Portal:Cue sports
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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...)
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Image 1Masako Katsura (桂 マサ子, Katsura Masako, listen; 7 March 1913 – 20 December 1995), nicknamed "Katsy" and sometimes called the "First Lady of Billiards", was a Japanese carom billiards player who was most active in the 1950s. She was the first woman to compete and place among the best in the male-dominated world of professional billiards. First learning the game from her brother-in-law and then under the tutelage of Japanese champion Kinrey Matsuyama, Katsura became Japan's only female professional player. In competition in Japan, she took second place in the country's national three-cushion billiards championship three times. In exhibition she was noted for running 10,000 points at the game of straight rail.
After marrying a U.S. Army non-commissioned officer in 1950, Katsura emigrated to the United States in 1951. There she was invited to play in the 1952 U.S.-sponsored World Three-Cushion Championship, ultimately taking seventh place at that competition. Katsura was the first woman ever to be included in any world billiards tournament. Her fame cemented, Katsura went on an exhibition tour of the United States with eight-time world champion Welker Cochran, and later with 51-time world champion Willie Hoppe. In 1953 and 1954, she again competed for the world three-cushion crown, taking fifth and fourth places respectively. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2021 Tour Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 to 28 March 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the third edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the third season of the Cazoo Cup. It was the 14th and penultimate ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season, following the conclusion of the WST Pro Series and preceding the World Championship.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, each match being played over two sessions. The winner of the tournament received £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by car retailer Cazoo. The defending champion was Stephen Maguire, but as a result of reduced earnings during the season he was unable to qualify and defend the title. In a repeat of the 2019 final Australian Neil Robertson played Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan. Robertson won the event defeating O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final. There were 26 century breaks made during the event, Barry Hawkins making the highest break, a 138. (Full article...) -
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The 2019 Tour Championship (officially the 2019 Coral Tour Championship) was a professional snooker ranking tournament that took place from 19 to 24 March 2019 at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, Wales. Organised by World Snooker, it was the first edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the inaugural Coral Cup. It was the eighteenth ranking event of the 2018–19 snooker season.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list, taking part in a single elimination tournament. Each match was played over a minimum of two sessions, the final as best-of-25-frames over two days. The winner of the tournament won £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £375,000. The event was sponsored by betting company Coral. (Full article...) -
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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...) -
Image 5The 1988 World Snooker Championship, also known as the 1988 Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons, was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 16 April to 2 May 1988 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), it was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1987–88 snooker season and the twelfth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament there having taken place in 1977.
A five-round qualifying event for the championship was held at the Preston Guild Hall from 22 March to 2 April 1988 for 113 players, 16 of whom reached the main stage, where they met the 16 invited seeded players. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, and was sponsored by the Embassy cigarette company. The winner received £95,000 from the total prize fund of £475,000. (Full article...) -
Image 6The 2020 Tour Championship (officially the 2020 Coral Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 to 26 June 2020, at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the second edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the second season of the Coral Cup. It was the 16th and penultimate ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season following the Gibraltar Open and preceding the World Championship. The tournament was originally scheduled for 17 to 22 March 2020, but on the morning of 17 March the event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following advice from the UK government, it had been decided that no spectators would be permitted at the event.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, with each match played over a minimum of two sessions and the final being a best-of-19-frames match. The winner of the tournament won £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by betting company Coral. (Full article...) -
Image 7The 1984 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1984 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a ranking professional snooker tournament that took place between 21 April and 7 May 1984 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The event was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was the eighth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible since the 1977 event. The event featured 94 participants, of which 78 players competed in a qualifying event held at the Redwood Lodge in Bristol from 1 to 13 April. Of these, 16 players qualified for the main stage in Sheffield, where they met 16 invited seeds. The total prize fund for the event was £200,000, the highest total pool for any snooker tournament at that time; the winner received £44,000.
