The Cue Sports Portal
![A player is preparing for a shot in 8-ball](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Billiards_and_snookers.jpg/225px-Billiards_and_snookers.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Billiard_Rack.jpg/225px-Billiard_Rack.jpg)
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...)
Featured articles - load new batch
-
Image 1
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...) -
Image 2
Mark Allen is the current world number one.
The sport of snooker has utilised a world rankings system since 1975, used to seed players on the World Snooker Tour for tournaments. Originally rankings were published once a year, at the culmination of the season, however, since 2010, the rankings have been changed to be updated after every ranking tournament. The number one ranking has been held by twelve players; Ray Reardon was the first to hold the position, and was followed by Cliff Thorburn, Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, Ding Junhui and Mark Allen.
Hendry held the number one position for the longest time under the annual format, holding it for nine years in total. Since it changed to a rolling format in 2010, Selby has held the rank longer than anyone else. (Full article...) -
Image 3The 1987 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1987 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 18 April and 4 May 1987 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1986–87 snooker season. The championship was the 1987 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927, and had 32 participants. The highest ranked 16 players were awarded a place in the first round draw, whilst a pre-tournament qualification event for 104 professionals was held between 26 March and 4 April at the Preston Guild Hall for the remaining places. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy and had a prize fund of £400,000 with the winner receiving £80,000.
Since his 1986 victory, Joe Johnson had experienced a disappointing season leading up to the 1987 Championship, and bookmakers considered it unlikely that he would retain the title. Johnson did reach the final, a rematch of the previous year's final against Steve Davis. Davis won his fourth championship by defeating Johnson 18 frames to 14. A total of 18 century breaks were made during the tournament, the highest of which was 127 made by Davis in first frame of the final. Stephen Hendry, aged 18, became the youngest player to win a match in the tournament's history since it moved to the Crucible in 1977, whilst it was the last time that six-times champion Ray Reardon appeared. (Full article...) -
Image 4
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 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...) -
Image 6
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...) -
Image 7The 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...) -
Image 8The 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...) -
Image 9Masako 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 10The 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship was a professional pool tournament for the discipline of ten-ball organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and CueSports International. It was the fifth WPA World Ten-ball Championship; the previous championship was held in 2015. After plans for an event in both 2016 and 2018 to be held in Manila fell through, a 2019 event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part of a three-year deal for the event to be played in the United States was agreed. The event was held concurrently with the Billiard Congress of America's National Ten-ball event from July 22 to 26. The event was sponsored by cue manufacturer Predator Group.
The competition featured 64 participants, selected according to world and continental pool rankings as well as qualifying events. The tournament was played as a double-elimination bracket until 16 players remained, at which point it changed to a single-elimination format. Ko Ping-chung, representing Chinese Taipei, won the event, defeating German player Joshua Filler 10–7 in the final. Ko's brother Ko Pin-yi, who was the defending champion, lost to Filler 10–8 in the semi-final. The event featured a prize fund of $132,000, the winner receiving $30,000. (Full article...)
Selected articles - load new batch
-
Image 1Niels Feijen at the Mosconi Cup in 2008.
Niels Feijen (born 3 February 1977, The Hague) is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship. (Full article...) -
Image 2
Raymond Ceulemans (born 12 July 1937) is a Belgian billiards player who won 21 UMB three-cushion World Championship titles, more than any other player. Along with 48 European titles (23 in three-cushion) and 61 national titles. His nickname is "Mr 100". He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 2001, one of the first non-Americans to receive the honour.
In October 2003, King Albert II of Belgium honoured Raymond Ceulemans by awarding him a knighthood (Ridderschap) in recognition of his lifetime achievements. (Full article...) -
Image 3O'Brien at the 2016 Paul Hunter Classic
Fergal O'Brien (born 8 March 1972) is an Irish retired professional snooker player who competed on the World Snooker Tour from 1991 to 2024. He won one ranking title during his career, defeating Anthony Hamilton 9–7 in the final of the 1999 British Open. He was runner-up at the 2001 Masters, where he lost the final 9–10 to Paul Hunter. His best performance at the World Snooker Championship was reaching the quarter-finals of the 2000 event, where he lost 5–13 to eventual champion Mark Williams. He reached his highest world ranking of ninth in the 2000–01 season, but spent only three seasons of his 33-year career ranked inside the top 16. He retired from professional competition at the end of the 2023–24 season, intending to remain active in the sport as a coach and a commentator for Eurosport. (Full article...) -
Image 4
Shane Van Boening (/ˌvæn ˈboʊnɪŋ/; born July 14, 1983) is an American professional pool player from Rapid City, South Dakota. Van Boening is considered one of the best players of all time. Van Boening has won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and has won the US Open Nine-ball Championship on 5 occasions, along with over 100 other professional titles.
