Pool is also called "pocket billiards". They're all billiards games. I think the original etymology of "billiards" means "games you play in a bar or while drinking" but I'd have to look it up. That would technically include darts, early forms of bowling, snooker, and grabass. :grin:
What's the "purest" form of billiards?
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Pool is also called "pocket billiards". They're all billiards games. I think the original etymology of "billiards" means "games you play in a bar or while drinking" but I'd have to look it up. That would technically include darts, early forms of bowling, snooker, and grabass. :grin:
Considering that billiards and pool are really completely different games (like chess and checkers) for pool THE game is 14.1. For billiards got to go with 3C.
Actually what I was referring to is this;
Billiard
Also billiard shot.
1. Any shot in which the cue ball is caromed off an object ball to strike another object ball (with or without contacting cushions in the interim).[1]
2. In certain carom billiards games such as three-cushion, a successful attempt at making a scoring billiard shot under the rules for that game (such as contacting three cushions with the cue ball while executing the billiard). A failed attempt at scoring would, in this context, not be called "a billiard" by players of such games even if it satisfied the first, more general definition.
To me this is why they call it 3 cushion Billiards, because you have to hit 3 cushions and get a "billiards" shot.
billiards -
1590s, from Fr. billiard, originally the wooden cue stick, a dim. form from O.Fr. bille "stick of wood," from Gaul. *bilia "tree" (cf. Ir. bile "tree trunk").
So really playing billiards just means playing with your stick
Billiards has to be the most innuendo loaded sport of all time.
1590s, from Fr. billiard, originally the wooden cue stick, a dim. form from O.Fr. bille "stick of wood," from Gaul. *bilia "tree" (cf. Ir. bile "tree trunk").
So really playing billiards just means playing with your stick
Billiards has to be the most innuendo loaded sport of all time.
Guess you've never committed a third consecutive foul in either nine ball or ten ball. In addition, when a player pockets the final ball on the table in either nine or ten ball, the rules in competition no longer require that it be spotted, so it's a loss.
3cushion and 14.1 . and if in KY, Banks!
I think it's bank pool. Full rack banks has almost zero luck.
No slop, no combos, no caroms, no kicks...just banks and safeties.
The only time luck enters the game is when one player gets a couple of easy cross side banks and the other player is looking at off-angle backward cut two-railers.
One pocket is a close second, and only gets the nod over straight pool because you never have to kick in 14:1. One pocket requires the most different skills to play well.
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pure can mean "untainted" or "unchanged"...
but its fairly safe to say that pretty much every type of billiard game known to man, present and past, evolved from (or is a cousin to) a different game previously known. so in one way, none of the games we play today are "original" or "pure" billiards.
however, in another way, most of the games we play are "pure" billiards, because they accurately represent the essence of the 'billiard concept', which is: the manipulation of a 'ball' with a 'cue' on a precisely level plane.
[ to break down that concept even further, the cue acts as an extension of your body, and the ball is simply a medium, like an artist's paint, with which you can physically express and make visible, your finely tuned ability to manipulate precise amounts of energy.]
Pocket Pool
This is probably more accurate since originally it was played with a mace.
I think playing straight pool really develops your focus and makes you use your mind a lot more than nine ball.
3 Cushion. The target is only a ball wide. You have to make the cue ball hit an object ball, then go three cushions or more to hit another object ball. Every stroke imaginable is required to play this game.
An elite 3 Cushion player can be elite and world class at any other game but the reverse is not true.
Snooker for sure! For god sakes....try to spear in a tiny f'n ball into a rounded pocket at 11.5 feet away! You must be one PURE mo frappy to get that son a gun in the pocket. That's just pocketing the balls, you also have all other aspects of billiards games.
Cheers.
Jay P.
Cheers.
Jay P.
Which is why most top snooker players don't even try. If there is a safety play then they will do that instead of trying to make the long pots as they call them.
In three cushion you can certainly play safe but for the most part there is nowhere to "hide" and it's mostly aggressive shot making.
Of the pocket games I'd have to give snooker the nod for purity in pocketing and precision. It combines the finesse of 14.1 with the ball movement of rotation games when the last six balls are considered.
Here is another way to look at this though.
All the games are PURE.
Each one requires immense amounts of time to master and there is really no indication that any of them requires more or less time to master than any other since we don't have many or any real world examples of pros who have tried to go from game to game. With the exception of Allison of course who dominated 9-ball fairly easily after she transitioned from Snooker. But those two games are very similar with the pocketing being easier in nine ball.
But on the Men's side no snooker player has ever won the 9-Ball World Championships despite several trying.
Now that could have a lot of reasons.
But here is one that I like which MIGHT have some merit. Even though someone is a master in one discipline they don't necessarily have the right intelligence baked in for another game. Even though they have obvious cueing skills in spades they don't necessarily "see" the game the right way because they just haven't been immersed enough in it.
This goes back to a discussion we had a few weeks ago about talent being overrated. One of the examples is that Chess Players are supposed to have remarkable memories. The often can play ten boards or more at once and some blindfolded and they can "see" the boards in their mind and hold them in memory.
Given a test where they were asked to look at a chess position for only a few seconds their recall for those positions was predictably much higher than a non-chess player, near perfect for the top players.
But.
When they were asked to look a chess boards were the pieces were randomly placed in non-chess positions, i.e. not from a real game, they could not remember the piece placement any better than non-chess players. So the idea is that they are focused so intently on the language of chess, groupings of pieces that represent movement paths that are ingrained in every top player that they instantly recognize and recall real postions but are lost when the pieces don't resemble "chess".
My opinion is that top players learn the language of their game and of course certain things translate to other games but without total immersion it's like knowing enough Spanish to get by but not enough to really be comfortable.
Thus, every game is pure. And the top players in them are pure examples of perfection in those games.
In my opinion that is.