The defending champion was English player Steve Davis, who had won the title twice previously. He met fellow-countryman Jimmy White in the final, which was played as a best-of-35-frames match. Davis took a significant lead of 12–4 after the first two sessions; although White battled back into the match, Davis eventually won 18–16, becoming the first player to retain the title at the Crucible. Rex Williams secured the championship's highest break, scoring a 138 in the 12th frame of his first-round loss to White. Eight century breaks were made during the competition, the fewest since the 1978 event. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy, and broadcast by BBC. (Full article...) -
Image 8The 2019 Champion of Champions (officially the 2019 ManBetX Champion of Champions) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 4 and 10 November 2019 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England. It was the ninth Champion of Champions event, the first of which was held in 1978. The tournament featured 16 participants who had won World Snooker events throughout the prior snooker season. In 2019, the Women's World Champion competed at the tournament for the first time. As an invitational event, the Champion of Champions tournament carried no world ranking points.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion having defeated Kyren Wilson 10–9 in the final of the 2018 event. O'Sullivan lost 5–6 to Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. Robertson defeated reigning world champion Judd Trump 10–9 in the final to win the championship, having required foul shots in the penultimate frame to avoid losing the match. There were 20 century breaks during the tournament, eight of which were made in the final. Mark Allen compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, in his semi-final loss to Trump. The tournament's total prize fund was £440,000, the winner receiving £150,000. (Full article...) -
Image 9The 1985 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1985 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a professional ranking tournament in snooker that took place from 12 to 28 April 1985 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the event was the ninth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament having taken place in 1977. A five-round qualifying event for the championship was held at the Preston Guild Hall from 29 March to 5 April for 87 players, 16 of whom reached the main stage, where they met the 16 invited seeded players. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, and was sponsored by the Embassy cigarette company. The total prize fund for the event was £250,000, the highest prize pool for any snooker tournament to that date. The winner received £60,000, which was the highest amount ever received by the winner of a snooker event at that time.
The defending champion was Englishman Steve Davis, who had previously won the World Championship three times. He met Northern Irishman Dennis Taylor in the final which was a best-of-35-frames match. Davis took an early 9–1 lead, but Taylor battled back into the match and drew level at 17–17, forcing a deciding frame. The 35th frame was contested over the final black ball, with the player able to pot the ball winning the world title. After both players missed the black twice, Taylor potted the ball to win his sole World Championship. The match, often referred to as the "black ball final", is commonly considered to be the best-known match in the history of snooker and a reason for the surge in the sport's popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. (Full article...) -
Image 10The 2014 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2014 Dafabet World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 19 April to 5 May 2014 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 38th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible. The tournament was also the last ranking event of the 2013–14 snooker season. The event was sponsored by Dafabet for the first time. A qualifying tournament was held from 8 to 16 April 2014 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield for 16 players, who met 16 seeded participants at the main championships.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having won the previous year's event by defeating Barry Hawkins in the final. Mark Selby won the 2014 event to capture his first world title by defeating O'Sullivan 18–14 in the final. This was Selby's fourth ranking title, also completing the Triple Crown of World Championship, UK Championship, and Masters titles. Neil Robertson compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, and scored his 100th century break of the season in his quarter-final win over Judd Trump. The event featured a prize fund of £1,214,000, the winner receiving £300,000. (Full article...)
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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...) -
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Robbie Williams (born 28 December 1986) is an English professional snooker player.
Williams turned professional in 2012 after qualifying in Event 3 of the Q School and gained a two-year tour card for the 2012/13 and 2013/14 snooker seasons. (Full article...) -
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Minnesota Fats, or George Hegerman, is a fictional pool hustler created by American novelist Walter Tevis.
The character appears in Tevis' novels The Hustler (1959) and The Color of Money (1984). Jackie Gleason portrayed him in the 1961 film adaptation of The Hustler. Though a real pool hustler, Rudolf Wanderone, who began calling himself "Minnesota Fats" in 1961, claimed to be the inspiration, Tevis denied that claim and insisted that "Minnesota Fats" was fictional. (Full article...) -
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Andrew Higginson (born 13 December 1977) is an English professional snooker player from Widnes, Cheshire. He is best known for being the surprise finalist of the 2007 Welsh Open. (Full article...) -
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Lou Butera (May 15, 1937 – June 25, 2015) was an American professional pool player (then retired and operated a pool hall) and an inductee into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1986.
His nickname, "Machine Gun Lou", derives from his stunning the crowd and fellow competitors by running 150-and-out in straight pool in under 25 minutes against his opponents.
He gained exposure to the masses in 1981 and 1982 when he appeared in network trick shot competitions on CBS and ABC. (Full article...) -
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Reanne Evans MBE (born 25 October 1985) is an English snooker player who competes on the main professional World Snooker Tour and the World Women's Snooker Tour; she also works as a pundit for televised snooker coverage. A record 12-time winner of the World Women's Snooker Championship, she is also the reigning World Mixed Doubles champion (with Luca Brecel), and is widely recognised as the most successful female player in the sport's history. She received an MBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for her services to women's snooker.
