Portal:Cue sports
The Cue Sports Portal
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.
There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:
- Carom billiards, played on tables without pockets, typically ten feet in length, including straight rail, balkline, one-cushion carom, three-cushion billiards, artistic billiards, and four-ball
- Pocket billiards (or pool), played on six-pocket tables of seven, eight, nine, or ten-foot length, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball (the dominant professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly dominant pro game), one-pocket, and bank pool
- Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid, played on a large, six-pocket table (dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft), all of which are classified separately from pool based on distinct development histories, player culture, rules, and terminology.
Billiards has a long history from its inception in the 15th century, with many mentions in the works of Shakespeare, including the line "let's to billiards" in Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07). Enthusiasts of the sport have included Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Immanuel Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason. (Full article...)
-
The 2015 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2015 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament which took place from 18 April to 4 May 2015 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 39th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and was the final ranking event of the 2014–15 snooker season. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event for the first time in three years, having previously done so from 2009 to 2012. The top sixteen players in the snooker world rankings were placed into the draw, and another sixteen players qualified for the event at a tournament taking place from 8 to 15 April 2015 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield.
Mark Selby was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2014 final. Selby lost 9–13 in the second round to event debutant Anthony McGill, and became the 16th first-time champion unable to defend his title at the venue. Shaun Murphy, the 2005 winner, met Stuart Bingham in the final. Bingham, who was given odds of 50–1 to win the tournament by bookmakers before the start of the tournament, defeated Murphy 18–15 in the final to win the first world title of his 20-year professional career. Aged 38, Bingham became the oldest player to win the title since Ray Reardon in 1978. (Full article...) -
The 2021 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2021 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 17 April to 3 May 2021 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 45th consecutive year the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible Theatre and the 15th and final ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season. It was organised by the World Snooker Tour. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred and broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. It featured a total prize fund of £2,395,000 of which the winner received £500,000.
Qualifying for the tournament took place between 5 and 14 April 2021 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, consisting of a mix of professional and invited amateur players. The main stage of the tournament featured 32 players: the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings and an additional 16 players from the qualifying rounds. Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having won his sixth world title at the previous year's event, where he defeated Kyren Wilson 18–8 in the final. O'Sullivan lost in the second round to Anthony McGill 12–13. Mark Selby defeated Shaun Murphy 18–15 in the final to win his fourth world title and the 20th ranking title of his career. There were a record 108 century breaks made at the Crucible, with an additional 106 made in qualifying rounds. The tournament's highest break was 144 by Murphy in the second round. (Full article...) -
The 2021 Masters (officially the 2021 Betfred Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 10 and 17 January 2021 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. It was the 47th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2020–21 season, following the 2020 UK Championship and preceding the 2021 World Snooker Championship. The top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings were invited to compete in a knockout tournament. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association organised the tournament, which was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. It was played behind closed doors because of COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom. Two players, world number one Judd Trump and Jack Lisowski, withdrew from the event after testing positive for COVID-19.
The defending champion, Stuart Bingham, had defeated Ali Carter 10–8 in the previous year's final. Bingham lost 6–5 to Yan Bingtao in the semi-finals. Yan (one of three debutants at the event, alongside Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Gary Wilson) met John Higgins in the final. Yan completed a 10–8 victory to win his first Triple Crown tournament. As the winner of the event, Yan was awarded £250,000 from the total prize pool of £725,000. The highest break of the event was a 145 made by Higgins in his quarter-final win over Ronnie O'Sullivan which earned him £15,000. (Full article...) -
Snooker (pronounced UK: /ˈsnuːkər/ SNOO-kər, US: /ˈsnʊkər/ SNUUK-ər) 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.
