Cue sports, also known as billiard sports, are a group of skill games in which a cue stick is used to hit billiard balls, causing them to pass around a cloth-covered billiards table surrounded by elastic bumpers called cushions.
Billiards was the umbrella word in the past. Although some people still use the common name as a blanket term for all such games, the word’s definition has splintered into more exclusive competing meanings in different parts of the world.
Billiards, for example, is commonly used to refer to the game of English billiards in British and Australian English. In contrast, in American and Canadian English, it is often used to refer to a specific sport or class of games, or all cue games in general, depending on dialect and meaning. Pool, snooker, and Russian pyramid are examples of games that are often referred to as billiards.
Within cue sports, there are three main divisions of games:
Straight rail, three-cushion billiards, balkline, one-cushion carom, artistic billiards, and four-ball are all carom billiards games played on tables without pockets that are usually 10 feet long.
Pool refers to a variety of pocket billiards games played on six-pocket tables of 7-, 8-, 9-, or 10-foot lengths, such as eight-ball (the world’s most famous cue sport), nine-ball (the most popular professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly popular professional game), one-pocket, and bank pool.
Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid are all games on a billiards table with six pockets termed a snooker table (which has dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft). They are all categorized separately from a pool based on a different historical creation and a different culture and terminology that define their play.
Billiards has a long and glorious history that extends from its inception in the 15th century to the wrapping of Mary, Queen of Scots’ body in her billiard table cover in 1586, through its various mentions in Shakespeare’s works, including the popular line “lets to billiards” in Antony and Cleopatra and through the many famous fans of the sport, including Mozart, Louis XIV of France, and Marguerite de Beauh.
Billiards balls differ in size, style, and quantity depending on the game.
The Russian pyramid and Kaisa are 68 mm (2 1116 in) in diameter. There are sixteen balls in the Russian pyramid, much as in a pool, except fifteen, are white and numbered, and the cue ball is normally red. [eight] The yellow object ball (called the Kaisa in Finnish), two red object balls, and two white cue balls are used in Kaisa (usually distinguished by one cue ball having a spot or other marking on it and each of which helps as an object ball for the opponent).
Carom billiards balls are relatively larger than pool balls, measuring 61.5 mm (2 716 in) in diameter, and come in a set of two cue balls (one coloured or marked) and an object ball.
Standard pool balls measure 57.15 mm (2 14 in) in diameter and are used in many pool games worldwide. They come in sets of two object balls, seven solids and stripes, an 8 ball, and a cue ball, and are racked differently for various games (some do not use the entire ball set). Blackball (English-style eight-ball) sets are identical. Instead of solids and stripes, they have unmarked groups of red and yellow balls, known as the “casino” style.
With a diameter of 52.5 mm ( 2 16 in), snooker balls are smaller than American-style pool balls plus come in sets of 22. 6 coloured and 15 red balls, and a cue ball). Billiard balls in England are the same size as snooker balls and come in three-ball sets (two cue balls and a red object ball). Custom ball sets are used in other sports, such as a bumper pool.
Since the beginning of the game, billiard balls have been made from various materials, including clay, bakelite, celluloid, crystallite, ivory, rubber, steel, and wood. From 1627 to the early twentieth century, ivory was the most common commodity.
The quest for an alternative to ivory was motivated by economics and fear of danger to elephant hunters, not by environmental concerns. It was ignited in part by a $10,000 prize offered by a New York billiard table maker for a replacement content. Celluloid, patented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, was the first viable alternative. Still, the substance was volatile, prone to exploding during production, and highly flammable. Billiard tables come in various sizes and types. Tables are usually rectangles that are twice as long as they are wide. The nominal length of a table’s longer dimension is usually used to describe its height.
The length of a full-size snooker table is 12 feet (3.7 meters). Tables for carom billiards are normally 10 feet tall (3.0 m). Pool tables are 9 feet (2.7 meters) in length, but bars and other places that cater to casual play usually use 7-foot (2.1 meters) tables that are coin-operated and called “bar boxes.” Ten-foot pool tables used to be popular, but they are now considered antiques.
To avoid warping and changes due to temperature and humidity, high-quality tables have a bed made of thick slate in three parts. Modern carom tables typically have heated slates to hold moisture at bay and have a consistent playing surface.
The next time you shoot those balls on the table with the cue in your hand, remember how long history does these billiards have.
