one white cue ball. The six colours are one each of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black, although the brown and blue balls were not a part of the original rules. Each ball has a diameter of 2+1⁄16 inches (52.5 mm). At the start of the game, the red balls are racked into a tightly packed equilateral triangle and the six colours are positioned at designated spots on the table. The cue ball is placed inside the "D" ready for the break-off shot. Each player has a cue stick (or simply a "cue"), not less than 3 ft (91.4 cm) in length, which is used to strike the cue ball. The tip of the cue must only make contact with the cue ball and is never used for striking any of the reds or colours directly.
Snooker accessories include: chalk for the tip of the cue, used to help apply spin on the cue ball; various sorts of rest, such as the swan or spider for playing shots that are difficult to play by hand; extensions for lengthening the cue stick; a triangle for racking the reds; and a scoreboard which is typically attached to a wall near the snooker table. A traditional snooker scoreboard resembles an abacus and records the points scored by each player for the current frame in units and twenties, as well as the frame scores. A simple scoring bead is sometimes used, called a "scoring string" or "scoring wire". Each segment of the string (bead) represents one point as the players can move one or several beads along the string.
Rules
A player wins a frame by scoring more points than their opponent. At the start of a frame, the object balls are positioned on the table. Starting with the cue ball in the "D", the first player executes a break-off shot by striking the cue ball with the tip of their cue, aiming to hit any of the red balls in the triangular pack. The players then take alternating turns at playing shots, with the aim of potting a red ball into a pocket and thereby scoring one point. Failure to make contact with a red ball constitutes a foul, which results in penalty points being awarded to the opponent.At the end of each shot, the cue ball remains in the position where it has come to rest (unless it has entered a pocket, where it is returned to the "D") ready for the next shot. If the cue ball finishes in contact with an object ball, or a ball that could be an object ball, a touching ball is called. The player must then play away from that ball without moving it, or else the player will concede penalty points. When playing away from a touching ball, the player is not required to strike another object ball.
When a red ball enters a pocket, the striker[d] must then pot a coloured ball (or "colour") of their choice.[e] If successful, the value of the potted colour is added to the player's score, and the ball is returned to its designated spot on the table. (If a designated spot is unavailable, the colour is respotted on the spot of the highest available colour; if no spots are available, the colour is respotted as close as possible to its own spot without touching the obstructing ball towards the top cushion.) The player must then pot another red ball followed by another colour. The process of alternately potting reds and colours continues until the striker fails to pot the desired object ball or commits a foul—at which point the opponent comes to the table to start the next turn—or when there are no red balls remaining. Points accumulated by potting successive object balls are called a "break" (see Scoring below). At the start of each player's turn, the objective is to first pot a red ball, unless all reds are off the table, or the player has been awarded a free ball, which allows them to nominate another object ball instead of a red. The cue ball may contact an object ball directly or it can be made to bounce off one or more cushions before hitting the required object ball.
The game continues until every red ball has been potted and only the six colours and the cue ball are left on the table. The colours must next be potted in the ascending order of their values, from lowest to highest, i.e. yellow first (worth two points), then green (three points), brown (four points), blue (five points), pink (six points), and finally black (seven points); each colour remains in the pocket after being potted. When the final ball is potted, the player with the most points wins the frame. If there are not enough points remaining on the table for a player to win the frame, that player may offer to concede the frame while at the table (but not while their opponent is still at the table); a frame concession is a common occurrence in professional snooker. Players will often play on even when there are not enough points available for them to win, hoping to force their opponent into playing foul shots by laying snookers. These are shots that are designed to make playing a legal shot harder, such as leaving another ball between the cue ball and the object ball.
If the scores are equal when all of the object balls have been potted, the black is used as a tiebreaker. In this situation, called a "re-spotted black", the black ball is returned to its designated spot and the cue ball is played in-hand, meaning that it may be placed anywhere on or within the lines of the "D" to start the tiebreak. The referee then tosses a coin and the winner of the toss decides who takes the first strike. The game continues until one of the players either pots the black ball to win the frame, or commits a foul (losing the frame).
Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated by a referee, who is charged with ensuring the proper conduct of players and making decisions "in the interests of fair play". The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after they are potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. Another duty of the referee is to recognise and declare a stalemate when neither player is able to make any progress in the frame. If both players agree, the balls are returned to their starting positions and the frame is restarted (known as a "re-rack"), with the same player taking the break-off shot as before. Professional players usually play the game in a sporting manner, declaring fouls they have committed which the referee has not noticed, acknowledging good shots from their opponent, and holding up a hand to apologise for a fortunate shot, known as a "fluke".
Scoring
Color ValueRed snooker ball Red 1 pointYellow snooker ball Yellow 2 pointsGreen snooker ball Green 3 pointsBrown snooker ball Brown 4 pointsBlue snooker ball Blue 5 pointsPink snooker ball Pink 6 pointsBlack snooker ball Black 7 points
Points in snooker are gained from potting the object balls in the correct sequence. The total number of consecutive points (excluding fouls) that a player amasses during one visit to the table is known as a "break". A player could achieve a break of 15, for example, by first potting a red followed by a black, then another red followed by a pink, before failing to pot the next red. Breaks of 100 points or more are referred to as a century break, and are recorded over the career of a professional player. A maximum break in snooker is achieved by potting all reds with blacks, then potting all six colours, yielding 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum". As of 25 September 2022, there have been 178 officially confirmed maximum breaks achieved in professional competition.
Penalty points are awarded to a player when a foul is committed by the opponent. A foul can occur for various reasons, such as sending the cue ball into a pocket, or failing to hit the object ball. The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "snooker", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball. Fouls incur a minimum of four penalty points unless a higher-value object ball is involved in the foul, up to a maximum of seven penalty points where the black ball is concerned.When a foul is committed, the offender's turn ends and the referee announces the penalty. All points scored in the break before the foul was committed are awarded to the striker, but no points are scored for any ball pocketed during the foul shot.
If dissatisfied with the position left after a foul, the next player may nominate the opponent who committed the foul to play again from where the balls have come to rest. If the referee has also called a "miss"—meaning that the referee has deemed the opponent not to have made their best possible attempt to hit the object ball—the player has the option of having the balls replaced to their original positions and forcing the opponent to play the shot again. If, after a foul, the next player cannot cleanly strike both sides of the object ball, the referee may call a free ball, allowing the player to nominate any other ball in place of the object ball they might normally have played. If a player is awarded a free ball with all 15 red balls still in play, they can potentially make a break exceeding 147, with the highest possible being a 155 break, achieved by nominating the free ball as an extra red, then potting the black as the additional colour after potting the free-ball red, followed by the 15 reds with blacks, and finally the colours. Jamie Cope was the first player to achieve a verified 155 break during a practice frame in 2005, with other players such as Alex Higgins claiming to have made a similar break.
One game of snooker is called a "frame". A snooker match generally consists of a predetermined number of frames. Most matches in current professional tournaments are played as the best of 7, 9, or 11 frames, with finals usually the best of 17 or 19 frames. The World Championship uses a longer format, with matches ranging from the best of 19 frames in the first round to best of 35 for the final, which is played over four sessions of play held over two days. Some early world finals had much longer matches, such as the 1947 World Snooker Championship, which was played over the best of 145 frames.
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