Billiard Games

Straight billiards or straight rail
In straight billiards, a player scores a point and may continue shooting each time his cueball makes contactwith both other balls. More on Straight Billiards.

Balkline
A balkine is a line parallel to one end of a billiard table. In the games of balkline--balkline 18.1 and 18.2--the players have to drive either one ball or two balls (respectively) past a balkine set at 18 inches from the rail after a fixed number of shots. More on Balkline.

Three cushion billiards
requires a player to make contact with the other two ball on the table and contact three rail cushions in the process. More on Three Cushion Billiards.

Eight ball
In eight ball, two persons or two teams play against each other. One plays balls 1-7, the solid balls, the other plays balls 9-15, the striped ones. Ball 8, though colored solid, is not considered one of the solid balls, as it is the final objective for both sides. Each side on its turn hits the cue ball into one of their balls with the purpose of sinking that ball into a pocket of the table. If they succeed, they continue to "shoot". If no balls are pocketed, then the shooting player's turn is over and the other player/team attempts to pocket their balls. If a player has sunk all of his or her balls, the player must sink the black 8 in order to win the game. If the black 8 is sunk earlier, the player loses. More on Eight Ball.

Nine ball
9-Ball is a rotation game where the 1-9 balls are used. The player at the table must make a legal shot on the lowest numbered ball on the table or forfeit his/her turn. The game is won by legally pocketing the nine ball. More on Nine ball.

One pocket
One pocket is a strategic game for two players. Each player is assigned one of the corner pockets on the table. This is the only pocket into which he can legally pocket balls. The first player to pocket the majority of the balls (8) in his pocket wins the game. The game requires far more defensive strategy than offensive strategy, much unlike 8-ball, 9-ball, or straight pool. It has been said that if 8-ball is checkers, one-pocket is chess. More on One Pocket.

Bank Pool
Bank Pool has been gaining popularity in recent years. Bank pool can be played with a full rack, but is more typically played with nine balls (sometimes called "9-Ball Bank"), the balls are racked in 9-ball formation, but in no particular order. The object of the game is simple: to be the first player to bank 5 balls in any order. More on Bank Pool.

Snooker
Snooker is a billiard sport that is played on a large (12' × 6') baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long cushions. It is played using a cue, one white ball (the cue ball), 15 red balls and 6 colours: a yellow (worth 2 points), green (3 points), brown (4 points), blue (5 points), pink (6 points) and black ball (7 points). A player wins a frame of snooker by scoring the most points, through using the cue ball to pot all the red and coloured balls. A match consists of an agreed number of frames. Snooker is particularly popular in English-speaking countries (Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, India and South Africa), and there has recently been a surge of interest in East Asia, with players from Hong Kong, China and Thailand entering the rankings. More on Snooker.

Glossary of pool and billiards terms.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Billiards".