In 1875, army officer Neville Chamberlain, stationed in India, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. (Full article...) -
The 2020 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2020 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 31 July to 16 August 2020 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible. The final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the tournament was originally scheduled to take place from 18 April to 4 May 2020, but both the qualifying stage and the main rounds were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was one of the first to allow live audiences since the onset of the pandemic, but on the first day it was announced that the event would be played behind closed doors for subsequent days. A limited number of spectators were allowed in for the final two days of the championship.
The tournament was organised by the World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. The event had a total prize fund of £2,395,000, with the winner receiving £500,000. Qualifying for the tournament was due to be held between 8 and 15 April 2020 but instead took place from 21 to 28 July at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, with a mix of professional and invited amateur players, 16 of whom reached the main stage of the tournament where they played the top 16 players in the snooker world rankings. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. (Full article...) -
The 2020 Masters (officially the 2020 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at Alexandra Palace in London, England, from 12 to 19 January 2020. It was the 46th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2019–20 season, following the 2019 UK Championship and preceding the 2020 World Snooker Championship. The event invites the top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings in a knockout tournament. It was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe.
Judd Trump was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final of the previous year's event. Trump lost to Shaun Murphy 3–6 in the first round. O'Sullivan was eligible to compete, but chose not to participate, so his entry was given to Ali Carter, next on the world ranking list. Carter reached the final, where he played Stuart Bingham; recovering from 5–7 behind, Bingham won the final 10–8 to claim his first Masters title. He became the oldest Masters champion at the age of 43 years and 243 days, beating the previous record set by Ray Reardon in 1976; Bingham remained the tournament's oldest winner until 2024, when O'Sullivan won the title aged 48 years and 40 days. (Full article...) -
The 2002 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2002 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 April to 6 May 2002 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the final ranking event of the 2001–02 snooker season. This was the 26th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, marking the 25th anniversary of the first staging of the event at this venue. The championship was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
Peter Ebdon won his only world title by defeating seven-time winner Stephen Hendry 18–17 in the final. Ebdon defeated Matthew Stevens 17–16 in the semi-finals, and Hendry defeated the defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17–13 to reach the final. This was Hendry's ninth and last appearance in a World Championship final. There were 65 century breaks during the tournament. The highest break of the tournament was by Stevens, who achieved 145 in his quarter-final match. Hendry made 16 centuries during the event, a record for any individual tournament, equalled by Mark Williams in 2022. A total prize fund of £1,615,770 was awarded at the event, the winner receiving £260,000 (Full article...) -
The 2017 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2017 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 2017 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 19th and final ranking event of the 2016–17 season which followed the China Open. It was the 41st consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible.
The winner of the event was the defending champion and world number one Mark Selby, who defeated John Higgins 18–15 in the final. Selby won despite having fallen 4–10 behind in the second session of the match. Selby defeated Ding Junhui 17–15 in the semi-finals whilst Higgins defeated Barry Hawkins 17–8 to reach the final. This was Selby's third World Championship win; he had also won the tournament in the 2014 and 2016 tournaments. (Full article...) -
The 2019 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2019 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 April to 6 May 2019 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 43rd consecutive year the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and the 20th and final ranking event of the 2018–19 snooker season. Qualifying for the tournament took place from 10 to 17 April 2019 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event.
The winner of the title was Judd Trump, who defeated John Higgins 18–9 in the final to claim his first World Championship. In doing so, Trump became the 11th player to win all three Triple Crown titles at least once. Defending champion Mark Williams lost 9–13 to David Gilbert in the second round of the tournament. For the first time in the history of the World Snooker Championship, an amateur player appeared at the main stage of the event—debutant James Cahill defeated world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first round, before being narrowly defeated by Stephen Maguire in a second round deciding frame. (Full article...) -
The 1986 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1986 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 19 April and 5 May 1986 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1985–86 snooker season and the 1986 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927. The total prize fund was £350,000 with £70,000 awarded to the winner and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
The defending champion was Dennis Taylor, who had defeated Steve Davis 18–17 in the 1985 World Snooker Championship final to win his first world title. In defence of his title, Taylor lost in the first round of the event 6–10 to Mike Hallett. Joe Johnson the world number 16 defeated Davis 18–12 in the final to win his sole ranking event. Prior to the competition, the bookmakers' odds for a Johnson victory were 150/1. There were 20 century breaks compiled in total during the tournament, the highest of which was a 134 made by Davis in the opening frame of his quarter-final win. (Full article...)