Van Boening has a hearing impairment and uses a hearing aid, but it does not affect his pool ability. He has received praise for his attitude towards the sport, particularly for his behavior during matches, and for eschewing alcohol. (Full article...) -
Image 5Jones at the 2013 Paul Hunter Classic
Jamie Jones (born 14 February 1988) is a Welsh professional snooker player from Neath. At the age of 14 he was the youngest ever player to make a maximum 147 break in competition, a record that has since been beaten by Judd Trump. At the 2012 World Snooker Championship, Jones reached his first ranking quarter-final. He made his second appearance in the quarter-finals of a Triple Crown tournament at the 2016 UK Championship.
Jones made his first official maximum break in the third frame of his last-64 match against Lee Walker at the 2018 Paul Hunter Classic. It was his first professional maximum break.
In October 2018, Jones was suspended from the snooker tour pending a match-fixing investigation. The match in question was a 2016 International Championship qualifier between former world champion Graeme Dott and Jones's good friend and compatriot David John. (Full article...) -
Image 6Dorothy Wise (1914–1995) was an American professional pool player. She was born in Spokane, Washington. When she first started playing pool professionally, there were very few national tournaments for women. She won many local and state tournaments, so she called herself the world champion. The first national tournament for women happened in 1967. She won and kept winning for the next five years. She lost the title in 1972. She played in the final against 13-year-old Jean Balukas.
She became a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1981. She was the first woman to be made a member.
Dorothy learned to play pool from her husband, Jimmy Wise. He managed billiard parlors (where people play pool) in several cities around the western United States. He watched Dorothy win the first national championship in 1967, but died later that year. (Full article...) -
Image 7LoreeJon Ogonowski-Brown (formerly LoreeJon Jones, LoreeJon Hasson, sometimes known mononymically as LoreeJon; born November 6, 1965) is a professional pool player.
A child prodigy who began playing at the age of 4 at her home in Garwood, New Jersey, she picked up the game from her father, John Ogonowski.
Recognizing her talent, her father built wooden boxes around the table so she would be the correct height for him to teach her the sport. Her father was her instructor, and her mother became her daily practice partner. She ran her first rack of balls at age 5. She performed her first three trick shots at age 6 in Chicago at a men's World Straight Pool tournament. At age 11, she became a pro player with the Women's Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) and came to be known as "Queen of the Hill". (Full article...) -
Image 8The "Crucible curse" (also known as "The curse of the Crucible") is a quip in professional snooker, referring to the fact that no first-time winner of the World Snooker Championship has retained the title since the tournament moved to Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in 1977. Beginning with the 1979 champion Terry Griffiths, who lost in the second round of the 1980 event, 19 first-time world champions have failed to defend their titles, although Joe Johnson and Ken Doherty made it to the final the year after their maiden victories. Most recently, the 2023 champion Luca Brecel lost in the first round of the 2024 World Snooker Championship. Kyren Wilson, winner of the 2024 event, is yet to attempt to break the Crucible curse.
Several world champions successfully defended their first title in the pre-Crucible era; the last to do so was John Pulman in 1964. (Full article...) -
Image 9Frank Taberski (1889–1941) was a professional pocket billiards player from Schenectady, New York. Nicknamed "The Gray Fox," he won 14 world titles. (Full article...)
-
Image 10
Larger tables may require multiple lamps to properly light the playing surface.
A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, pool, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth (usually of a tightly woven worsted wool called baize), and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole thing elevated above the floor. More specific terms are used for specific sports, such as snooker table and pool table, and different-sized billiard balls are used on these table types. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that the 1947 World Snooker Championship was the first world snooker championship where the winner wasn't Joe Davis?
- ... that a snooker table used at the 2022 Turkish Masters was fixed with a car jack?
- ... that Kyren Wilson won the first four frames in all of his snooker matches at the 2023 Tour Championship?
- ... 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 referee Jan Verhaas was informed of an error he made at the 2022 Masters by a member of the crowd?
