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.
Snooker is a cue sport that was first played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century. It is played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth, with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick and 21 coloured balls, players must strike the white ball to pocket the remaining balls in the correct sequence, accumulating points for each pot. An individual game of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points by the end of the frame. A snooker match ends with one of the players having won a predetermined number of frames, thus winning the match.
A tournament is a competition involving 4 or more teams, or a large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is a governing body for cue sports in North America, the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). It was established under this name in 1948 as a non-profit trade organization in order to promote the sport and organize its players via tournaments at various levels. The BCA is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The voting members of the organization are mostly equipment manufacturers.
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.
The American Poolplayers Association (APA) is a governing body for amateur pool competition in the United States. The APA conducts pool leagues and tournaments in the disciplines of eight-ball and nine-ball with a unified ruleset. The organization was founded in 1981 by professional pool players Terry Bell and Larry Hubbart, with roots dating back to the National Pool League (NPL), founded in 1979. The APA bills itself as the largest pool league in the world with a membership of nearly 250,000 players in the United States, Canada, Japan, and China. The organization franchises its local league operations worldwide; some of these league operators are former professional pool players, including Jeanette Lee. It is headquartered in Lake St. Louis, Missouri.
The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) is a college athletics association like the NAIA and NCAA. The purpose of the Association is to be an organization of collegiate affiliated programs, which provides structure, regulates operations, and promotes quality in collegiate ice hockey. The interest in college hockey has grown as the game of hockey has grown in the United States. But as aggressively as the sport has grown at the grass-roots level, the number of NCAA programs has not expanded as rapidly to meet the demand as these youth players reach college and look to extend their hockey-playing experience. This is why the ACHA level was created.
Lynette Horsburgh is a Scottish-English semi-professional, world champion pool and national champion snooker player, as well as an international-class player of English billiards. In sport, she represents Scotland. Outside sport, she is a professional Web content producer and journalist at BBC News Online.
Matchroom Sport is a sporting event promotions company founded by English entrepreneur Barry Hearn and his son Eddie Hearn. It first came to attention in the sports of snooker and boxing and is also involved in pool, bowling, golf, fishing, darts, table tennis, poker and gymnastics. The company is based in Brentwood, Essex. Matchroom has a comprehensive broadcasting agreement in the United Kingdom with Sky Sports.
The United States Professional Poolplayers Association (UPA) is the governing body for the sport of men's professional pool in the United States, as well as the organizer of a major national amateur league, and a variety of pro and amateur tournaments. The organization, now based in Manhattan, was founded in January 2002 in Arizona by professional players,> to replace several competing and dysfunctional men's professional pool organizations which had suffered years of problems such as inability to pay out winnings or to keep a stable schedule of competitions. UPA was formerly named the United States Pool Players Association, and has also frequently been unofficially referred to as USPPA or USPA, especially in reference to its professional side versus its amateur UPA League operations. The organization's motto is "Evolve Your Game". The UPA Tour series of pro tournaments cover multiple pool disciplines, including eight-ball, nine-ball, ten-ball, and straight pool; the amateur UPA National Championships are team eight- and nine-ball events. The organization also offers instructional programs, and event promotion/production for pool tournaments and trade shows.
Sports table football is a competitive form of tabletop football which simulates association football. Since 1992, the sport has been governed worldwide by the Federation of International Sports Table Football (FISTF). Informal play of such games date back to Newfooty Company in 1929, with Subbuteo Sports Games introducing the style of figure used in modern sports table football in 1947. (See Tabletop football § History for details.)
Dennis Orcollo, sometimes called Dennis Orcullo, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "Surigao" and "RoboCop". He has been called "the Philippines' Money-game King".
Table football, also known as table soccer, and known as foosball in North America, is a table-top game that is loosely based on football. The aim of the game is to move the ball into the opponent's goal by manipulating rods which have figures attached. Although rules often vary by country and region when the game is played casually, at the competitive level table soccer is played according to a unified code.
Jasmin Ouschan is an Austrian professional pool player from Klagenfurt, Carinthia. Her first professional competition occurred in 2002, but she did not officially become a professional member of the Women's Professional Billiards Association (WPBA) until 2007. She is currently one of the top-ranked women in the world according to the 2010 prize money list and by the WPBA rankings. At times, she has been ranked as the number one female player in the world. Since 2006, she has been listed among the top-ten women in the annual prize money rankings. Ouschan competes regularly with men on the Euro Tour and in 2008 became the first woman to earn a medal in an open world pool championship.
A trick shot is a shot played on a billiards table, which seems unlikely or impossible or requires significant skill. Trick shots frequently involve the balls organized in ways that are unlikely or impossible to appear in normal play, such as balls being in a straight line, or use props such as extra cues or a triangle that would not be allowed on the table during a game. As an organized cue sports discipline, trick shot competition is known as artistic pool.
The World Table Tennis Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's double and mixed doubles, are currently held in odd numbered years. The World Team Table Tennis Championships, which include men's team and women's team events, were first their own competition in 2000. The Team Championships are held in even numbered years.
The Championship of the Ukrainian SSR in football was a top competition of association football in the Ukrainian SSR in 1921-91. Number of Ukrainian clubs almost never competed in the championship such as Dynamo Kyiv.
Valley-Dynamo, Inc. is a gaming and sporting goods manufacturing company. It has been the dominant manufacturer of coin-operated pool tables in North America for over 6 decades, and produces the US-ubiquitous Valley brand and decreasingly common Dynamo brand. The company also manufactures other market-leader brand names, including Tornado brand table football (foosball), Dynamo air hockey, and Champion indoor shuffleboard tables, as well as Sun Glo shuffleboard equipment, for both the home and coin-op markets.