Selected articles -
-
Side Pocket is a pocket billiards simulation released as an arcade video game by Data East in 1986. It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy, while an enhanced remake was later released on the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Game Gear. The game spawned two sequels, as well as arcade spin-off series titled Pocket Gal.
G-Mode owns the intellectual property rights to the Side Pocket series, and licenses these games globally. (Full article...) -
The World Women's Snooker Championship (known as the Women's World Open from 1976 to 1981 and the World Ladies Snooker Championship from 1983 to 2018) is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament on the World Women's Snooker Tour. Staged 41 times since the inaugural edition in 1976, it has produced 15 different champions, six of whom have won the title more than once.
The most successful player in the tournament's history has been Reanne Evans, who has won 12 titles, followed by Allison Fisher with seven titles and Kelly Fisher with five. The inaugural champion was Vera Selby, who won the title twice. Although the tournament had only one winner from outside the United Kingdom before 2014 (Australia's Lesley McIlrath in 1980) most recent editions have been won by Asian players. Hong Kong's Ng On-yee won three titles, in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Thai players Mink Nutcharut and Baipat Siripaporn won in 2022 and 2023 respectively, and China's Bai Yulu claimed her first title in 2024.
In 2021, the World Women’s Snooker Tour became an official qualification route to the main professional World Snooker Tour. At the end of each season, the reigning World Women's Snooker Champion receives a professional tour card for the following two seasons, as does the highest-ranked player in the women's rankings who is not already on the tour. If the World Champion is already on the tour, that card will be issued to the next highest ranked player who is not on the tour. (Full article...) -
Zhao Xintong (Chinese: 赵心童; born 3 April 1997) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who is currently serving a 20-month ban from professional competition after committing offences relating to betting on snooker.
Zhao attracted attention as a teenager, with a number of top players commenting on his potential in the sport. He joined the professional tour in 2016 and won his first ranking title and first Triple Crown title at the 2021 UK Championship, defeating Luca Brecel 10–5 in the final. With this win, he entered the top 16 in the world rankings for the first time and became eligible for his first Masters. He won his second ranking title at the 2022 German Masters when he whitewashed Yan Bingtao 9–0 in the final, becoming only the third player, after Steve Davis and Neil Robertson, to win a two-session ranking final without conceding a frame.
In January 2023, the sport's governing body suspended Zhao as part of a match-fixing investigation involving ten Chinese players. He was subsequently charged with being concerned in fixing matches on the World Snooker Tour and betting on snooker. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, Zhao was banned from professional competition until 1 September 2024. However, the end date for this ban is uncertain, when the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (the CBSA) upheld the original ban length of 30 months for domestic tournaments: the WPBSA later confirmed that players not in good standing with their local association cannot rejoin the World Snooker Tour. (Full article...) -
Rory McLeod (born 26 March 1971) is a British-Jamaican professional snooker player. He has reached the last 16 in ten ranking tournaments, and his most notable achievement came in 2015, when he won the minor ranking Ruhr Open, beating Tian Pengfei in the final. His highest ranking is 32, which he last reached in 2012.
Having suffered relegation from the main tour at the end of the 2018-2019 season, McLeod spent the 2019-20 season playing on the World Seniors Tour and Challenge Tour; he regained his professional status at the 2020 Q School. (Full article...) -
Welker Cochran (October 7, 1897 – July 26, 1960) was an American professional carom billiards player who won world titles in two different disciplines, balkline and three-cushion billiards. (Full article...) -
The Women's Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) is a professional women's pool tour based in the United States. It was founded in 1976 as the Women's Professional Billiard Alliance by players Madelyn Whitlow and Palmer Byrd, and by Larry Miller (editor of the National Billiard News). (Full article...)
