Most difficult billiards game

T

the Goof Ball

Goof Ball Committee
I was looking up different billiards games like other than the usual 8-ball/9-ball/Snooker. It seems that Russian Pyramid is probably the most difficult billiards game.

There is a post and video about Russian Pyramid I made on my billiards blog.

I'm just wondering if you ever played this billiards variant. The pockets are just barely larger than the balls, and in tournament play the table is 12 feet in length. Is this the hardest billiards game to master?
 
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On the surface it seems more difficult. But I don't think it even approaches snooker. It may be more challenging to pocket a ball, but if you notice the only potting angles they play are fairly straight. There is not as much positional play to worry about, especially when they are allowed to us any ball as the cb.

For me the toughest games, in no particular order are, Snooker, 14.1, 3 cushion and One Pocket. All of these games require an immense amount of knowledge and accuracy. Choosing one out of the three is impossible I think.
 
the Goof Ball said:
I was looking up different billiards games like other than the usual 8-ball/9-ball/Snooker. It seems that Russian Pyramid is probably the most difficult billiards game.

There is a post and video about Russian Pyramid I made on my billiards blog.

I'm just wondering if you ever played this billiards variant. The pockets are just barely larger than the balls, and in tournament play the table is 12 feet in length. Is this the hardest billiards game to master?
Click to expand...
I've played this game a bit.It requires snooker-type accuracy..and a
special cue...if you use your pool cue it'll drive the tip into the butt-plate..
..those balls are big and heavy

Any game that can be mastered is not much of a game.
Unlike the people that say they only play the table,I feel there are
only easy or tough opponents...nobody beats the game.

I think the games that require the most intelligence are one-pocket
and 3-cushion....full-rack banks is right up there too
 
Cameron Smith said:
On the surface it seems more difficult. But I don't think it even approaches snooker. It may be more challenging to pocket a ball, but if you notice the only potting angles they play are fairly straight. There is not as much positional play to worry about, especially when they are allowed to us any ball as the cb.

For me the toughest games, in no particular order are, Snooker, 14.1, 3 cushion and One Pocket. All of these games require an immense amount of knowledge and accuracy. Choosing one out of the three is impossible I think.
Click to expand...
I think you probably nailed it Cameron.

I have to add this: At what level of play are we talking?
Can you run 10 racks of 9 ball?
200 @ 14:1
Average 2.0 @ 3Cushion
Score 147 @ snooker or even 120
3 racks @ one pocket

This is what makes these games great. There's always a higher level. Always.
 
I love snooker, but IMHO Russian is much harder.

You're talking about potting angles and such, think about snooker, make a red, get on the close color or black, draw back a few inches, make a red, a black, draw back a few inches. Way too much of that. I would love to see snooker move the black to the other end of the table and force someone to go up table each time to pot it and then come back down for a red.

In snooker for the most part the top half of the table isn't' even used until 2-3-4 come into play at the end or unless someone gets poor shape off a red.
 
u12armresl said:
I love snooker, but IMHO Russian is much harder.

You're talking about potting angles and such, think about snooker, make a red, get on the close color or black, draw back a few inches, make a red, a black, draw back a few inches. Way too much of that. I would love to see snooker move the black to the other end of the table and force someone to go up table each time to pot it and then come back down for a red.

In snooker for the most part the top half of the table isn't' even used until 2-3-4 come into play at the end or unless someone gets poor shape off a red.
Click to expand...

Have you played snooker on a full size table with regulation pockets? It's easy to talk about potting reds and blacks without moving the cue ball around....until you actually try it. Watch a frame where the balls are tied up, and a series of extremely precise positional shots are required to continue the break. Watch Ronnie make it look easy then have a go yourself. It just sounds to me like you have not watched or played a lot of snooker.

Straight pool is a very difficult game which is played mostly in one half of a 9ft pool table. I think the point about snooker being played mostly in one half is overused and insignificant. A difficult game should be good at separating better players from weaker ones. Snooker does this as well as any game I can think of. I think Cameron gave a pretty good answer on this.
 
actually i have an interview where Evgeny Stalev talks about Russian Pyramid and he says pool is more complex than pyramid. I played pyramid and at a first look pyramid is a tough game but the only hardness of the game is to make a ball, it is an easy game to learn. The tightness of the pockets preclude the game to be a complex game, the safety are really easy because you don't have to worry about leave an easy shot to the opponent, every shot is tough. The only pocketing angle is almost staight in angle.
So you don't have to learn banks, kick shot, etc.
Snooker is much much harder than russian pyramid i don't really understand how someone can think pyramid is tougher
and the article on that website is pretty ignorant.
 
