A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient, and resilience are important to accuracy.
Early balls were made of various materials, including wood and clay (the latter remaining in use well into the 20th century). Although affordable ox-bone balls were in common use in Europe, elephant ivory was favored since at least 1627 until the early 20th century; [1] : 17 the earliest known written reference to ivory billiard balls is in the 1588 inventory of the Duke of Norfolk. [2] Dyed and numbered balls appeared around the early 1770s. [1] : 17 By the mid-19th century, elephants were being slaughtered for their ivory at an alarming rate, just to keep up with the demand for high-end billiard balls – no more than eight balls could be made from a single elephant's tusks.[ citation needed ] The billiard industry realized that the supply of elephants (their primary source of ivory) was endangered, as well as dangerous to obtain (the latter an issue of notable public concern at the turn of the 19th century). [1] : 17 Inventors were challenged to come up with an alternative material that could be manufactured, with a US$10,000 (worth approximately $228,900 in 2024 [3] ) prize being offered by a New York supplier. [1] : 17
Although not the first artificial substance to be used for the balls (e.g. Sorel cement, invented in 1867, was marketed as an artificial ivory), John Wesley Hyatt patented an "ivory imitation" composite made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and ground cattle bone in May 4, 1869 (US patent 89582, the first US billiard ball patent). The material was a success, and was sold as Bonzoline, Crystalate, Ivorylene until the 1960s, and was used by prominent professional players such as John Roberts Jr (1847–1919), Charles Dawson (1866–1921), and Walter Lindrum (1898–1960). The ivory substitute was one the most significant early reinforced plastics; induced the global growth of billiards, pool, and snooker; and helped create a modern idea that the artificial can surpass the natural. [4] [5] It is unclear if the cash prize was ever awarded, and there is no evidence suggesting he did in fact win it. [1] : 17 [6]
However, Hyatt's composite had problems. One of the most relevant is cellulose nitrate flammability, not because of making the billiard balls explode, as is often claimed, but because of the dangers of handling it in its pure form during manufacturing. Another problem was related to camphor mass exploitation, leading to the devastation of Taiwan's forests and displacement of indigenous communities. [4] [7] Subsequently, the industry experimented with various other synthetic materials for billiard balls such as Bakelite, acrylic, and other plastic compounds.
The exacting requirements of the billiard ball are met today with balls cast from plastic materials that are strongly resistant to cracking and chipping. Currently Saluc, under the brand name Aramith and other private labels, manufactures phenolic resin balls. [8] [9] Other plastics and resins such as polyester (similar to those used for bowling balls) and clear acrylic are also used.
Ivory balls remained in use in artistic billiards competition until the late 20th century. [1] : 17
In the realm of carom billiards games, three balls are used to play most games on pocketless billiards tables. Carom balls are not numbered, and are 61–61.5 mm (approximately 2+13⁄32 in) in diameter, and a weight ranging between 205 and 220 grams (7.2 and 7.8 oz) with a typical weight of 210 g (7.5 oz). [10] They are typically colored as follows:
1 | solid yellow | |||
2 | solid blue | |||
3 | solid red | |||
4 | solid purple | |||
5 | solid orange | |||
6 | solid green | |||
7 | solid maroon | |||
8 | solid black | |||
9 | yellow stripe | |||
10 | blue stripe | |||
11 | red stripe | |||
12 | purple stripe | |||
13 | orange stripe | |||
14 | green stripe | |||
15 | maroon stripe | |||
• | cue ball , white or off-white (sometimes with one or more spots) |
Pool balls are used to play various pool games, such as eight-ball, nine-ball, and straight pool. These balls, the most widely used throughout the world, are smaller than carom billiards balls, and larger than those for snooker. According to World Pool-Billiard Association equipment specifications, the weight may be from 5+1⁄2 to 6.0 oz (160–170 g) with a diameter of 2+1⁄4 in (57 mm), plus or minus 0.005 in (0.127 mm). [11] [12]
The balls are numbered and colored as in the table show here. Balls 1 through 7 are the suit of solids and 9 through 15 are the stripes . The 8 ball is not considered part of either suit. Striped balls were introduced around 1889. [1] : 246
Rotation games do not distinguish between solids and stripes, but rather use the numbering on the balls to determine which object ball must be pocketed. In other games such as straight pool neither type of marking is of any consequence.
