Carambole billiards
Encyclopedia
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards or simply carambole (and in some cases used as a synonym for the game of straight rail
from which many carom games derive), is the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 5 by 10 feet (approximately 1.5 × 3 m) pocketless tables, which often feature heated slate beds. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by one's own off both the opponent's cue ball and the 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
, cushion caroms
, balkline
, three-cushion billiards
and artistic billiards
. There are many other carom billiards games, predominantly intermediary or offshoot games combining elements of those already listed, such as the champion's game, an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline, as well as games which are hybrids of carom billiards and pocket billiards
, such as English billiards
played on a snooker
table and its descendant games, American four-ball billiards, and cowboy pool.
and Portuguese
carambola and French
carambole, which was earlier 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.
Cloth has been used to cover billiards tables since the 15th century. In fact, the predecessor company of the most famous maker of billiard cloth, Iwan Simonis, was formed in 1453. Most cloth made for carom billiards tables is a type of baize
that is dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted
wool, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table . The green color of cloth was originally chosen to emulate the look of grass, and has been so colored since the 16th century. However, as in green eyeshade
s, the color also serves a useful function: Humans have a higher light sensitivity to green than to any other color, so green cloth permits play for longer periods of time without eye strain
.
Modern billiard balls are made from highly resilient plastic
s, are normally 61.5 mm (27⁄16 in) in diameter, weigh between 205 and 220 grams (7.23 – 7.75 ounces; 7.5 is average), and are significantly larger and heavier than their pocket billiards counterparts. While UMB, the International Olympic Committee
-recognized world carom billiards authority, technically permits balls as small as 61.0 mm (approximately 23⁄8), no major manufacturer produces such balls any longer, and the de facto standard is 61.5 mm. The three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of a completely white cue ball, a second cue ball with typically a red or black dot on it (to aid in differentiation between the two cue balls), and a third, red ball. In some sets of balls, however, the second cue ball is solid yellow. Both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play.
Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay
, wood
, ivory
, plastics (including celluloid
, Bakelite, crystalate, and 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 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 billiard balls, invented by John Wesley Hyatt
in 1868, but the material was volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture.
Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from the typical pool cue with which many people are more familiar. Such cues tend to be shorter and lighter overall, with a shorter , a thicker and , a wooden joint (in high-end examples) and wood-to-wood joint (for a one-piece cue "feel"), a fast, conical , and a smaller diameter as compared with pool cues. Typical dimensions are 54–56 in (137.2–142.2 cm) in length, 16.5–18.5 oz (0.4677671295–0.5244661755 kg) in weight (lighter for straight rail, heavier for three-cushion), with a 11–12 mm diameter tip. The specialization makes the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier billiard balls as compared with pool cues. It also acts to reduce (sometimes called "squirt"), which may be defined as 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 is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of English, coupled with great speed; this is a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pool. The wood used in carom cues can vary widely, and most quality carom cues are hand made.
, 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. A heated table is required under international carom rules and is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards. Heating table beds is an old practice. Queen Victoria
of England (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 ..."
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 "" techniques. The most important of these, the , involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them just a few centimeters 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.
Professional straight rail in the US only had a six year run from 1873 to 1879. It was succeeded by a game specifically designed to curb the use of the rail nurse so that spectators would not be subject to its repetitiveness. Today, straight rail play is relatively uncommon in the U.S. but retains popularity in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as pentathlon
s after the ancient Greek
Olympic competitions, 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.
The new game appearing in 1879, called the champion's game or limited-rail, is considered an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline and was designed with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse. The game employed diagonal lines—balklines—at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted, thus "cutting off four triangular spaces in the four corners, [taking] away 28 inches [711 mm] of the 'nursing' surface of the end rails and 56 inches [1422 mm] on the long rails." 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. There are many variation of balkline but all divide the table into marked regions called balk spaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the are within that region.
In the balkline games, rather than drawing balklines a few inches from the corners, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing balklines a certain distance lengthwise and widthwise across the length of the table a set number of inches parallel
out from each rail. This divides the table into eight rectangular balkspaces. 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 and another are defined by two measures: 1) the spacing of the balklines, and 2) 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 inches and the second, after a dot, indicates the count restriction which is always either one or two. For example, the name 18.2 balkline, one of the more prominent balkline games, indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches (457.2 mm) distant from each rail, and only 2 counts are allowed in a balkspace before a ball must leave.