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Evans began playing snooker at age 13. She competed in her first World Women's Snooker Championship in 2002, aged 16, when she reached the semi-finals. She won 10 women's world titles consecutively between 2005 and 2014, and won further world titles in 2016 and 2019. Her other records on the women's tour include 12 UK Women's Snooker Championships, 58 ranking titles, and 90 consecutive victories between 2008 and 2011. She has achieved the highest break on the women's tour, having made 140 twice.
Evans received a wildcard to the professional World Snooker Tour for the 2010–11 season, becoming the first woman to compete professionally since Allison Fisher 16 years previously, but was relegated at the end of the season after 18 consecutive defeats. In 2013, she qualified for the Wuxi Classic as an amateur competitor, becoming the first woman to reach the final stages of a professional ranking snooker tournament. She received wildcards to the World Snooker Championship qualifying rounds in 2015 and from 2017 to 2021; she reached the second qualifying round in 2017 after defeating Finnish player Robin Hull 10–8. (Full article...) -
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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...) -
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Artistic billiards is a cue sport played on a billiard table. A discipline of carom billiards, players aim to recreate a portion of 76 pre-set shots of varying difficulty against an opponent. Each of the 76 shots has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a four-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an eleven-point maximum. There are a total of 500 points available to a player, representing the combined value of a perfect score on all 76 shots, although not all games are played with the full shot catalogue. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération International de Billard Artistique.
A version of the game, played on a pocket billiards table known as artistic pool began in the 1970s, with official competitions starting in 1993. These events are run and organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). (Full article...) -
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Ken Doherty (born 17 September 1969) is an Irish professional snooker player who was World Snooker Champion in 1997. In addition to his ongoing playing career, he works as a regular commentator and pundit on televised snooker broadcasts. A director since 2012 of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, he has also served as inaugural chairman of the WPBSA Players organisation since 2021.
Born in Dublin, Doherty won amateur titles including the World Under-21 Amateur Championship and the World Amateur Championship in 1989. He turned professional in 1990, and reached the first of his 17 ranking finals at the 1992 Grand Prix, losing 9–10 to Jimmy White. He won the first of his six ranking titles several months later at the 1993 Welsh Open, beating Alan McManus 9–7 in the final. These results helped him move up to 11th place in the 1993/1994 rankings, his first season within the top 16. He secured his only world title at the 1997 World Snooker Championship, winning the final 18–12 over five-time defending champion Stephen Hendry. The first player to defeat Hendry at the Crucible since Steve James at the 1991 event, Doherty became the first and only World Champion from the Republic of Ireland and the second World Champion in snooker's modern era from outside the United Kingdom, following Canadian player Cliff Thorburn in 1980. He remains the only player to have won world titles at under-21, amateur, and professional levels.
As defending champion at the 1998 event, Doherty came close to breaking the Crucible curse, but lost 12–18 to John Higgins in the final. He was World Championship runner-up for a second time at the 2003 event, where he lost the final 16–18 to Mark Williams, despite having recovered from 2–10 behind to tie the scores at 11–11. In other Triple Crown events, Doherty was UK Championship runner-up three times (losing 5–10 to Hendry in 1994, 1–10 to Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2001, and 9–10 to Williams in 2002) and Masters runner-up twice (losing 8–10 to Higgins in 1999 and 8–10 to Matthew Stevens in 2000). In all, Doherty won just one of the eight Triple Crown finals in which he participated. In the 2000 Masters final, he narrowly missed out on a maximum break—and the bonus prize of an £80,000 sports car—when he failed to pot the last black off its spot, ending the break at 140. (Full article...) -
Image 10The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pool (pocket billiards). It was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Australia, Americas, Africa, and Europe. As of 2023, the WPA president is Ishaun Singh of South Africa. It is an associate of the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS), the international umbrella organization that encompasses the major cue sports. WPA is headquartered in Gauteng, South Africa. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that the 1947 World Snooker Championship was the first world snooker championship where the winner wasn't Joe Davis?
- ... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
- ... that after winning the 2024 Masters, snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan is both the youngest and oldest winner of the tournament?
- ... that Walter Donaldson, a two-time World Snooker Champion, converted his snooker room into a cowshed and used the slate from his billiard table for paving?
- ... that Kyren Wilson won the first four frames in all of his snooker matches at the 2023 Tour Championship?
- ... that referee Jan Verhaas was informed of an error he made at the 2022 Masters by a member of the crowd?
- ... that John Spencer won a World Snooker Championship on his first attempt in 1969?
