Goriziana or nine-pin billiards (also known as nine-pins, 9-pins, etc.) is a carom billiards game, especially popular in Italy. [1]
Like the cue sport most closely related to it, five-pin billiards, goriziana is played on a 284 cm by 142 cm table.
In goriziana, nine pins sit in the center of the table. Three balls are used, of which two are cue balls. The game is played by two teams of one or two players. Each team or player aims to hit the opponent's ball and, from there, score points by striking the red ball, or by making the opponent's balls or the red ball knock over the pins.
Unlike in many games, shots are always taken in rotation – the same player or team never shoots twice in a row, even if they have scored. The only exception is if the opponent fouls before shooting, such as by moving one of the balls accidentally. Play continues until one player or team wins by being the first to reach or exceed a specific number of points (usually 200 or 300). This number is agreed upon beforehand by the players.
The main difference between five-pins and nine-pins is in scoring. Point values are more complex than and increased from those of the simpler five-pin game.
Scoring:
In case of a foul, two points are deducted, and any points the shooter would have earned on the foul shot are nullified. Examples of fouls:
Goriziana is primarily popular in Italy, and amateur players there have developed many variants of the game. Some of these variants are played in tournaments.
This variant, also called tutti doppi ("all-doubled"), is officially recognized by the Italian Federation of Billiard Sports (FIBiS). The point values in the normal game are doubled in this version:
This variant is the same as goriziana ×2, except that the score for striking the red pin alone is eighty points instead of sixty, and eighty points are also awarded if five pins in a vertical or horizontal row are struck.
Cue sports, also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions.
Eight-ball is a pool billiards played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls: a cue ball and fifteen object 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.
Nine-ball is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls in ascending numerical order. An individual game is won by the player pocketing the 9-ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.
Bar billiards is a form of billiards which developed from the French/Belgian game billiard russe, of Russian origin. Bar billiards in its current form started in the UK in the 1930s and now has leagues in Sussex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Suffolk and Northamptonshire. These counties comprise the All England Bar Billiards Association. There are also leagues in Guernsey and Jersey where the annual world championships take place.
English billiards, called simply billiards in the United Kingdom, where it originated, and in many former British colonies such as Australia, 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 a snooker table and points are scored for cannons and pocketing the balls. English billiards has also, but less frequently, been referred to as "the English game", "the all-in game" and (formerly) "the common game".
Golf billiards is a pocket billiards game usually played for money. Unlike the majority of such games, it allows more than two people to play without compromises or rule changes. The game borrows from the outdoor game of golf, which is historically related to the cue sports. It is usually played on 10-foot or 12-foot snooker tables as their size and structure are more appropriate.
Russian pyramid, also known as Russian billiards (Russian: ру́сский билья́рд, russky bilyard, is a form of pocket billiards played on a modified snooker table with narrower pockets. It is popular across Eastern Europe as well as countries of the former Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc. A variant with colored balls modeled on those of pool is known as Russian pool. In Western countries, the game is known as pyramid billiards, or simply pyramid within professional circles.
Pool is a classification of cue sports played on a table with six pockets along the rails, into which balls are deposited. Each specific pool game has its own name; some of the better-known include eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank 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.
Bank pool is a pool game that has as its most fundamental requirement that all scoring shots in the game must be made by banking a called ball off a cushion and into a called pocket. While the game has multiple variations, the predominant version through much of its history was played with a full fifteen-ball rack, of which the winning player was required to legally pocket eight balls. A shortened version of the game using nine balls of which the players must legally pocket five for the win, often called "nine-ball banks," gained popularity in the 1990s and 2000s and is the subject of international professional competition and televised matches.
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 hybrid pocket/carom games such as English billiards.
Rotation, sometimes called rotation pool or 61, is a pool game, played with a pocketed billiards table, cue ball, and triangular rack of fifteen billiard balls, in which the lowest-numbered object ball on the table must be always struck by the cue ball first, to attempt to pocket numbered balls for points.
Three-ball is a folk game of pool played with any three standard pool object balls and cue ball. The game is frequently gambled upon. The goal is to pocket the three object balls in as few shots as possible. Theoretically, any number of players can participate, in rotation, but more than five can become unwieldy. The game involves a somewhat more significant amount of luck than either nine-ball or eight-ball, because of the disproportionate value of pocketing balls on the break shot and increased difficulty of doing so. In some areas and subcultures, such as the Asian-American youth-dominated pool hall scene of San Francisco, California, three-ball is a popular local tournament game.
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 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.
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours: yellow, green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6), black (7). A player wins a frame of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent(s), using the cue ball to pot the red and coloured balls. A player wins a match when they have achieved the best-of score from a pre-determined number of frames. The number of frames is always odd so as to prevent a tie or a draw.
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 6¾ inch (171 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."
Blackball pool, also known as reds and yellows and English eight-ball, is a pool game originating in the United Kingdom and popularized across Europe and The Commonwealth, such as Australia and South Africa. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool". The game is played with sixteen balls on a small pool table with six pockets.
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.
Danish billiards or keglebillard, sometimes called Danish five-pin billiards, is the traditional cue sport of Denmark, and the game remains predominantly played in that country. It makes use of a 5 × 10 ft six-pocket table, three billiard balls, and five pins, which are considerably larger than those used in the similar and internationally standardized game of five-pin billiards.
Pin billiards may refer to any of a fairly large number of billiard games that uses a pin, or a set of "pins" or "skittles". The earliest form of billiards, ground billiards, was played with a single pin called the "king". Table billiards kept the king until the mid-18th century. There are billiard games played with as many as thirteen pins.
Italian Federation of Billiard Sport (FIBIS)
| Pool games |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Carom billiards | ||
| Other games | ||
| Resources | ||
| Major international tournaments |
| |
| Other events | ||
| Governing bodies | ||
| Categories | ||
| ||