- ... that the 1810s reign of Ioan Caragea introduced Wallachia to carom billiards, sugar sculptures, and an eponymous plague?
- ... that John Spencer won a World Snooker Championship on his first attempt in 1969?
Related portals and projects
Good articles - load new batch
-
Image 1The 2019 Treviso Open (sometimes known as the 2019 Dynamic Billard Italian Open) was a nine-ball pool tournament, and the second Euro Tour event of the 2019 season. The event was held from 8 to 11 May 2019, at the Best Western Premier BHR Treviso Hotel in Treviso, Italy. The event had a total prize pool of €38,000 with the winner of each event receiving €4,500. The event followed the Leende Open, and preceded the Austria Open.
The event was won by Polish player Konrad Juszczyszyn who defeated the Netherlands' Ivar Saris in the final 9–6. The defending champion was Fedor Gorst from the Netherlands, who defeated Mateusz Śniegocki 9–7 in the 2018 Treviso Open final. However, Gorst failed to progress to the knockout round. Russia's Kristina Tkach was the defending champion of the women's event, having defeated Oliwia Czupryńska in the 2018 final 7–0. Tkach successfully defended the championship, defeating Marharyta Fefilava in the final 7–5. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2019 China Championship (officially the 2019 Evergrande China Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 23 to 29 September 2019. The event was held at the Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Centre in Guangzhou, China. Qualifying for the event took place from 15 to 18 August 2019 at the Barnsley Metrodome in Barnsley, England. The tournament was the fourth edition of the China Championship and the third ranking event of the 2019/2020 season.
Mark Selby was the defending champion, having defeated John Higgins in the previous year's final 10–9. Selby reached the semi-finals, before losing 6–3 to Shaun Murphy. Murphy reached his third consecutive final, having done so at the two prior events Shanghai Masters and the International Championship. Murphy played Mark Williams in the final, winning his 8th ranking title with a 10–9 in the final. The highest break of the event was a 145 made by Mark Allen in the first round win over Anthony Hamilton. (Full article...) -
Image 3The 1934 World Snooker Championship, known at the time as the Professional Championship of Snooker, was a snooker tournament held partly at the Lounge Hall in Nottingham and then at the Central Hall in Kettering, from 2 to 6 April 1934. Joe Davis won the title for the eighth time by defeating Tom Newman, the only other entrant, by 25 frames to 22. At one stage Newman led 14–13, but Davis then pulled ahead to lead 24–18 and, although Newman won the next four frames, Davis took the 47th frame to secure the title. Davis compiled a break of 70 in the third frame. (Full article...)
-
Image 4The 2021 Welsh Open (officially the 2021 BetVictor Welsh Open) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 21 February 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. It was the 10th ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season and the 30th edition of the Welsh Open, first held in 1992. It was the fifth of six tournaments in the European Series and the fourth and final event of the Home Nations Series. The event was sponsored by sports betting company BetVictor, with the winner being awarded £70,000 from a total prize fund of £405,000.
Shaun Murphy was the defending champion, having won the 2020 event with a 9–1 victory over Kyren Wilson in the final. However, Murphy lost 5–4 to Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. Jordan Brown defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–8 in the final to win the first ranking title of his career. Ranked 81st in the world, Brown became the lowest-ranked player to win a ranking event since world number 93 Dave Harold won the 1993 Asian Open. (Full article...) -
Image 5
William Hoskins (1862–1934) was an American inventor, chemist, electrical engineer, and entrepreneur in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most active in Chicago, Illinois. He became the co-inventor in 1897 of modern billiard chalk with professional carom billiards player William A. Spinks. He is, however, best known for the invention of the electric heating coil (the basis for numerous ubiquitous household and industrial appliances, including electric stoves, space heaters, and toasters) and the invention of the first electric toaster. (Full article...) -
Image 6The 2019 World Pool Masters was a nine-ball pool tournament which took place in Gibraltar from 29 to 31 March 2019. It was the 26th edition of the World Pool Masters invitational tournament organised by Matchroom Sport. The event contained increased participation from 16 to 24 players, and increased total prize fund to $100,000. Spaniard David Alcaide won the event, defeating Greece's Alexander Kazakis in the final 9–8, doubling the final ball the length of the table to win. The reigning champion was Dutchman Niels Feijen who defeated Shane Van Boening of the United States in the previous year's final to win the title for the second time in his career. Feijen was defeated in the opening round by Alcaide. (Full article...)
-
Image 7
The leather shake bottle used as a carom target in bottle pool.