Over its history balkline has had many variations including 8.2, 10.2, 12.2, 13.2, 12½.2, 14.1, 14.2, 18.1, 18.2, 28.2, 38.2, 39.2, 42.2, 45.1, 45.2, 47.1, 47.2, 57.2 and 71.2 balkline. In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominate carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards (and pocket billiards
). Balkline is not very common in the U.S., but remains popular in Europe and the Far East
.
Cushion caroms, sometimes called by its original name, the indirect game, is traceable to 1820's Britain
and is a descendant of the doublet game dating to at least 1807. The game is sometimes incorrectly referred to as one-cushion or one-cushion billiards, which is the direct translation of its name into English from various other languages such as Spanish ("una banda") and German ("einband").
The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail being struck before the hit on the second object ball. Cushions caroms was defunct for a number of years, but was revived in the late 1860s as another alternative to straight rail, for the same reasons that balkline developed, i.e., as an alternative to the tedium engendered by the use of the "rail nurse" (see above). Cushion caroms is rarely played in the U.S., but it still enjoys some popularity in Europe.
The origin of the game is not entirely known. It is undisputed that one Wayman Crow McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri
popularized the game in the 1870s. The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place January 14–31, 1878 in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and New Yorker
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 after 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 September 22, 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, to 600 . 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, where pool is far more widespread. The principal governing body of the sport is the Union Mondiale de Billard
(UMB). It had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s. The International Olympic Committee
-recognized World Pool-Billiard Association
(WPA) cooperates with the UMB to keep their rulesets synchronized.
In artistic billiards, sometimes called fantasy billiards or (in French
) fantaisie classique, 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 maximum 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. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération Internationale de Billard Artistique (CIBA).
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 world competition was 374, by the Frenchman
Jean Reverchon in 1992, while the highest score in competition overall is 427 set by Belgian
Walter Bax on March 12, 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
.
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
from which many carom games derive), is the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 5 by 10 feet (approximately 1.5 × 3 m) pocketless tables, which often feature heated slate beds. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by one's own off both the opponent's cue ball and the 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
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
, cushion caroms
Cushion caroms
Cushion caroms sometimes called by its original name, the indirect game, is a carom billiards discipline generally played on a cloth-covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, pocketless table with two cue balls and a third red-colored ball...
, balkline
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
, three-cushion billiards
Three-cushion billiards
Three-cushion billiards is a form of carom billiards, and one of the most popular and challenging cue sports in the world.The object of the game is to the off both and contact the at least 3...
and artistic billiards
Artistic billiards
Artistic billiards, sometimes called fantasy billiards or fantaisie classique, is a carom billiards discipline in which players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty...
. There are many other carom billiards games, predominantly intermediary or offshoot games combining elements of those already listed, such as the champion's game, an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline, as well as games which are hybrids of carom billiards and pocket billiards
Pocket billiards
Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...
, such as English billiards
English billiards
English billiards, called simply billiards in many former British colonies and in Great Britain where it originated, is a hybrid form of carom and pocket billiards played on a billiard table. Billiards is less well known as "the English game", "the all-in game" and "the common game".The game is for...
played on a snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
table and its descendant games, American four-ball billiards, and cowboy pool.
Etymology
The word "carom", which simply means any strike and rebound, came into use in the 1860s and is a shortening of SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
carambola and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
carambole, which was earlier used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola
Carambola
Carambola, also known as starfruit, is the fruit of Averrhoa carambola, a species of tree native to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The fruit is a popular food throughout Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and parts of East Asia...
(which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
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.
Cloth
Baize
Baize is a coarse woollen cloth, sometimes called felt in American English based on a similarity in appearance.-Usage:...
that is dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted
Worsted
Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...
wool, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table . The green color of cloth was originally chosen to emulate the look of grass, and has been so colored since the 16th century. However, as in green eyeshade
Green eyeshade
Green eyeshades are a type of visor that were worn most often from the late 19th century to the middle 20th century by accountants, telegraphers, copy editors and others engaged in vision-intensive, detail-oriented occupations in order to lessen eyestrain and other effects of early incandescent...
s, the color also serves a useful function: Humans have a higher light sensitivity to green than to any other color, so green cloth permits play for longer periods of time without eye strain
Asthenopia
Asthenopia or eye strain is an ophthalmological condition that manifests itself through nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, pain in or around the eyes, blurred vision, headache and occasional double vision...