Some balls used in televised pool games are colored differently in order to make them more distinguishable on television monitors. Most commonly, the dark purple used on the 4 and 12 balls is replaced by pink to make it easier to distinguish the 4 from the black 8 ball, and similarly the 7 and 15 balls use a lighter brown color instead of a deep maroon. Other, less common color substitutions are also found, dependent on manufacturer. These sets often have a cue ball with multiple spots on its surface so that spin placed on it is evident to viewers.
Coin-operated pool tables, such as those found at bowling alleys, arcades, or bars/pubs, may use a slightly different-sized cue ball, so that the cue ball can be separated from object balls by the table's ball return mechanism and delivered into its own ball return. Such different sized cue balls are considered less than ideal because they change the dynamics of the equipment. Other tables use a system where a magnet pulls a cue ball with a thin layer of metal embedded inside away from the object ball collection chamber and into the cue ball return, allowing the cue ball to more closely match the object balls in size and weight. More recently, optical systems that recognize the cue ball, which is more translucent than the other balls due to its solid white color, and separate it mechanically have been developed.
In British-style eight-ball pool and its blackball variant, fifteen object balls are used, but fall into two unnumbered group s, the reds (or less commonly blues ) and yellows , with a white cue ball, and black 8 ball.
Aside from the 8, shots are not called since there is no reliable way to identify particular balls to be pocketed. Because they are unnumbered, they are wholly unsuited to certain pool games, such as nine-ball, in which ball order is important. They are typically smaller than the American-style balls; the most common object ball diameters are 2 in (51 mm) and 2+1⁄16 in (52 mm). [13] The yellow-and-red sets are sometimes referred to as "casino sets" as they were developed to make identification of suits easier for spectators at eight-ball championships often held in casinos. [1] : 45 Such sets were sold by the Brunswick–Balke–Collender Co. as early as 1908. [1] : 24 Similar to standard pool balls, there are also special sets designed for televised games; these sets have a black-striped 8 ball, and a spotted cue ball.
Colour | Value |
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![]() | 1 point |
![]() | 2 points |
![]() | 3 points |
![]() | 4 points |
![]() | 5 points |
![]() | 6 points |
![]() | 7 points |
Ball sets for snooker consist of twenty-two balls in total, arranged as a rack of 15 unmarked red balls, six colour ball s placed at various predetermined spots on the table, and a white cue ball. The colour balls are sometimes numbered with their point values in the style of pool balls for the home market.
Snooker balls are standardized at 52.5 mm (2+1⁄16 in) in diameter within a tolerance of plus or minus 0.05 mm (0.002 in). No standard weight is defined, but all balls in the set must be the same weight within a tolerance of 3 g (0.11 oz). [14] Snooker sets are also available with considerably smaller-than-regulation balls (and even with ten instead of fifteen reds) for play on smaller tables (down to half-size), and are sanctioned for use in some amateur leagues. Sets for American snooker are typically 2+1⁄8 in (54.0 mm), with numbered colour balls.
The set of eight colours used for snooker balls (including white) are thought to be derived from croquet, which uses the same set of colors. Snooker was invented in 1884 by British Army officers stationed in India. Croquet reached its peak popularity at the same time, particularly among people in the same social context. There are many other similarities between croquet and snooker, which when taken together, suggest that the derivation of the latter owes much to the existence of the former. [15]
Various other games have their own variants of billiard balls. English billiards uses the same number of balls as carom billiards, but the same size as snooker balls, as the game is played on the same size table as snooker. Each player uses a separate cue ball, with modern English billiards sets using one white ball with red spots and the other being yellow with red spots.
Russian pyramid uses a set of fifteen numbered white balls and a red or yellow cue ball that are even larger than carom billiards balls at 68 millimetres (2+11⁄16 in). Kaisa has the same pocket and ball dimensions but uses only five balls: one yellow, two red and two white cue balls, one for each player. [16]
Bumper pool requires four white and four red object balls, and two special balls, one red with a white spot and the other white with red spot; all are usually 2+1⁄8 inches (54 mm) in diameter. Bar billiards uses six or seven white balls (depending on regional variations) and one red ball 1+7⁄8 in (48 mm) in diameter.