- ... that Turkish carom billiards champion Güzin Müjde Karakaşlı grew up playing volleyball for about 12 years?
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Image 1The 2001 Scottish Masters (known as the 2001 Regal Scottish Masters for sponsorship reasons) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament which took place at the Thistle Hotel in Glasgow, Scotland, from 18 to 23 September 2001. It was the first time the tournament was played in Glasgow since the 1989 edition. The competition was the second of four invitational World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) events of the 2001–02 season. It was broadcast on BBC Scotland and Eurosport and was sponsored by the cigarette brand Regal.
John Higgins, the top-ranked Scottish player, won the tournament, defeating the defending champion and world title holder Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–6 in the final. It was the first time that Higgins had won the competition it was the 22nd ranking tournament victory of his career. He earned £63,000 from a prize fund pool of £200,000. O'Sullivan made the highest break of the competition of 134 in his semi-final victory over Marco Fu. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2020 Championship League (also known as the 2020 Matchroom.com Championship League) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 1 to 11 June 2020 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. The event featured 64 players from the World Snooker Tour featuring three rounds of round-robin groups of four. The initial group stage matches were played between 1 and 8 June, with the group winners' stage played on 9 and 10 June, before the finals stage on 11 June. It was the 14th edition of the Championship League. The event was one of the first live sporting events in the United Kingdom since the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020.
Luca Brecel won the event after finishing top of the final group ahead of Ben Woollaston, Stuart Bingham and Ryan Day. The event was broadcast on ITV4 in the United Kingdom, Eurosport across Europe, Superstars Online, Youku and Zhibo.tv in China, Fox Sports in Australia and Sky in New Zealand. Elsewhere, the event was broadcast on Matchroom Sport. (Full article...) -
Image 3The 2019 Shanghai Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at the Regal International East Asia Hotel in Shanghai, China from 9 to 15 September 2019. It was the 12th edition of the Shanghai Masters, which was first held in 2007. Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Barry Hawkins 11–9 in the 2018 final, and also having won the tournament in 2017. O'Sullivan successfully defended his title for a second consecutive year, defeating Shaun Murphy 11–9 in the final. This was the third consecutive title for O'Sullivan in this tournament.
The prize fund was £751,000 with the winner receiving £200,000. The event was broadcast by Great Sports Channel, Superstars Online, Youku and Zhibo.tv in China, as well as NowTV in Hong Kong and Eurosport in Europe. (Full article...) -
Image 4Amee Kamani (born 3 June 1992) is an Indian snooker player. She was runner-up in the 2016 International Billiards and Snooker Federation World Snooker championship, losing 0–5 in the final to the defending champion Wendy Jans. Kamani was the 2018 Asian Billiards Sports Championships Ladies (ACBS Asian Snooker Championship) Champion after defeating Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan 3–0 in the final, and was runner-up at the 2014 Australian Open (0–3 to Jessica Woods) and the 2019 International Billiards and Snooker Federation Women's six-reds snooker championship (2–4 against Nutcharut Wongharuthai).
After a sporting focus on table tennis for ten years until she was 17, Kamani then took up cue sports competitively. She has won three Indian national titles at snooker and two at English billiards, and was a member of the victorious Asia women's team at the 2019 World Team Trophy, a test event for the 2024 Summer Olympics. (Full article...) -
Image 5The 1928 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament held at various venues from 28 December 1927 to 17 May 1928. It was the second staging of the World Snooker Championship. It was played on a challenge basis with the other six entrants playing off for the right to challenge defending champion Joe Davis in the final. The final was held at the Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, with three of the other matches contested there, and one each played in Leamington Spa and Nottingham.
Davis won 16–13 in the final against Fred Lawrence, and retained the title. Davis had won the professional billiards championship earlier in May, and became the first person to hold the professional titles in billiards and snooker titles concurrently, and then the first person to win them both in the same season. The highest break of the snooker tournament was 46, compiled by Alec Mann in the third frame of his first round match against Albert Cope. (Full article...) -
Image 6Clifford Wilson (10 May 1934 – 21 May 1994) was a Welsh professional snooker player who reached the highest ranking of 16, in 1988-89. He was the 1978 World Amateur Champion and won the 1991 World Seniors Championship. He was a successful junior player, known for his fast attacking snooker and potting ability, and won the British Under-19 Championship in 1951 and 1952. In the early 1950s both Wilson and future six-times World Professional Champion Ray Reardon lived in Tredegar, where they played a succession of money matches that attracted large enthusiastic crowds.