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I second what Slh said. Pyramid is hard in regard with pocketing a ball, but we are talking about what game is harder, right? Snooker, for this writer. One pocket, 14.1 come next. 3-cushion would be the hardest overall, but I'm talking about pocket billiards only now.
 
Ive played this type of game before but the people i played it with called it Polish Pool :lol:

Overall its not too hard of a game to get or play well if you have a stroke. Now if the pockets were like snooker pockets or played on a table with 4 1/4" pockets then i would be truly impressed :cool:
 
15 ball rotation. Not only do you need excellent position skills, but there are so many balls on the table that running a rack becomes very difficult
 
desi2960 said:
but, snooker on a 7 by 14 !!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Chuck, have you seen one of those tables at some time in the past? I've only ever seen pictures. If 7 x 14 tables were the norm these days, I'd probably have to change my glasses prescription.

Much as I love snooker, I give 3-cushion the edge in terms of difficulty for a commonly played game. For a less commonly played game, I'd choose Artistic Billiards.

One measure of a game's difficulty could be the likelihood that an experienced player could win the game in a single inning from the break or from a score of zero points. Alternately, one could try to count the number of players who have and are a threat to win the game in one inning.

Runouts occur in many games: 8-ball, 9-ball, 10-ball, banks, one pocket, 14.1, and even Russian Pyramid and snooker (147 or full clearance, whatever the final score). Recently, Snooker Scene magazine reported that Jimmy White nearly made two consecutive 147s, with his second maximum cut short by the pink (the second-to-last ball). Wow.

But has anyone read or heard of a 3-cushion tournament player winning a match from the break?

If the world record high run in 3-cushion is 31 points but games are typically played to 50, then even if you're playing Sayginer, Caudron, or Blomdahl, you're going to have a few innings at the table.

If you miss a ball against a professional 8-, 9-, or 10-ball player, you may be sitting through several racks. Leave an easy red for Ronnie O'Sullivan, Marco Fu, Shaun Murphy, or even some teen phenoms and you could see a century (100 points) or maybe even a maximum clearance. This could give you time to eat a sandwich, drink a beer, and check email on your phone.

Give a professional 3-cushion player ball in hand, and even if this leads to a good run you'll probably be back at the table fairly soon.

Here's a proposition: play some 3-cushion, and take ball in hand on every shot. Even in this case running 50 would be none too easy.

Another contender for hardest game is Artistic Billiards. According to the Wikipedia entry, no one has ever achieved the maximum score of 500 points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_billiards

Yet another measure of difficulty: how hard is a break shot?

1. Open break in 8-ball, 9-ball, or 10-ball.
2. Safety break in 14.1.
3. Safety break in one pocket.
4. Safety break in snooker.
5. 3-cushion opening shot you can practice in advance.
6. Some insane artistic billiards shot that involves masse, the right humidity, and possibly a special-purpose cue from Dieckman.
 
Slh said:
actually i have an interview where Evgeny Stalev talks about Russian Pyramid and he says pool is more complex than pyramid. I played pyramid and at a first look pyramid is a tough game but the only hardness of the game is to make a ball, it is an easy game to learn. The tightness of the pockets preclude the game to be a complex game, the safety are really easy because you don't have to worry about leave an easy shot to the opponent, every shot is tough. The only pocketing angle is almost staight in angle.
So you don't have to learn banks, kick shot, etc.
Snooker is much much harder than russian pyramid i don't really understand how someone can think pyramid is tougher
and the article on that website is pretty ignorant.
Click to expand...

Slh:

I like the fact that you actually reviewed the video of a player that's a known NAME in both Russian Pyramid as well as pool. Here in the Northeast US, we hold Evgeny Stalev's name in high regard. We'd love to see him back! (Evgeny, if you're reading this, "come back"!)