There is a market for specialty cue balls and even entire ball sets, featuring sports team logos, cartoon characters, animal pelt patterns, or other non-standard decorations.
Entrepreneurial inventors also supply a variety of novelty billiard games with unique rules and balls, some with playing card markings, others with stars and stripes, and yet others in sets of more than thirty balls in several suits. Marbled-looking and glittery materials are also popular for home tables. There are even blacklight sets for playing in near-dark. There are also practical joke cue and 8 balls, with off-center weights in them that make their paths curve and wobble. Miniature sets in various sizes (typically +2⁄3 or +1⁄2 of normal size) are also commonly available, primarily intended for undersized toy tables. Even an egg-shaped ball has been patented [17] and marketed under such names as Bobble Ball and Tag Ball.
The 8 ball is frequently used in Western, especially American, culture as an element of T-shirt designs, album covers and names, tattoos, household goods like paperweights and cigarette lighters, belt buckles, etc. A classic toy is the Magic 8-Ball "oracle".
The term "8-ball" is also slang both for 1⁄8 ounce (3.5 g) of cocaine or crystal meth, and for a bottle of Olde English 800 malt liquor. It has also been used to refer to African-Americans, particularly those of darker skin tones, as in the film Full Metal Jacket . The expression "behind the eight [ball]" is used to indicate a dilemma from which it is difficult to extricate oneself. The term derives from the game kelly pool. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
Because the collisions between billiard balls are nearly elastic, and the balls roll on a surface that produces low rolling friction, their behavior is often used to illustrate Newton's laws of motion. Idealized, frictionless billiard balls are a staple of mathematical theorems and physics models, and figure in dynamical billiards, scattering theory, Lissajous knots, billiard ball computing, and reversible cellular automata, Polchinski's paradox, contact dynamics, collision detection, the illumination problem, atomic ultracooling, quantum mirages, and elsewhere in these fields.
"Billiard balls" or "pool balls" is the name given to balls used in stage magic tricks, especially the classic "multiplying billiard balls". Though obviously derived from real billiard balls, today they are usually smaller, for easier manipulation and hiding, but not so small and light that they are difficult to juggle, as the magic and juggling disciplines have often overlapped since their successful combination by pioneers like Paul Vandy.
The phrase "as smooth as a billiard ball" is sometimes applied to describe a bald person, and the term "cue ball" is also slang for someone who sports a shaved head.
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
Eight-ball is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls. The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.
English billiards, called simply billiards in the United Kingdom and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two cue balls and a red object ball are used. Each player or team uses a different cue ball. It is played on a billiards table with the same dimensions as one used for snooker and points are scored for cannons and pocketing the balls.
Carom billiards, also called French billiards and sometimes carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball 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.
Russian pyramid, also known as Russian billiards, is a form of billiards played on a large billiard table with narrow pockets. It is played across Russia and several former Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries. In the West, the game is known as pyramid billiards, or simply pyramid.
Straight rail, also called straight billiards, three-ball billiards, or the free game, is a discipline of carom billiards that is the most basic form of the game. The game is played on a pocketless unmarked billiard table, usually 10 by 5 feet in size, and three billiard balls, one, usually white, that serves as the cue ball for the first player, a second cue ball for the second player, and an object ball, usually red. The object of the game is to score points by striking the player's assigned cue ball with a cue stick so it makes contact with both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball in the same stroke, known as a carom. Games are played to a predetermined number of points.
A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth, and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole thing elevated above the floor. More specific terms are used for specific sports, such as snooker table and pool table, and different-sized billiard balls are used on these table types. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the rails, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".
Four-ball billiards or four-ball carom is a carom billiards game, played on a pocketless table with four billiard balls, usually two red and two white, one of the latter with a spot to distinguish it. Each player is assigned one of the white balls as a cue ball. A point is scored when a shooter's cue ball caroms on any two other balls in the same shot. Two points are scored when the shooter caroms on each of the three object balls in a single shot. A carom on only one ball results in no points, and ends the shooter's inning.
