Billiards and snooker Biography

Billiards or cue sports includes a range of games played to test the skill in hitting billiard balls with a cue stick on a billiard table. The sport of Billiards consist of 3 subdivisions:

1) Carom billiards, relating to those games played on tables without pockets

2) Pocket billiards, relating to those games played on a table with 6 pockets

3) Snooker, though its technique is the same as pocket billiards but its origin, culture and terminology are different.

Billiard balls differ in size, color and design accordingly with the nature of the games. Billiard balls consist of a set of two cue balls and one object ball.

There are different sizes of Billiard tables. Generally the pool tables are 7,8 or 9 feet long (on the longer side). The tables are covered with a material which is a blend of wool and nylon called baize. The billiards table is bordered by rubber cushions.

A rack is a wooden or plastic frame to organize the balls at the start of the game. A rack is either triangular shaped (used in straight pool and eight-ball games) or diamond shaped (used in nine-ball game).

The stick that is used to hit the billiard balls is called the cue. It either consists of one piece with a tapered end or it consists of two pieces joined in between by a metal or phenolic resin.

The butt end of the cue is to be held in the hand. The shaft of the cue which tapers to 0.4 to 0.55 terminus is called ferrulle and is fixed to a leather tip. It makes the final contact with the balls.

A “Billiards”event including pool, snooker and carom was given a place in the 2005 World Games held in Duisburg, Germany and also in the 2006 Asian Games under the “cue sports” category.

In Carom Billiards a player is required to shoot a cue ball aiming to make contact with the rival’s cue ball and the object ball. Eight-ball, nine-ball, one-pocket, bank pool, snooker are some of the pocket billiard games.

Geet Seth is is an Indian Billiards player and Pankaj Advani is a snooker player in India