-
Jayson Shaw (born 13 September 1988 in Glasgow) is a Scottish professional pool player. In 2010, Shaw was a WPA World Blackball Champion. (Full article...)
-
The CEB European Three-cushion Championship is three-cushion billiards tournament organized by the Confédération Européenne de Billard. Held since 1932, it is one of longest-running tournaments in the sport. The 2007 event offered a total purse of €18,500 (US$26,134) with €4,000 ($5,651) for the winner.
Before 1995, there was a third place match played between the two losing finalists, in order to determine the ranking. However, the match has been cancelled since then and the losing finalists are regarded as having the same ranking in the competition.
Since the season 2012/13 the tournament was held in a mammoth event every two years in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany. (Full article...) -
A trick shot (also trickshot or trick-shot) is a shot played on a billiards table (most often a pool table, though snooker tables are also used), which seems unlikely or impossible or requires significant skill. Trick shots frequently involve the balls organized in ways that do not correspond to 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. (Full article...) -
Joshua Filler (born 2 October 1997) is a German professional pool player from Bönen, Germany. In 2018 Filler defeated Carlo Biado 13–10 to win the 2018 WPA World Nine-ball Championship. In 2017 he was the youngest player to win the China Open, and in 2018 he also won the 10-ball European Pool Championships. Filler became WPA and Euro Tour world number 1 in 2019, and later he reached the final of the 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship before losing 10–7 to Ko Ping-chung.
Filler has also represented Europe in the Mosconi Cup, winning the MVP award at the 2017, 2022 and 2023 events. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
- ... that John Spencer won a World Snooker Championship on his first attempt in 1969?
- ... that both finalists at the 2008 World Snooker Championship made maximum breaks during the tournament?
- ... that the 1947 World Snooker Championship was the first world snooker championship where the winner wasn't Joe Davis?
- ... that Turkish carom billiards champion Güzin Müjde Karakaşlı grew up playing volleyball for about 12 years?
- ... that John Spencer "exploded two myths" by winning the 1977 World Snooker Championship with a two-piece cue that he had only been using for a couple of months?
- ... that Fraser Patrick likened playing in the 2019 Q School to being in a boxing match with Anthony Joshua?
- ... that during a match at the snooker 2021 UK Championship, player Mark Williams fell asleep?
Related portals and projects
-
The 2022 Masters (officially the 2022 Cazoo Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 9 to 16 January 2022 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 48th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2021–22 snooker season, following the 2021 UK Championship and preceding the 2022 World Snooker Championship. Broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe, it was sponsored for the first time by car retailer Cazoo.
The participants were invited to the tournament based on the world rankings as they stood after the UK Championship. Some players took issue with the cut-off date, noting that the in-form Luca Brecel, who had entered the top 16 by winning the 2021 Scottish Open in December, did not qualify as the event took place after the UK Championship. Ding Junhui, who had made 15 consecutive Masters appearances between 2007 and 2021, fell out of the top 16 after the UK Championship and failed to qualify. Zhao Xintong, who entered the top 16 for the first time by winning the UK Championship, was the only Masters debutant. John Higgins set a new record of 28 Masters appearances, surpassing Jimmy White and Steve Davis, both of whom had competed 27 times. (Full article...) -
Wii Play is a party video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii console. It was released as a launch game for the console in Japan, Europe, and Australia in December 2006, and was released in North America in February 2007. The game features nine minigames, including a Duck Hunt-esque shooting range, a fishing game, and a billiards game, each of which are designed to showcase the features of the Wii Remote controller.