The following is a glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports disciplines: carom billiards referring to the various carom games played on a billiard table without pockets; pool, which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; and snooker, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sport culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also games such as English billiards that include aspects of multiple disciplines.
Cowboy pool is a hybrid pool game combining elements of English billiards through an intermediary game, with more standard pocket billiards characteristics. The game employs four balls, the cue ball and three others, numbered one, three, and five. A game of Cowboy pool is contested as a race to 101 points, with those points being awarded for a host of different shot types. Dating back to 1908, the game is a strictly amateur pastime.
Honolulu, also known as banks, kisses, and combinations or indirect, is a pocket billiards game. Players must pocket all shots in an indirect fashion to reach a set number of points. The game shares some similarities with other cue sports, played on tables and with balls used for pool, but differs with foul points being awarded for regular direct shots.
Five-pin billiards or simply five-pins or 5-pins, is today usually a carom billiards form of cue sport, though sometimes still played on a pocket table. In addition to the customary three balls of most carom games, it makes use of a set of five upright pins (skittles) arranged in a "+" pattern at the center of the table. The game is popular especially in Italy and Argentina, but also in some other parts of Latin America and Europe, with international, televised professional tournaments. It is sometimes referred to as Italian five-pins or Italian billiards, or as simply italiana. A variant of the game, goriziana or nine-pins, adds additional skittles to the formation. A related pocket game, with larger pins, is played in Scandinavia and is referred to in English as Danish pin billiards, with a Swedish variant that has some rules more similar to the Italian game.
Bottle pool, also known as bottle-billiards and bottle pocket billiards, is a hybrid billiards game combining aspects of both carom billiards and pocket billiards. Played on a standard pool table, the game uses just two object balls, a cue ball, and a 6+3⁄4 inches (170 mm) tall, narrow-necked bottle called a shake bottle or tally bottle, traditionally made from leather, that is placed on the table and used as a target for caroms. Those unfamiliar with the game sometimes mistakenly use its name as a synonym for the very different game of kelly pool. Bottle pool has been described as combining "elements of billiards, straight pool and chess under a set of rules that lavishly rewards strategic shot making and punishes mistakes with Sisyphean point reversals."
The English-originating version of eight-ball pool, also known as English pool, English eight-ball, blackball, or simply reds and yellows, is a pool game played with sixteen balls on a small pool table with six pockets. It originated in the United Kingdom and is played in the Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool".
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 cushions attached to the confining rails of the table.
Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet, wooden balls, a hoop, and an upright skittle or pin. The game, which cue-sports historians have called "the original game of billiards", developed into a variety of modern outdoor and indoor games and sports such as croquet, pool, snooker, and carom billiards. Its relationship to games played on larger fields, such as hockey, golf, and bat-and-ball games, is more speculative. As a broader classification, the term is sometimes applied to games dating back to classical antiquity that are attested via difficult-to-interpret ancient artworks and rare surviving gaming artifacts.
American snooker is a cue sport played almost exclusively in the United States, and strictly on a recreational, amateur basis. Diverging from the original game of snooker, rules for American snooker date back to at least 1925, and have been promulgated by the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) since the mid-20th century. The game is in decline, as the standardized international rules have largely supplanted it.
A cue stick is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the cue ball. Cues are tapered sticks, typically about 57–59 inches long and usually between 16 and 21 ounces (450–600 g), with professionals gravitating toward a 19-ounce (540 g) average. Cues for carom tend toward the shorter range, though cue length is primarily a factor of player height and arm length. Most cues are made of wood, but occasionally the wood is covered or bonded with other materials including graphite, carbon fiber or fiberglass. An obsolete term for a cue, used from the 16th to early 19th centuries, is billiard stick.
Slosh is a cue sport played on a snooker table. The game features seven balls, coloured white, yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black, with points being scored for pocketing or playing caroms and cannons off object balls. The game is played to a score of 100 points, or a length of 30 minutes. First played in the early 1900s, not much is known about the game's origins.
11 balls of yveryThis is a revised version of The Story of Billiards and Snooker, 1979.