A combination of factors, including Reardon leaving Tredegar, led to Wilson virtually giving up the game from 1957 to 1972, but after being asked to take up a vacant place in a works team, he returned to playing and later became the 1978 World Amateur Champion, achieving his victory with an 11–5 win in the final against Joe Johnson. In 1979 Wilson turned professional, aged 45, and, still playing with an attacking style, reached several ranking tournament quarter-finals during his career. At the inaugural World Seniors Championship in 1991 he beat Eddie Charlton 5–4 in the final to take the title. He won the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1956, 1977 and 1979, and was runner-up in the Welsh Professional Championship in 1981 and 1984. He suffered from a number of health conditions, including poor eyesight, during his career, but continued to play professionally until his death in 1994 at the age of 60. (Full article...) -
Image 7Irving Crane (November 13, 1913 – November 17, 2001), nicknamed "the Deacon", was an American pool player from Livonia, New York, and ranks among the stellar players in the history of the sport. Widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time, and a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame, he is best known for his mastery in the game of straight pool (14.1 continuous) at which he won numerous championships, including six World Straight Pool Championship titles. (Full article...)
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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."
Although bottle pool's origins remain obscure, tournament records and newspaper articles confirm that the game has been played since at least the late 19th century. A mention appears in an 1894 article in The New York Times announcing a 64-player tournament to be played at a certain Hanover Clubhouse in Brooklyn, New York. The game was more well known in the early-to-mid-20th century, during which references to it appear in numerous books and publications including Sinclair Lewis's Main Street. It is also known to have been played by some notable individuals, such as quantum chemist and biochemist Linus Pauling. (Full article...) -
Image 9The 2019–20 Challenge Tour was a series of snooker tournaments that took place during the 2019–20 snooker season. The Challenge Tour was the second-tier tour for players not on the main World Snooker Tour. The top player in the final rankings earned a two-year card to the World Snooker Tour from the 2020–21 snooker season. The following eight players in the rankings progressed to a play-off event, with the winner of that event also receiving a two-year place on the World Snooker Tour. Two of the events were postponed: Event five was rearranged due to poor weather conditions, whilst the play-off was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Played between August and July, the series was contested over ten events. Ashley Hugill finished top of the rankings, winning two of the events. Hugill had already earned a place on the World Snooker Tour having won the 2020 WSF Open, so second placed Lukas Kleckers
earned a tour card. Third ranked Andrew Pagett also received a place on the World Snooker Tour after his victory in the 2020 EBSA European Snooker Championship. Allan Taylor, who had finished seventh in the rankings, won the play-off tournament and a place on the World Snooker Tour. (Full article...) -
Image 10The 2019 Dynamic Billard St. Johann im Pongau Open was a professional nine-ball pool tournament and the third Euro Tour event of 2019. The event was held from 13 to 16 June 2019, at the Alpina, Wellness & Sporthotel in Sankt Johann im Pongau, Austria. The event followed the Treviso Open, won by Poland's Konrad Juszczyszyn, and preceded the Veldhoven Open.
The St. Johann im Pongau Open final was contested between the top two ranked players, Eklent Kaçi and Joshua Filler. Kaçi won the event, defeating Filler 9–6. Alexander Kazakis was the defending champion, having defeated Denis Grabe in the 2018 Austria Open final (9–5). However, Kazakis lost twice in the double-elimination round and did not reach the knockout round. Jasmin Ouschan was the defending champion of the women's event, after defeating Marharyta Fefilava in the 2018 final (7–2). In a rematch of the previous year's event, Ouschan defended her championship by defeating Fefilava 7–1 in this year's final. (Full article...)
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Image 1Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
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Image 3A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 4alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 5Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards)
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Image 6A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from Snooker)
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Image 7A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from Snooker)
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Image 8A 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 Snooker)
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Image 9Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
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Image 10Illustration A: Aerial view of a 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)
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Image 11Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
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Image 13A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red 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)
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Image 14The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
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Image 16alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 17alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 18A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 19A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
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Image 23alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 24alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 26Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 27alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 28alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
Major topics
Pool games | ||
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Carom billiards | ||
Snooker | ||
Other games | ||
Resources | ||
Major international tournaments |
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Other events | ||
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Cue sports portal The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. |
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Early events | |
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Match-play | |
Challenges | |
Knock-outs | |
Crucible era | |
Related articles | |
Tournaments | |
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Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
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Ranking events | |
Non-ranking events | |
Seniors events |
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Tours and series | |
Related lists | |
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