Carom billiards and pool are two types of cue sports or billiards-family games, which as a general class are played with a stick called a cue which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiard table bounded by rubber attached to the confining of the table.
Carom billiards (often simply called "billiards" in many varieties of non-British English) is a type of billiards in which the table is bounded completely by cushions, and in which (in most variants) three balls are used.
Pool, also called "pocket billiards", is a form of billiards usually equipped with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls), played on a pool table with six pockets built into the rails, splitting the cushions. The pockets (one at each corner, and one in the center of each long rail) provide targets (or in some cases, hazards) for the balls.
Some games do not fall into those two broad categories, most notably snooker, which, although using a table with pockets, is not part of the pool family of games, and English billiards, which features both carom and pocket scoring, and uses the same table as snooker.
Skill at one type of billiards is widely applicable to the other, but expertise usually requires at least a degree of specialization.
Background Cue sports evolved from ancient outdoor stick-and-ball games, generally referred to (retroactively) as "ground billiards", a game similar in various respects, and closely related to, modern croquet, golf and field hockey. Billiards has been a popular game since the 15th century.
Carom billiards was long the most popular type of billiards, and remains an important international sport. Carom games, especially three-cushion, are intensely popular in many parts of Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America. In former times, extremely complicated and difficult carom games such as 18.2 balkline were played in world championship matches by players whose skill at very fine manipulation of the balls in nurse shots was so great that the serious playing field often consisted of only 4 major players for decades at a time. The carom world opened up in the latter half of the 20th century and grew to its current level of much broader international competition with the rise of three-cushion billiards, which had more action, simpler rules and easier basic play, but more difficult true mastery due to the elimination of nurse shots. Along with snooker and perhaps nine-ball (see below), three-cushion is expected to become an Olympic sport within perhaps a decade.
Pocket tables are known from the earliest days of billiards, being adaptations of lawn holes and croquet-style hoops to the indoor version of the game. The most common modern pool game, eight-ball evolved beginning around 1900. Today, numbered stripes and solids are preferred in most of the world, though the British-style variant (known as blackball) uses simplified colours. Eight-ball, in one variant or another, is played world-wide, is a pastime of millions of amateur league players, and draws intense competition at professional and amateur tournaments using the standardized World Pool-Billiard Association rules. However, the most intense competition in pool is in the game nine-ball, which has been the professional game of choice since the 1970s, with the decline of straight pool (also known as 14.1 continuous). Nine-ball grew in popularity because of its speed, the increased role played by luck, and its suitability for television.
Equipment Balls
Billiard balls vary from game to game, and area to area, in size, design and number. Though the dominant material in the making of quality balls was ivory until the late 1800s (with clay and wood being used for cheaper sets), there was a need to find a substitute for it, not only due to elephant endangerment, but also because of the high cost of the balls. This search led to the development of celluloid, the first industrial plastic, and balls have been made of various plastic compounds ever since, from materials such as bakelite, to modern-day phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic.
Carom billiards balls come most often as a set of two (one white and one yellow) and a red . Carom balls are in diameter and weigh the same, between .
Internationally standardized pool balls come in sets of 16, including two or of numbered object balls, seven (1–7) and seven (9–15), a and a white cue ball. Standard pool balls are in diameter and are in weight. Some coin-operated tables use a slightly different sized cue ball to allow for the cue ball to be separated by ball-return mechanisms, while others use magnetic or optical ball separators. "Casino-style" balls, commonly used in Britain and other countries where the blackball variant is more common, come in unnumbered suits of and . Casino-style balls are often smaller at , and may feature a smaller, lighter cue ball.
The games of snooker and English billiards use balls smaller than those used in both pool and carom, with all balls measuring in diameter. In addition, six of the object balls used in snooker are uniquely coloured and have specific values.
The games of Russian pyramid and kaisa, which are basically the Russian versions of the 8 ball and the carom games, use bigger balls than those of the other cue games, with all balls measuring in diameter. In addition, the main difference between the Russian pyramid balls and the regular pool balls are the colors; the numbered balls are colorless, while the cue ball is usually dark red. Furthermore, while the carom game uses 3 balls, (1 cue ball, 1 red ball and 1 yellow ball), the kaisa game uses 5 balls (2 cue balls, 2 red balls and 1 yellow ball).
The game of Blackball, which is basically the British version of the 8 ball game, uses smaller balls than those of the other cue games, with all balls measuring in diameter, In addition, the game uses red and yellow clear balls instead of numbered clear and striped balls with multiple colors, with only the black 8 ball remaining the same.
