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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 1The 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...) -
Image 2The 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 Taylor missed three attempts to pot the black, Davis missed his only attempt to leave Taylor a relatively simple pot 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...) -
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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 snooker cue, 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 foul committed by the opposing player or team. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points, and a snooker match ends when a player wins 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...) -
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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...) -
Image 5The 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 6The 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...) -
Image 7The 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 8The 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 9The 1983 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1983 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 16 April and 2 May 1983 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. This was the third and final world ranking event of the 1982–83 snooker season following the 1982 Professional Players Tournament. Sixteen seeded players qualified directly for the event, with an additional sixteen players progressing through a two-round qualification round held at the Romiley Forum in Stockport, and Redwood Lodge in Bristol. The winner of the event received £30,000, and the tournament was sponsored by cigarette company Embassy.
Alex Higgins was the defending champion, having won the 1982 championship, but he lost 5–16 to Steve Davis in the semi-finals. Davis, the 1981 champion, won the event for the second time, defeating Cliff Thorburn 18–6 in the final. A total of 18 century breaks were made during the tournament. The highest was made by Thorburn in the fourth frame of his second round match against Terry Griffiths, where he compiled a maximum break of 147 points, becoming the first player to make such a break in a World Championship match. (Full article...) -
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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...)
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Image 1The ACUI Collegiate Pocket Billiards National Championship, in recent years known more specifically as the ACUI Collegiate Nine-ball National Championship, was an amateur United States annual pool competition for university and college students, organized by the Association of College Unions International (ACUI). It was founded in 1937, and was one of ACUI's longest-running programs. In June 2020, the ACUI made the decision to discontinue their National Collegiate Pocket Billiards program. (Full article...)
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Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast.
Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his career, reaching his highest ranking, 26th, for the 2004–05 season, and has reached one ranking final, at the 2014 Players Championship Grand Final, where he lost 4–0 to Barry Hawkins. Alongside this, Greene reached a ranking semi-final, at the 2007 Grand Prix, losing to the eventual champion Marco Fu, and five quarter-finals.
Representing Northern Ireland with teammate Mark Allen, he reached the final of the 2011 World Cup, where they lost to China. (Full article...) -
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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 4Cutthroat or cut-throat, also sometimes referred to as three-man-screw, is a typically three-player or team pocket billiards game, played on a pool table, with a full standard set of pool balls (15 numbered object balls and a cue ball); the game cannot be played with three or more players with an unnumbered reds-and-yellows ball set, as used in blackball. Each player is commonly assigned a set of five consecutively numbered object balls, though the number of balls will vary by number of players. The object of the game is to be the last player with at least one ball of their group remaining on the table.
The name "cutthroat" is not unique to pool, but is used to refer to other games played with three or more players in which all players must fend for themselves, e.g. cutthroat bridge and cutthroat American handball. (Full article...) -
Image 5Sport Lisboa e Benfica (Portuguese pronunciation: [sɨˈpɔɾ liʒˈβoɐ i βɐ̃jˈfikɐ] ⓘ), commonly known as Benfica, is a semi-professional billiards team based in Lisbon, Portugal. Founded in 1938, Benfica compete in the Portuguese Billiards League, in carom billiards (three-cushion), pool (eight-ball and nine-ball), and snooker events. The team is almost exclusively composed of Portuguese players. They play at the Estádio da Luz in a 202 square meters room with 4 professional pool tables and a 50 people stand. (Full article...)
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Li Hang (Chinese: 李行; pinyin: Lǐ Háng; born 4 October 1990) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who, in 2023, was permanently banned from the sport after committing a range of match-fixing offences. Li first competed professionally during the 2008–09 season. His best performances during his professional career were reaching two ranking semi-finals. He reached a career high of 28th in the snooker world rankings in 2019.
In December 2022, the WPBSA suspended Li from the professional tour amid a match-fixing investigation. In January 2023, it charged him with fixing a match, being concerned in fixing matches, approaching a player to fix a match, seeking to obstruct the investigation, and betting on snooker matches. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, Li received a lifetime ban from the sport. (Full article...) -
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Jose Parica (born April 18, 1949) is a Filipino professional pool player from Manila, nicknamed "Amang" (English: "Father") and "the Giant Killer." As a Filipino Hall of Famer, he pioneered the "Filipino invasion" in the United States in the late 70s, especially in the game of Nine-ball. Also known as "the King" in the Philippines, Parica is considered one of the greatest money players and one-pocket player of all time. He became the Billiards Digest Player of the Year in 1997. (Full article...) -
Image 8Stephen Mizerak Jr. (October 12, 1944 – May 29, 2006) was an American pool player, who was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Mizerak is considered one of the best straight pool players of all time, dominant in the game during the 1970s, winning over 70 tournaments during his career. Mizerak won the World Straight Pool Championship twice, including a record 4 consecutive BCA U.S. Open Straight Pool Championship titles. Nicknamed "The Miz", he had a high run of 421 balls. (Full article...)
