About Pool Tables

alex desouza asked:


Although they look like same but there are some differneces between two games. Both games are interesting to play but are addictive a lot.Yes as addictive as gambling. So here I am giving you some differences by which you can sort out these two games .

Historically the umbrella term for the sport as a whole was billiards. While that familiar name is still employed variably as a generic name for all games, the word’s usage has splintered into more inclusive competing meanings among certain groups and geographic regions. For example, in the United Kingdom, billiards refers exclusively to English Billiards, while in the United States it is sometimes used to refer only to carom games and by a minority to eight-ball (being the only cue game known to many players).

In our time, the two can easily be exchanged and mean the same thing. When people refer to one, it is assumed the other is also being included. On the technical side, there is a difference. Billiards is played with smaller balls. In billiards, only three balls are used white, yellow and red and both the white and the yellow ball can act as the strikers. Billiards is basically pool without pockets. Usually the cloth on a billiards table is much faster. The object in billiards (3 cushion billiards) is to hit the object ball then go three rails and hit the other ball, or hit 3 rails and hit both object balls with the cue ball (these are called caroms).

Most of us are familiar with pool and pool tables. Some of us may be aware of the different variations of the pool game, a few being eight-ball, nine-ball and cut throat. As stated above, billiards is played on a table with no pockets. We know that pool tables are constructed with 6 pockets. The game is played with two sets of balls, each containing seven balls, with one set being solid colored and the other striped. The two sets are combined into one set and then completed by a black eight ball. This is a standard set of pool balls, and can be broken up to play different versions of the game.

Though there are vast differences between the two games, they are commonly grouped as one and refered to as cue sports. If someone says they’re going to shoot a game of billiards, we all know what they are referring to in general. It all depends on what style of the game you would like to play. Billiards is a form of pool. So perhaps in future reference, it should all be covered by using the term pool, unless you are actually playing by billiards rules and regulations.



Paula

Jonathon Hardcastle asked:


For many young billiard players ripping off the green baize, which is the woven wool, or wool-nylon blend, used to cover the upper surface of a pool table, is their worst nightmare. But, the horrifying reality of having to justify a bad stroke to the bar and billiards owner cannot compare with the chilling effect of loosing face in front of friends or girlfriends. Many years before the billiards fans favorite movie, “The Color of Money,” starring Tom Cruise and Paul Newman, numerous youngsters attempted to conquer adulthood while learning to play pool.

Even prior to Al Pacino’s in “Carlito’s Way”, characters that needed to make a statement as being masculine, in times sophisticated, but always cool, were pictured as amateur or professional pool players. Movies, songs, and books, used this type of men as their aggressive and yet sensitive male prototype, was particularly tempting for young men who desired to associate with that kind of male image. During the late 80s and early 90s, young adults, in an effort to imitate their beloved icons and achieve some of their tremendous appeal, have spent hours in bars holding a hardwood stick (cue) and playing continuously billiards games. By holding the larger circumference end of the cue, called “the butt,” the male players pointed the leather chalked tip attached on cue’s “shaft,” its smaller circumference end, to the ball of their choice -usually the white one-and upon choosing a specific angle for their strike, attempted ultimately to hit a colored ball from the table’s surface. The powerful feeling they experienced when their hit was successful, made up for all those long practicing hours. Indeed, even the most inexperienced of those young men managed, after multiple attempts, to succeed in striking a few balls correctly into the pool tables’ holes.

Hanging around bars and bonding in front of billiards tables with friends, college classmates and later business associates, is a practice men typically enjoy having; especially those who come from western-type of cultures. Moreover, the scene of a man holding a cue and using a chalk between each shot, to increase the tip’s friction coefficient, is one of the most masculine scenes a western type of woman might be able to think of; apart from the one in which a man rides a heavy motorcycle, like the famous Marlon Brando scene.

Based on habit, or even subconsciously, men usually select to play a pool game and practice their thinking and sticking abilities surrounded by other male friends. Typically, women’s feminine side is portrayed as more delicate and thus, playing a game of pools with a female friend leads men to play less harshly or taking the role of a pool game’s teacher. Since this is the generally accepted stereotype, men are always appearing as conquerors and women as conquered. Perhaps, the ancient game of control between sexes has found to the game of billiards, yet again, another interface to denote its powerful existence.



Lillian