Snooker

Snooker is a British table game that dates back to the 1870s. It involves using a cue, a specialized stick with a soft tip, to hit balls into pockets. Snooker is played on a six-by-twelve-foot English snooker table. However, other table variants are used when a traditional table is inconvenient. Snooker is popular throughout Europe, and hundreds of millions of people watch world snooker championship tournaments each year.

Brief History

Snooker originated from English billiards. The game was first played in India in 1875. At the time, India was a British colony. Few records from that time exist, but most experts believe that snooker's rules were first written by a British Army officer stationed in India. The officers were experimenting with Pyramids, a variant of English billiards that utilizes fifteen red balls, and Life Pool, another variant of English billiards that utilizes balls of various colors. Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain, a British officer stationed in India, claimed to have been the first to combine the two games, creating snooker. Although his claims were corroborated by others, Chamberlain was unable to provide any definitive proof. For this reason, his story is doubted by some members of the snooker community.

The popular new game quickly spread among soldiers in India. When the soldiers returned home to Britain, they brought snooker with them. The earliest correspondence describing the games dates to 1886. In the letter, Captain Sheldrick describes the game "Snookers," which involved fifteen red balls and several colored balls of different values. It also described gambling on games of snooker, supporting arguments that gambling on snooker was popular from the earliest days of the game.

Modern snooker's rules were first formalized on December 11, 1900, at the offices of the Billiards Association in London, England. Because the game was already extremely popular throughout Britain, however, a large number of variants existed. Some included different numbers of colored balls, while others altered the placement or values of the colored balls. By 1909, two primary governing bodies had developed: the Billiard Association and the Billiards Control Club. Each organization had its own variant of the rules and ran large tournaments according to those rules. The variants had major differences in scoring and penalties, making it difficult for new players to transition between the two types of snooker. By 1913, after popular demand, the two organizations merged to become the Billiards Association and Control Council. Following the merger, the rules of snooker were standardized.

Overview

By the mid-2020s, snooker was played by hundreds of million people in more than 100 countries. While billiards is the most common game in the United States, several states have large populations of snooker players. Throughout Europe, especially in former British colonies, snooker is far more popular than billiards. Tournaments are held annually in many European countries. In the 2023/2024 season, twenty-six full-ranking snooker tournaments were held throughout the world. These included the World Snooker Championship, the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters, the British Open, and a variety of European and Asian tour events. The total prize pool for those tournaments was in excess of thirteen million euros.

Snooker is played with specialized equipment. A snooker table looks similar to a billiards table, but the two are made to different specifications. A snooker table is a flat, rectangular surface with felt stretched tightly over the playing area. Every side of the rectangle is enclosed by raised, padded rails. Pockets with rounded edges are placed at each corner and in the centers of the two long rails. The table has a total of six pockets. A tournament-quality snooker table is roughly twelve feet long by six feet wide.

Snooker balls have a diameter of 2 1/16 inches, with a tolerance of .05 millimeters. They are all of equal weight. Fifteen of the balls are red. The red balls are accompanied by single yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black, and white balls. The white ball is called the cue ball.

Snooker cues are long wooden, plastic, or metal sticks that taper to a small point, called a tip. The tip of a snooker cue is leather, felt, or some other soft material. This gives snooker players a great deal of control over the ball they are hitting. Several types of cue extensions and cue rests may be used by players faced with difficult or hard-to-reach shots.

Rules

When beginning a game of snooker, the red balls are placed in a pyramid at a predetermined mark on one half of the table. The black ball is placed behind the center of the pyramid. The pink ball is placed directly at the front of the pyramid, touching the top ball. The blue ball is placed in the center of the table. The yellow, brown, and green balls are placed in a line on the half of the table opposite the pyramid.

To begin the game, the player hits the cue ball into another ball with the intention of knocking that ball into one of the pockets. On the first shot of a turn, the cue ball must make contact with a red ball before making contact with any other ball. If the red ball is pushed into a pocket, the player's next shot may be aimed at any other ball on the table. As the player continues making shots, they must alternate between aiming at red balls and aiming at balls of other colors. If the player fails to make a designated shot, their turn is over, and their opponent may begin shooting.

Players score points by pushing balls into pockets. Different colored balls are worth different amounts of points. Red balls are worth one point each. The yellow ball is worth two points, the green three, the brown four, the blue five, the pink six, and the black seven. Pushing the cue ball into a pocket is considered a foul and incurs a penalty. Balls must be pocketed in order of ascending point value to score points.

Bibliography

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"About Snooker: Rules & Regulations." Snooker USA, snookerusa.com/aboutsnooker/rules1.php. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.

"Rules of Snooker." Billiard World, billiardworld.com/snooker.html. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.

“Season 2023-2024 - Professional.” CueTracker, cuetracker.net/seasons/2023-2024?utm‗source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.

Shamos, Mike. "A Brief History of the Noble Game of Billiards." Billiard Congress of America, 1995, bca-pool.com/?page=37. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025

“Snooker Supports Paris 2024 Olympic Bid.” World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, 30 Nov. 2018, wpbsa.com/snooker-supports-paris-2024-olympic-bid/?utm‗source=chatgpt.com. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.

"USSA Organization: About the USSA." Snooker USA, www.snookerusa.com/united-states-snooker-association. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.