Tables There are many sizes and styles of billiard tables. With the exception of some variants of bumper pool, and some novelty tables, all billiard tables are rectangles that are twice as long as they are wide. Quality tables have a multi-slab slate bed over which the cloth (baize) is stretched. Less-rigid materials are prone to game-affecting changes due to humidity, and even permanent warping, as well as other problems.
The international standard for carom billiard tables is a playing surface (measured from to rail cushion) of 2.84 by 1.42 m (112 by 56 in, or 9.32 by 4.66 ft), +/- 5 mm, though many (especially American) tables for amateur use are 10 x 5 ft (3 by 1.5 m). The slate beds of profession-grade carom tables are usually heated to stave off moisture and provide a consistent playing surface.
Most pool tables are known as 7-, 8- or 9-footers, referring to the nominal length of the playing surface's long side. The internationally standardised size for professional play is 9 by 4.5 ft (274 by 137 cm). In former times, 10 by 5 ft (3 by 1.5 m) and even 12 by 6 ft (3.7 by 1.8 m) tables were common, but today these are used only for snooker, the carom-pocket hybrid known as English billiards, and some other regional variants, such as Russian pyramid and Finnish kaisa. Ten-foot pool tables mostly date from the early 20th century or earlier, but can occasionally still be found in older pool halls. Pool tables as small as 6 by 3 ft. are available for homes and cramped public spaces, but are not commonly preferred. Pool table beds are usually not heated.
Snooker tables use smaller pockets compared to pool tables and rounded cushions at the pocket openings.
Cloth The and of all kinds of billiard-type tables (carom, pool, and snooker) are covered with a tightly-woven cloth called baize, generally of worsted wool, although wool-nylon blends are common and some 100% synthetics are in use. Baize is principally a Commonwealth term, with "cloth" being preferred in North American English. It is often erroneously referred to as "felt", which is not woven. Faster-playing 100% woolen cloth is most commonly used on home tables and in high-end pool halls. The cloth plays because it is smoother, thinner, more tightly-woven, and less fuzzy, providing less friction, thus allowing the balls to roll farther across the table bed. Billiard cloth has traditionally been green for centuries, representing the grass of the ancestral lawn game. Some have theorised that the colour may serve a useful function, as (non-colour-blind) humans supposedly have a higher sensitivity to green than to any other colour. However, no known studies have demonstrated any noticeable effect of cloth colour on professional or amateur play. Today, billiard cloth is available in a wide array of colours, with red, blue, grey, and burgundy being very common choices. In recent years, cloth with dyed designs has become available, like sports, university, beer, motorcycle and tournament sponsor logos.
There is no core difference between carom and pool cloth. Serious players of both types of cue sports generally prefer fast cloth, as it requires less force when shooting, allowing a more accurate and "finessed" , and better ability to and thus or . off of cushions are also more accurate with faster cloth, and a tighter, thinner cloth retains less moisture. The principal difference is that the vast majority of pool tables encountered by the general public (i.e. in taverns and average pool halls) have cloth that is considerably thicker, coarser and slower, with the result that average recreational players have little understanding of the finer points of the effects of fast cloth on the game, and tend to shoot too hard when playing on better-equipped tables.
Snooker cloth, on the other hand, has a notable directional nap (except on most US-based tables, which use napless cloth), and compensating for the effect of this nap on ball speed and trajectory is an important element in mastery of the game.
Racks Carom billiards games generally do not make use of ball racks. Depending upon the specific game in question, the balls may be released randomly, or set in very specific positions at the beginning of the game.
In most pool games, the object balls are tightly (placed within a usually wooden or plastic ball rack and moved into position) at a specific location on the table (which can vary from game to game). In internationally standardized games such as nine-ball and eight-ball, the of the rack (the ball furthest from the racker, pointing toward the end of the table from which the will be taken) is placed on the , a that is at the intersection of the lateral middle of the racking end of the table, known as the , and the table's longitudinal center, known as the ); the game-winning "" is in the center of the rack. In many games there may also be other racking requirements, such as the 1 ball at the apex. In some regional versions, the money ball must go on the foot spot. Some pool games, such as Chicago, are not racked at all, but as in many carom games have specific spotting locations for the balls. Snooker makes use of both tactics, with the pack of 15 being racked much as in pool, and the special each having certain spots assigned to each.
There are two main types of racks; the more common which is used in eight-ball, fifteen-ball, straight pool and many other games, and a , is used in nine-ball. Special hexagonal racks are available for seven-ball, but the diamond rack can actually be used, sideways, for racking this game.
Cues