.
Balls
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
s, are normally 61.5 mm (27⁄16 in) in diameter, weigh between 205 and 220 grams (7.23 – 7.75 ounces; 7.5 is average), and are significantly larger and heavier than their pocket billiards counterparts. While UMB, the International Olympic Committee
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
-recognized world carom billiards authority, technically permits balls as small as 61.0 mm (approximately 23⁄8), no major manufacturer produces such balls any longer, and the de facto standard is 61.5 mm. The three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of a completely white cue ball, a second cue ball with typically a red or black dot on it (to aid in differentiation between the two cue balls), and a third, red ball. In some sets of balls, however, the second cue ball is solid yellow. Both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play.
Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
, wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
, plastics (including celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid is the name of a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, plus dyes and other agents. Generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1862 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is...
, Bakelite, crystalate, and phenolic resin, polyester
Polyester
Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate...
and acrylic
Acrylic
Acrylic may refer to:Chemicals and materials:* Chemical compounds that contain the acryl group derived from acrylic acid* Acrylic fiber, a synthetic polymer fiber that contains at least 85% acrylonitrile...
) and even steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
. 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 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 billiard balls, invented by John Wesley Hyatt
John Wesley Hyatt
John Wesley Hyatt was an American inventor. He is mainly known for simplifying the production of celluloid, the first industrial plastic. Hyatt, a Perkin Medal recipient, is an inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.-Biography:Hyatt was born in Starkey, New York, and began working as a...
in 1868, but the material was volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture.
Cues
Heated slate
The slate bed of a billiard table is often heated to about 5 °C/9 °F above room temperatureRoom temperature
-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...
, 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. A heated table is required under international carom rules and is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards. Heating table beds is an old practice. Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
of England (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
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
Welker Cochran
Welker Cochran was an American professional carom billiards player who won world titles in two different disciplines, balkline and three-cushion billiards.-Biography:He was born in Manson, Iowa...
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 ..."
Straight rail
Straight rail, sometimes referred to as carom billiards, straight billiards, the three-ball game, the carambole game, and the free game in Europe, is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. It was known as French caroms, French billiards or the French game in early times, taking those bygone names from the French who popularized it. 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 . 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 "" techniques. The most important of these, the , involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them just a few centimeters 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.
Professional straight rail in the US only had a six year run from 1873 to 1879. It was succeeded by a game specifically designed to curb the use of the rail nurse so that spectators would not be subject to its repetitiveness. Today, straight rail play is relatively uncommon in the U.S. but retains popularity in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as pentathlon
Pentathlon
A pentathlon is a contest featuring five different events. The name is derived from Greek: combining the words pente and -athlon . The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of the Ancient Olympic Games...
s after the ancient Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
Olympic competitions, 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
Cushion caroms
Cushion caroms sometimes called by its original name, the indirect game, is a carom billiards discipline generally played on a cloth-covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, pocketless table with two cue balls and a third red-colored ball...
, 71.2 balkline and three-cushion billiards.
The champion's game
The new game appearing in 1879, called the champion's game or limited-rail, is considered an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline and was designed with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse. The game employed diagonal lines—balklines—at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted, thus "cutting off four triangular spaces in the four corners, [taking] away 28 inches [711 mm] of the 'nursing' surface of the end rails and 56 inches [1422 mm] on the long rails." 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
In the balkline games, rather than drawing balklines a few inches from the corners, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing balklines a certain distance lengthwise and widthwise across the length of the table a set number of inches parallel
Parallel (geometry)
Parallelism is a term in geometry and in everyday life that refers to a property in Euclidean space of two or more lines or planes, or a combination of these. The assumed existence and properties of parallel lines are the basis of Euclid's parallel postulate. Two lines in a plane that do not...
out from each rail. This divides the table into eight rectangular balkspaces. 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 and another are defined by two measures: 1) the spacing of the balklines, and 2) 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 inches and the second, after a dot, indicates the count restriction which is always either one or two. For example, the name 18.2 balkline, one of the more prominent balkline games, indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches (457.2 mm) distant from each rail, and only 2 counts are allowed in a balkspace before a ball must leave.