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Image 9LoreeJon 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 10Joseph (Joe) Balsis (born 1921, Minersville, Pennsylvania, died January 2, 1995, Minersville), nicknamed "the Meatman", was an American professional pool player, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1982. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that Kyren Wilson won the first four frames in all of his snooker matches at the 2023 Tour Championship?
- ... 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 Gary Wilson threw his snooker cue to the floor in anger at the 2022 UK Championship?
- ... that the final of the 2009 IBSF women's snooker championship was interrupted so that drug tests could be conducted on the players?
- ... 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 at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
- ... that the Highfield Cocoa and Coffee House in Sheffield, England, sold tea, coffee and cocoa at a penny a pint and also provided billiards and reading rooms?
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Image 1The 2019 Antalya Open (also known as the 2019 Dynamic Billiard Antalya Open) was a professional nine-ball pool tournament held from 7 to 10 November 2019 in the Limak Atlantis Resort in Antalya, Turkey. The event was the sixth and final Euro Tour event of 2019, following the Klagenfurt Open. The men's event was won by Estonia's Denis Grabe, who won his third Tour win, defeating Eklent Kaçi 9–2. The women's event was won by Poland's Oliwia Zalewska, who won her first Tour event. She defeated Tina Vogelmann in the final 7–6. (Full article...)
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Kristina Olegovna Tkach (Кристина Олеговна Ткач; born 19 January 1999) is a Russian professional pool player. She became the 2017 WPA World Nine-ball Junior Championship winner, defeating Lee Woo-jin in the final 9–6. Tkach is a four time European champion having won the eight-ball event in 2016 and 2019, as well as Straight pool in 2017 and 2019. In addition, she is a nine-time Junior European Champion.
Tkach is a regular player on the Euro Tour events, reaching the Tour number one in 2016. She is the second most successful player of all time on the tour behind Jasmin Ouschan, having won seven events beginning with the 2016 North Cyprus Open. (Full article...) -
Image 3The 2004 Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament held in February 2004. It was the 30th staging of the Masters tournament, one of three Triple Crown events on the Snooker Tour, the eighth of fifteen World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) events in the 2003/2004 season, and was held at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, United Kingdom from 1 to 8 February 2004. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC.
Paul Hunter won the tournament, defeating 1995 winner and world number three Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–9, claiming the third Masters title of his career in four years. Hunter joined Cliff Thorburn, Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis as the fourth player to win the Masters three or more times. In the semi-finals, Hunter defeated John Higgins 6–3 and O'Sullivan beat Jimmy White 6–4. O'Sullivan compiled a 138 break, the highest of the tournament, in the second frame of his semi-final match against White. (Full article...) -
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Steve Davis OBE (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World Snooker Championship finals in nine years, winning six world titles, and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He was runner-up to Dennis Taylor in one of snooker's most famous matches, the 1985 World Championship final, which ended in a dramatic black-ball conclusion that attracted 18.5 million viewers, still the largest British television audience for any broadcast after midnight and any broadcast on BBC Two.
As well as his six world titles, Davis won the UK Championship six times and the Masters three times for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, placing him third behind Ronnie O'Sullivan (23 titles) and Stephen Hendry (18). During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, a feat matched by only two other players—Hendry and Mark Williams. He holds the record for the most professional titles overall, with 84 individual wins, or 98 including team and pro–am competition (see tables below). His career total of 28 ranking titles places him fifth behind O'Sullivan (41 titles), Hendry (36), John Higgins (31), and Judd Trump (29). Davis became the first player to make an officially recognised maximum break in professional competition—at the 1982 Classic—and he was also the first to earn £1 million in career prize money. (Full article...) -
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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. As of 2013[update], 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 6The 2001 Masters (officially the 2001 Benson & Hedges Masters) was a professional invitational snooker tournament held at the Wembley Conference Centre, London, from 4 to 11 February 2001. It was the 27th edition of The Masters, a Triple Crown event and the third of the five World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) invitational events in the 2000–01 snooker season. It followed the 2000 Scottish Masters and preceded the 2001 Malta Grand Prix. Sponsored by the cigarette company Benson & Hedges, the event had a total prize fund of £650,000, with £175,000 going to the winner.