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 8
Jasmin Ouschan (German pronunciation: [ˈjasmɪn ˈɔʊʃan]; born 10 January 1986) 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.
In international competition she has earned the World Games 2005 gold medal and World Games 2009 silver medal in nine-ball. , she has earned a total of twenty-nine individual European Pool Championships gold medals (ten in eight-ball, ten in nine-ball, six in straight pool and three in ten-ball) since 1999, including eighteen (four in eight-ball, five in nine-ball, six in straight pool and three in ten-ball) since joining the open Women's division in 2005. She was the Youth European Champion in eight-ball six consecutive years from 1999–2004. (Full article...) -
Image 9The 2007 Welsh Open was the 2007 edition of the Welsh Open professional snooker tournament and was held from 12 to 18 February 2007 at the Newport Centre in Newport, South East Wales. It was the 16th staging of the competition since 1992 and the tenth time it took place at the Newport Centre. The tournament was the fifth of seven World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) ranking events in the 2006/2007 season. The host broadcasters were BBC Cymru Wales and Eurosport.
Grand Prix winner Neil Robertson won the tournament, defeating 500–1 outsider Andrew Higginson, who was in only his third appearance in the main stages of a professional competition, nine frames to eight (9–8) in the final. It was Roberston's second ranking tournament victory, becoming the fourth non-British and Irish player to win more than one ranking title. Robertson won against Michael Holt and world champions Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Steve Davis en route to the final. Higginson achieved the tournament's highest break with a maximum break in the second frame of his quarter-final match with Ali Carter. The Welsh Open preceded the China Open and followed the Malta Cup. (Full article...) -
Image 10The 2021 UK Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo UK Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 23 November to 5 December 2021 at the York Barbican, in York, England. The event was the first Triple Crown and fifth ranking event of the 2021–22 snooker season. The tournament featured a prize fund of £1,009,000, with the winner receiving £200,000. It was sponsored by car retail company Cazoo and broadcast in the UK by the BBC and Eurosport.
Neil Robertson was the defending champion, having defeated Judd Trump 10–9 in the 2020 final, but he lost 2–6 in the first round to amateur John Astley. Many other top seeds exited the tournament in the early rounds, with 11 of the world's top 13 ranked players eliminated before the last-16 stage. For the first time in the tournament's history, no top-16 player reached the final, which was contested between China's Zhao Xintong and Belgium's Luca Brecel, both of whom made their first appearances in a Triple Crown final. Zhao won the event with a 10–5 victory in the final to claim his first ranking title. The event featured 119 century breaks, with Gary Wilson making the highest, his fourth career maximum break, in his first-round match against Ian Burns. (Full article...)
General images - load new batch
-
Image 1Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards)
-
Image 3alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 4A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
-
Image 5A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
-
Image 6Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
-
Image 7The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
-
Image 8Illustration 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)
-
Image 9alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 10A 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)
-
Image 11A 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)
-
Image 12A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
-
Image 13Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
-
Image 14alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 15alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 17alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 19alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 21A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from Snooker)
-
Image 22A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from Snooker)
-
Image 24alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
-
Image 26Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
-
Image 27Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
Major topics
Pool games | ||
---|---|---|
Carom billiards | ||
Snooker | ||
Other games | ||
Resources | ||
Major international tournaments |
| |
Other events | ||
Governing bodies | ||
Categories | ||
![]() The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. |
More topics
Early events | |
---|---|
Match-play | |
Challenges | |
Knock-outs | |
Crucible era | |
Related articles | |
Tournaments | |
---|---|
Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
---|---|
Ranking events | |
Non-ranking events | |
Seniors events |
|
Tours and series | |
Related lists | |
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
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/8-Ball.jpg/95px-8-Ball.jpg)
-
Annuals36
-
Bulbs, Corms & Tubers41
-
Ferns27
-
Fruits3
-
Garden Plants23
-
Grasses26
-
Herb17
-
Insects1
-
Mammals1
-
Midwest Native Plants0
-
Northeast Native Plants112
-
Perennials123
-
Rose1
-
Shrubs47
-
Trees112
-
Tropical Plants53
-
Upland Birds5
-
Vines18
-
Viola Tricolor1
-
Water Gardening & Plants9
-
Waterfowl0
-
Wetland Birds0
-
Wetland Plants4
-
Wildbirds172
-
Wildflowers1
-
Woodland Plants29
Recent Comments