Over its history balkline has had many variations including 8.2, 10.2, 12.2, 13.2, 12½.2, 14.1, 14.2, 18.1, 18.2, 28.2, 38.2, 39.2, 42.2, 45.1, 45.2, 47.1, 47.2, 57.2 and 71.2 balkline. In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominate carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards (and pocket billiards
Pocket billiards
Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...
). Balkline is not very common in the U.S., but remains popular in Europe and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
.
Cushion caroms
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and is a descendant of the doublet game dating to at least 1807. The game is sometimes incorrectly referred to as one-cushion or one-cushion billiards, which is the direct translation of its name into English from various other languages such as Spanish ("una banda") and German ("einband").
The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail being struck before the hit on the second object ball. Cushions caroms was defunct for a number of years, but was revived in the late 1860s as another alternative to straight rail, for the same reasons that balkline developed, i.e., as an alternative to the tedium engendered by the use of the "rail nurse" (see above). Cushion caroms is rarely played in the U.S., but it still enjoys some popularity in Europe.
Three-cushion billiards
In three-cushion billiards, sometimes called three-cushion carom, the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three 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 is professional-level play, and averaging 1.5 to 2 is world-class play. An average of one means that for every turn at the table, a player makes 1 point and misses once, thus making a point on 50% of his or her shots.The origin of the game is not entirely known. It is undisputed that one Wayman Crow McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
popularized the game in the 1870s. The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place January 14–31, 1878 in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and New Yorker
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, 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 after 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 September 22, 1924, Willie Hoppe
Willie Hoppe
William Frederick Hoppe , known predominantly as Willie Hoppe , was an internationally renowned American professional carom billiards champion, who was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1966.-Biography:Hoppe was born in Cornwall on Hudson, New York on...
, the world's balkline
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
champion (who later took up three-cushion with a passion), and Ralph Greenleaf
Ralph Greenleaf
Ralph Greenleaf was an American professional pool and carom billiards player, a twenty-time World Pocket Billiards Champion, whose ability and charisma dominated the sport during his heyday.His obituary in The New York Times said of Greenleaf, in March 1950: "What Babe Ruth did for baseball,...
, the world's straight pool
Straight Pool
Straight pool, also called 14.1 continuous or simply 14.1, is a pocket billiards game, and was the common sport of championship competition until overtaken by faster-playing games like nine-ball...
title holder, played a well advertised, multi-day, to 600 . 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, where pool is far more widespread. The principal governing body of the sport is the Union Mondiale de Billard
Union Mondiale de Billard
The Union Mondiale de Billard is the world governing body for carom billiard games. The organization was founded in Madrid, Spain on 1 June 1959, and is dedicated to promoting the modern carom billiards games...
(UMB). It had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s. The International Olympic Committee
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...
-recognized World Pool-Billiard Association
World Pool-Billiard Association
The World Pool-Billiard Association is the international governing body for pocket billiards . The group was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Japan, the United States, Sweden, and Germany...
(WPA) cooperates with the UMB to keep their rulesets synchronized.
Artistic billiards
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
) fantaisie classique, 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 maximum 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. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération Internationale de Billard Artistique (CIBA).
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
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in world competition was 374, by the Frenchman
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Jean Reverchon in 1992, while the highest score in competition overall is 427 set by Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
Walter Bax on March 12, 2006 at a competition held in Deurne, Belgium, beating his own previous record of 425. The game is played predominantly in western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, especially in France, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
External links
- Union Mondiale de Billard — world tournament sanctioning body
- Archival Billiard Resource
- Animation showing the "rail nurse" with a description
- BiliardoWeb - The first Italian Community and e-magazine (in Italian)
- "Il Biliardo Universale", by Fabio Margutti - siteweb on the Margutti's system and theory of the multiple centers (in Italian)
- Carom Cafe Discussion US 3-Cushion billiard online educational resource, centered around CaromCafé community
- USBA 3-Cushion Billiard Rules USBA 3-Cushion Billiard Rules
- Billiard Diamond System Calculator simulates cue ball path on billiard table