Matthew Stevens was the tournament's defending champion, but he lost in the second round to Paul Hunter, who went on to reach the final with victories over Peter Ebdon in the quarter-finals and Stephen Hendry in the semi-finals. Hunter's opponent in the final was Fergal O'Brien, who had defeated Dave Harold in his semi-final. Hunter defeated O'Brien 10–9 to win the first of three Masters titles. He and wild card entrant Jimmy White made century breaks of 136, which were the competition's two highest breaks. (Full article...) -
Image 7The 2019 Paul Hunter Classic was a professional non-ranking invitational snooker tournament. The event took place between 24 and 25 August 2019 at the Stadthalle in Fürth, Germany. The tournament was the 2019 edition of the Paul Hunter Classic first held in 2004 as the Grand Prix Fürth. The tournament is named in honour of snooker professional, Paul Hunter who won the 2004 event and died in 2006. The event featured a 16-player bracket with a qualification tournament that was held in Nuremberg, Germany. As the tournament was dropped as a ranking event, independent promoters Dragonstars Event Management promoted the event providing prize money for the tournament.
Kyren Wilson was the defending champion, having defeated Peter Ebdon 4–2 in the 2018 final. Barry Hawkins won the title 4–3 defeating Wilson in the final. Wison lead 3–2 and required one frame to win the title, he was one ball from winning but lost the frame 64–65 and incredibly Hawkins won the decider to win the title. The event also featured an exhibition Speed Snooker Cup tournament which ran concurrently with the main event, which was won by Gary Wilson. Barry Hawkins scored the highest break of the event, a 120 in the third round of the final. (Full article...) -
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The Hustler is a 1961 drama film, directed by Robert Rossen. It tells the story of small-time pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson, who challenges legendary pool player "Minnesota Fats".
The film, which was based on a book of the same name by Walter Tevis, stars Paul Newman as Fast Eddie, Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, Piper Laurie as Sarah, George C. Scott as Bert, and Myron McCormick as Charlie. (Full article...) -
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A maximum break (also known as a maximum, a 147, or orally, a one-four-seven) is the highest possible break in snooker in normal circumstances and is a special type of total clearance. A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 reds with 15 blacks for 120 points, followed by all six colours for a further 27 points. Compiling a maximum break is regarded as a highly significant achievement in the game of snooker, and may be compared to a nine-dart finish in darts or a 300 game in ten-pin bowling.
Joe Davis made the first officially recognised maximum break in a 1955 exhibition match in London. At the Classic in January 1982, Steve Davis achieved the first recognised maximum in professional competition, which was also the first in a televised match. The following year, Cliff Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum at the World Snooker Championship. As of 2023, Ronnie O'Sullivan holds the record for the most maximum breaks in professional competition, with 15. He also holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest competitive maximum break at 5 minutes and 8 seconds, which he set at the 1997 World Championship. (Full article...) -
Image 10The 2019 European Pool Championships (also known as the 2019 Dynamic Billiards European Pool Championships) was a series of professional pool championships that took place at the Best Western Premier in Treviso, Italy. The event was played between 26 April and 8 May 2019 and was the 39th edition of the European Pool Championships that were first held in 1980. The championships saw events for men, women, under 23s and wheelchairs across five disciplines; straight pool, eight-ball, nine-ball, ten-ball and a team event.
Russian players won the most medals over the course of the series, with seven – winning three events. Russia's Kristina Tkach was the most successful female player, winning two events, losing only once in the final of the ten-ball event. Jasmin Ouschan won the nine-ball event, with a whitewash over Nataliya Seroshtan. Finland's Jouni Tähti was the most successful wheelchair player, winning two of the three handicapped events. (Full article...)
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Image 1Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
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Image 2Illustration A: Aerial view of a snooker table with the twenty-two 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 4Historic 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 7A full-size snooker table set up for a game (from Snooker)
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Image 8alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 9alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
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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)
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Image 11Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
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Image 12Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 13alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 14alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 15A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 18The World Snooker Championship trophy (from Snooker)
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Image 19alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 20A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk and two cues (from Snooker)
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Image 21The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
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Image 22A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 24A 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 25alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 26alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 27A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
Major topics
Pool games | ||
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Carom billiards | ||
Snooker | ||
Other games | ||
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Major international tournaments |
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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 | |
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Tournaments | |
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Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
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Ranking events |
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Non-ranking events | |
Seniors events |
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Tours and series | |
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