As you might know, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY is known as "Little Russia." I've played Pyramid there and I'm also a known snooker player in these parts. I can tell the readership the following things, from personal experience:

1. While *pocketing* a ball in Russian Pyramid might seem more difficult than snooker (because as the OP noted, the tighter pocket clearance tolerances than snooker), the architecture of the pockets allows a bit of "cheating." That is, if you look at even a moderately used Pyramid table, you'll see this:

** Notice the "horns" of the pocket have been "burned-off" **

Russian_billiards_ball_at_a_corner_pocket.jpg

That's from the "cheating" aspect I was referring to earlier. Whereas you can "cheat" a pool table's pockets by merely aiming away from the center of the pocket (even using the adjoining rail, in some cases), in Russian Pyramid, you "cheat" the pocket by HITTING IT HARD. The purpose is to "bend" the horn/knuckle of the pocket out of the way. It's roughly analogous to that well-known 8-ball shot, where the 8-ball is resting on the horn/knuckle of the side pocket, so you slam the 8-ball *through* the horn and pocket it.

2. A key technique of Russian Pyramid is as some knuckleheads point out, the "intentional scratching" by caroming the shooter's chosen cue ball off of the object ball into the pocket. The knuckleheads might think this is "easy," but it's not. You have to have mastered the 30-degree, 90-degree, and ghostball rules to accurately predict the track of the chosen cue ball into that pocket. And don't forget, the cue ball loses 50% of its energy during the carom, so you have to accurately power-up as well.

3. As other posters have noted, the distance is the SAME between snooker and Pyramid tables. One thing you will NOT see in Pyramid, however, are table-length shots where the shooter is aiming at a pocket (whether directly trying to pocket an object ball, or trying to carom the chosen cue ball off of an object ball). Rather, a safety is played in these conditions. Yet, in snooker, long pots are common, and are an essential technique for an accomplished snooker player. So in these respects, the nod goes to snooker players.

4. One word -- POWER. Russian Pyramid players have the most powerful strokes of any of the cue arts. That's a known, and when you've played Russian Pyramid enough, you'll know why. Punching those huge balls around, with accuracy, requires one heck of a stroke. Ever wonder what a Pyramid player looks like on a pool table, power-wise? Watch this break:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PkCG3q2PDa4#t=560

I'd have to say, though, strategy-wise, 3-cushion and snooker get the nod. And I include 3-cushion because the title of this thread includes the word "billiards" but without reference to the word "pocket."

I hope this is helpful,
-Sean
 
Rethunk said:
One measure of a game's difficulty could be the likelihood that an experienced player could win the game in a single inning from the break or from a score of zero points. Alternately, one could try to count the number of players who have and are a threat to win the game in one inning.

Runouts occur in many games: 8-ball, 9-ball, 10-ball, banks, one pocket, 14.1, and even Russian Pyramid and snooker (147 or full clearance, whatever the final score). Recently, Snooker Scene magazine reported that Jimmy White nearly made two consecutive 147s, with his second maximum cut short by the pink (the second-to-last ball). Wow.

But has anyone read or heard of a 3-cushion tournament player winning a match from the break?
Click to expand...

One point to make about this is that a snooker player upon clearing the table wins only one frame. Unless it's Pot Black, the other guy will shoot again. An alternating defensive break ensures that a player can't possibly win the match without his opponent shooting. In 3-cushion however, this would actually be a possibility! (Obviously half-joking here...)

I like Sean's post on Russian Billiards a lot. People will always mention the relative size of the balls and pockets on those tables, but rarely will anyone comment on this aspect of "cheating" them using force. This is actually one thing that kind of turns me off the game; it doesn't have the same elegance and finesse of games like snooker or straight pool. There is little more satisfying in my view than a well-executed, delicate cannon...



...on a billiard table, at least.
 
Hey Sean, are you calling me a knucklehead? I resemble that remark. :grin:

FTR, I wasn't trying to say that "scratching" is easy in Russian Pyramid, just that it is weird to watch a pocket billiard game where you are intentionally trying to scratch. Not used to seeing that.