Developed as a compilation of prototype games originally shown off at the E3 expo in 2006, Wii Play was developed by Nintendo EAD simultaneously with Wii Sports, which also contained tech demos from E3. The featured games make use of several aspects of the Wii Remote, such as its detection of rotation and depth movement through motion sensing and its infrared pointer. (Full article...) -
The 2019 Q School was a series of three snooker tournaments held during the 2019–20 snooker season. An event for amateur players, it served as a qualification event for a place on the professional World Snooker Tour for the following two seasons. The events took place in May and June 2019 at the Robin Park Leisure Centre in Wigan, England. The event was organised by World Snooker, with entries for the event costing £1,000 but with no maximum number of participants.
Each tournament is split into four paths, with the winner of each path being awarded a place on the World Snooker Tour for the 2019–20 season and the 2020–21 snooker season. Twelve players qualified from the events: Chen Zifan, Riley Parsons, Louis Heathcote, Fraser Patrick, Xu Si, David Lilley, Jamie O'Neill, Soheil Vahedi, Barry Pinches, Alex Borg, Alexander Ursenbacher and Andy Hicks. Four more players: Si Jiahui, Billy Joe Castle, Peter Lines and Lei Peifan; were also given tour cards for being at the top of the Order of Merit. The highest break of the events was a 137 made by both Xu Si in event one and Lucky Vatnani in event two. (Full article...) -
The 1980 World Snooker Championship, officially known as the 1980 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons, was a ranking professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 April to 5 May 1980 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The tournament was the 1980 edition of the World Snooker Championship and was the fourth consecutive world championship to take place at the Crucible Theatre since 1977. It was authorised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. The total prize fund for the tournament was £60,000, of which £15,000 went to the winner.
There were 53 entrants to the competition, although four later withdrew. Qualifying rounds for the tournament took place at Romiley Forum, Stockport, from 5 to 18 April 1980; at the Redwood Lodge Country Club, Bristol, from 11 to 16 April; and at Sheffield Snooker Centre from 12 to 17 April. The main stage of the tournament featured 24 players: the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings and another eight players from the qualifying rounds. Ray Edmonds, Jim Meadowcroft, Tony Meo, Cliff Wilson and Jim Wych made their Crucible debuts. The defending champion and top seed in the tournament was Terry Griffiths, who had defeated Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the 1979 final. (Full article...) -
The 2018 Masters (officially the 2018 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 14 and 21 January 2018 in London, England, and the second Triple Crown event of the 2017–18 snooker season. It was the 44th staging of the Masters, and was broadcast in Europe by the BBC and Eurosport.
The event saw two first-time Triple Crown finalists. Mark Allen won his first, defeating Kyren Wilson 10–7 in the final. Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan lost 1–6 in the quarter-finals to the eventual champion, Allen. It was O'Sullivan's first defeat at the Masters since 2015. (Full article...) -
Gerda Hofstätter Gergerson (born 9 February 1971), nicknamed "G-Force", is an Austrian professional pool player. Hofstätter won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 1995. She is a winner at the European Pool Championship on nine occasions, and won the Austrian national Championship seventeen times. Hofstätter is a two-time Hall of Fame inductee being voted into both the Women's Professional Billiard Association and Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fames in the Greatest Players Category. Hofstätter was the Austrian Sportswoman of the Year for Carinthia in 1993. Hofstätter played on the WPBA Tour until her retirement, doing so from 1993 onward. (Full article...)
-
The 2017 Masters (officially the 2017 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 22 January 2017 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 43rd staging of the Masters and the second Triple Crown event of the 2016/17 snooker season, following the 2016 UK Championship and preceding the 2017 World Snooker Championship.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Barry Hawkins 10–1 in the final of the 2016 event. O'Sullivan reached a record-extending 12th Masters final and successfully defended his title, defeating Joe Perry 10–7 to win the tournament for a record seventh time, surpassing the six titles won by Stephen Hendry. This was the first successful title defence at the Masters since Paul Hunter in 2002. Marco Fu compiled the highest break of the tournament, scoring a 141 in his semi-final match against O'Sullivan. (Full article...) -
Ng On-yee BBS MH (Chinese: 吳安儀; born 17 November 1990) 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.
