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.
Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
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.
Pankaj Arjan Advani is an Indian billiards and professional snooker player. He is a 27-time International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) world champion. He has won 18 billiards world titles, the IBSF World Billiards Championship on 17 occasions and the World Team Billiards Championship once. In snooker, he won the IBSF World Snooker Championship three times, IBSF World six-red championship twice and the IBSF World Team Cup and IBSF World Team Championship one time each. He has the record number of IBSF world championships. He became a snooker professional in 2012/2013.
Tammy Cantoni is an Australian semi-professional pool and snooker player. She won the National championships in women's divisions in snooker (2004) and nine-ball. She was the runner-up in the 2009 open (mixed-gender) division of the Australian Nine-ball Championship and in 2010 was listed 56th in the World Pool Billiard Association women rankings.
Corey Deuel is an American professional pool player from West Jefferson, Ohio. Nicknamed "Prince of Pool", he won the US Open Nine-ball Championship in 2001, and has won many other major titles. In January 2008, he was ranked the second highest US pool player by the United States Professional Poolplayers Association. He regularly represents the US in the Mosconi Cup. In 2010, he again was selected for the US team in the Mosconi Cup and was responsible for winning 2 of the US team's 8 points in the event. His tournament walk-on music is "Disco Inferno" by the Trammps.
The International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) is an organisation that governs non-professional snooker and English billiards around the world. As of January 2020, the organisation is headquartered in Doha, Qatar.
The World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS) is the international umbrella organization encompassing the major cue sports, including carom billiards, pool games of several varieties, and snooker.
The World Billiards Championship is an international cue sports tournament in the discipline of English billiards, organised by World Billiards, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA). In its various forms, and usually as a single competition, the title is one of the oldest sporting world championships, having been contested since 1870.
Shawn Budd, is a professional snooker and pool player that has won major snooker and pool tournaments in Australia, New Zealand, England and America. He is the only Australian snooker player ever to win the Australian Open Snooker, Australian National Snooker, Australian 9-ball and 8-ball titles. Also he has won the Oceania Snooker championships and was runner up in the Oceania Billiards Championship in the same year. In 2002 he was a quarter finalist in the IBSF World Billiards Championships. In 1994 he won the Valley National Open 8-ball tournament in Las Vegas and in 2001 he won the Masters 8-ball event. The event is now called the World Pool Championships.
Ng On-yee is a Hong Kong snooker player who has won three IBSF World Snooker Championships and three World Women's Snooker world championships. She held the number one position in the World Women's Snooker world ranking list from February 2018 to April 2019.
Yana Shut is a Belarusian amateur snooker and professional pool player. She is the first IBSF Under-18 World Snooker Champion and also WLBSA World Snooker Mixed Doubles Champion. In 2018 she became European Champion in 10-Ball.
The year of 2019 included professional tournaments surrounding table-top cue sports. These events include snooker, pool disciplines and billiards. Whilst these are traditionally singles sports, some matches and tournaments are held as doubles, or team events. The snooker season runs between May and April, whilst the pool and billiards seasons run in the calendar year.
Anastasia Nechaeva is a Russian amateur snooker and professional pool player. She was runner-up in the 2014 and 2015 IBSF World Snooker Championships.
Diana Stateczny is a German snooker and professional pool player. She won the women's 2019 EBSA European Snooker Championship.
The Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) was the governing body of the games of English billiards and snooker and organised professional and amateur championships in both sports. It was formed in 1919 by the union of the Billiards Association and the Billiards Control Club.
Daria Sirotina is a Russian amateur snooker and professional pool player. She won the European Ladies Team Championship, partnered with Anastasia Nechaeva, each year from 2012 to 2016. She was runner-up in the women's 2013 IBSF World Six-reds Championship, failing to score in three of the four frames in the final, losing 0–4 to Ng On-yee.
Ian Williamson is an English former professional snooker and English billiards player.
In 2018, championships were held across three continents to determine the best players in major cue sports, including snooker, pool, and English billiards. While these are mostly single player sports, some matches and tournaments are held as either doubles or as team events. The snooker season runs between May and April; the pool and billiards seasons run through the calendar year.
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