And while it may not be easy in RP, it sure is in pool. I know because I am very good at it and I never even practice that shot. :thumbup:
 
DogsPlayingPool said:
FTR, I wasn't trying to say that "scratching" is easy in Russian Pyramid, just that it is weird to watch a pocket billiard game where you are intentionally trying to scratch. Not used to seeing that.

And while it may not be easy in RP, it sure is in pool. I know because I am very good at it and I never even practice that shot. :thumbup:
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfKiGSGdA5k&sns=em

Nice video of Walter Lindrum playing English Billiards, and more scratching to mess with your mind! By all accounts, Lindrum was a monster.
 
sfleinen said:
Slh:

I like the fact that you actually reviewed the video of a player that's a known NAME in both Russian Pyramid as well as pool. Here in the Northeast US, we hold Evgeny Stalev's name in high regard. We'd love to see him back! (Evgeny, if you're reading this, "come back"!)

As you might know, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY is known as "Little Russia." I've played Pyramid there and I'm also a known snooker player in these parts. I can tell the readership the following things, from personal experience:

1. While *pocketing* a ball in Russian Pyramid might seem more difficult than snooker (because as the OP noted, the tighter pocket clearance tolerances than snooker), the architecture of the pockets allows a bit of "cheating." That is, if you look at even a moderately used Pyramid table, you'll see this:

** Notice the "horns" of the pocket have been "burned-off" **

Russian_billiards_ball_at_a_corner_pocket.jpg

That's from the "cheating" aspect I was referring to earlier. Whereas you can "cheat" a pool table's pockets by merely aiming away from the center of the pocket (even using the adjoining rail, in some cases), in Russian Pyramid, you "cheat" the pocket by HITTING IT HARD. The purpose is to "bend" the horn/knuckle of the pocket out of the way. It's roughly analogous to that well-known 8-ball shot, where the 8-ball is resting on the horn/knuckle of the side pocket, so you slam the 8-ball *through* the horn and pocket it.

2. A key technique of Russian Pyramid is as some knuckleheads point out, the "intentional scratching" by caroming the shooter's chosen cue ball off of the object ball into the pocket. The knuckleheads might think this is "easy," but it's not. You have to have mastered the 30-degree, 90-degree, and ghostball rules to accurately predict the track of the chosen cue ball into that pocket. And don't forget, the cue ball loses 50% of its energy during the carom, so you have to accurately power-up as well.

3. As other posters have noted, the distance is the SAME between snooker and Pyramid tables. One thing you will NOT see in Pyramid, however, are table-length shots where the shooter is aiming at a pocket (whether directly trying to pocket an object ball, or trying to carom the chosen cue ball off of an object ball). Rather, a safety is played in these conditions. Yet, in snooker, long pots are common, and are an essential technique for an accomplished snooker player. So in these respects, the nod goes to snooker players.

4. One word -- POWER. Russian Pyramid players have the most powerful strokes of any of the cue arts. That's a known, and when you've played Russian Pyramid enough, you'll know why. Punching those huge balls around, with accuracy, requires one heck of a stroke. Ever wonder what a Pyramid player looks like on a pool table, power-wise? Watch this break:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PkCG3q2PDa4#t=560

I'd have to say, though, strategy-wise, 3-cushion and snooker get the nod. And I include 3-cushion because the title of this thread includes the word "billiards" but without reference to the word "pocket."

I hope this is helpful,
-Sean
Click to expand...
thanks for the detailed post. So you agree with me... pyramid billiards is a tough game but not that tough. Pool is more complex and snooker is harder... Thank you for your
observation. About cheating the pocket you are 100%, to enlarge the pockets you have to hammer on the pocket, in fact almost every shot is an hard one, except some shot on the side pockets, because the pocket are slightly bigger.
Plus almost every shot is played from a little distance so hitting hard with accuracy is easier. The fact you can hit enlarge the pockets and you play short distance shot makes the game easier than it looks.
The carom also are very commonly played because the exit angle of the shot is straighther. For example instead of cutting a ball very thinly you hit that ball bigger to take an "intentional scratch" making the exit angle straighter.
With this post i'm not saying pyramid is an easy game because is a really tough one but it is easier than it looks, there are much less things to know, instead in pool you have to know a lot of things.
Hope you can understand it i know is not very well written.
 
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