After competing in several International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) tournaments, Ng became the youngest-ever IBSF women's world champion at the age of 19 and successfully defended the title the following year. At the 2015 World Ladies Snooker Championship she defeated Reanne Evans—who had held the title for the previous ten years—in the semi-final and won the title. After losing the final of the same tournament to Evans the following year, Ng regained the title in 2017, defeating Evans 5–4 in the semi-final and overcoming Vidya Pillai 6–5 in the protracted final. In 2018, Ng won the title for a third time and in 2019 she collected her third IBSF World Title. (Full article...) -
Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to pocket as many object balls as possible without playing a foul. The game was the primary version of pool played in professional competition until it was superseded by faster-playing games like nine-ball and eight-ball in the 1980s.
In straight pool, the player may call and attempt to pocket any object ball on the table regardless of its number or color until only one object ball and the cue ball remain, at which point the other fourteen balls are re-racked. At this point, play resumes with the objective of pocketing the remaining ball in a manner that causes the cue ball to carom into the rack, spreading out the balls and allowing the player to continue the run. The goal is to reach a set number of points that is determined by agreement before the game begins; traditionally 100 points is needed for a win, though professional matches may go higher. One point is scored by pocketing an object ball without a foul, while a point is deducted on a foul. (Full article...) -
Efren Manalang Reyes OLD PLH (born August 26, 1954), popularly known by the nicknames "Bata" (Tagalog for 'Kid') and "the Magician", is a Filipino professional pool player, who is widely regarded as the greatest pool player of all time, and especially famed for his skill at the challenging one-pocket discipline. In 2003, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
A winner of over 100 international titles, Reyes was the first player to win the WPA World Championships in two different pool disciplines. Among his numerous titles, Reyes is a WPA World Nine-ball Champion and WPA World Eight-ball Champion, a U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship winner, a four-time Sands Regency Nine-ball Open winner, a four-time All Japan Championship winner, a seven-time WPA Asian Nine-ball Tour Champion, and a record thirteen-time Derby City Classic winner. Reyes also represented the Philippines at the World Cup of Pool, winning the event with his partner Francisco Bustamante in 2006 and 2009. Reyes defeated American champion Earl Strickland twice in The Color of Money challenge match in 1996 and a rematch in 2001. In their first challenge match in 1996, Reyes took home the winner-take-all prize of $100,000, the highest single-event purse in the history of pool at that time. (Full article...)
General images -
- A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from
-
Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
- A complete set of snooker balls (from
-
snooker table with the balls in their starting positions. The cue ball (white) may be placed anywhere in the semicircle (known as the "D") at the start of the game. (from Snooker)Illustration A: Aerial view of a
- alt=Black snooker ball (from
- A shot using a
- Dutch pool player
-
Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
-
massé shot around a pin (from Carom billiards)A
- A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from
- alt=Brown snooker ball (from
- A pool table diagram (from
- alt=Red snooker ball (from
-
Jerome Keogh invented the game in 1910. (from Straight pool)
- alt=Yellow snooker ball (from
-
object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponent (from Carom billiards)A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red
-
Steve Davis won the World Championship six times in the 1980s. (from Snooker)
-
balkline (from Carom billiards)Cigarette card, c. 1911, showing George Sutton playing
-
Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards)Historic print depicting
-
Louis XIV playing billiards (1694) (from Carom billiards)
- alt=Blue snooker ball (from
- alt=Green snooker ball (from
- A close-up view of a cue tip about to strike the cue ball, the aim being to pot the red ball into a corner pocket (from
- Balkline table with standard markings (from
- alt=Pink snooker ball (from
-
World Snooker Championship trophy (from Snooker)The
- The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from
- A player racking the balls (from
Major topics
More topics
Categories
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus