Apr 12, 2001 02:16 AM
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There is some dispute about this but most people seem to be of the opinion that snooker was developed from billiards and pool in India by British troops at around the late nineteenth century. But others believe that it was invented by British troops, not in India but in England at the RMA Woolwich barracks in 1865 where first term students were known as “Snookers”. Don’t ask because I’ve no idea why they were called thus. And there are others who have yet a different opinion as to the real origins of Snooker. What is not in dispute is that the game of Snooker was developed from a combination of billiards and pool. Er! We think!
If you want to read the full argument about how and when snooker was invented then go to:
https://snookernet.com it makes for fascinating reading.
Now a world wide game where the top professional players make vast amounts of money, Snooker is a game that requires as much skill as another other game and probably more.
Now surely everybody must have seen a snooker or billiards table, which are the same thing, so I’ll confine myself to stating that it is just a fine baize covered table with a surrounding edge covered in rubber and fine baize with an opening called a pocket in each corner and in the centre of each long side. Tradition has it that the baize is coloured green.
There are 22 balls where 15 are red and there is one each of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black and white, which is the ‘cue ball’. Each player has a ‘cue’ with which to strike the ball. The ‘cue’ is a long piece of tapered wood with a leather tip at the narrow end. Now I’m going to find it incredibly difficult to try and describe how the balls are set out for the start of a game so being fearful of boring the reader I will refer the reader back to the web site noted above for those details.
The game is played as an odd number of ‘frames’ where the player winning the most frames is the winner of the match. The winner of a ‘frame’ is the one who scores most points by potting the balls into the pockets. So basically a player strikes the ‘cue ball’ with his cue, which is then propelled towards the ball being aimed at and if his shot is good the struck ball will fall into a pocket. Dead simple! Oh! Yeah?
Potting a red scores one point whilst potting a yellow scores 2 points. 3 for a green, 4 for a brown, 5 for a pink and 7 for a black. But there is a sequence that must be adhered to. When a player pots a red he may then elect to try to pot any of the colours (those that are not red). He must name the colour being aimed for before playing the shot. Should he pot a colour then he has to try and pot another red then a colour, then a red and so on until no more reds are left on the table or he misses thus giving his opponent a chance to play. However each time that the coloured ball is potted it is replaced on the table on its designated spot and a player may not continue until it has been spotted. After the last red has been potted and the coloured ball the player may then go for the colours in sequence, starting with yellow.
No doubt some bright spark will have figured out that with so many balls on the table and just one designated spot for each colour, there will be a time when a potted coloured ball cannot be placed on its designated spot because that spot is covered by other balls. There are rules to provide for this contingency and generally speaking if the spot is covered the coloured ball is placed on the highest value spot available.
The two players usually toss a coin to see who starts the first frame and subsequent frames are started alternately. Each player can continue playing until they fail to pot a ball or make a foul stroke. The points scored during a visit to the table are known as a ‘break’. The highest ‘break’ possible is 147 points.
A foul stroke is one where the ‘cue ball’ does not strike the intended ball but when playing for a red all the reds on the table are taken to be the intended ball. Thus a player may aim for one particular red ball, miss it and have the good fortune to hit another red ball. A foul stroke is also where the ‘cue ball’ goes into a pocket off the ball aimed at regardless of it also being potted. There are other foul shots such as striking the ‘cue ball’ twice, not hitting the intended ball or any other ball, hitting the wrong ball, touching any ball on the table with any part of the body, not having at least one foot touching the floor etc. etc. A foul shot gives the opponent 4 points. But if the foul shot is made against the blue, pink or black then the points awarded are dependent on the ball being fouled. Thus aiming for a red and hitting the pink gives 6 points away and missing the aimed for red and not hitting anything gives 4 points away. However aiming for a pink and hitting a red is 6 points away and not 4 points.
The art of player Snooker is not just to bang the balls about but with judicious use of the ‘cue’ a skilful player can impart spin onto the ‘cue ball’ so that when it strikes another ball it will bounce back in the direction that the player requires. In order to do this and not have the ‘cue’ slip off the ball as it strikes it, the leather tip is chalked with special snooker chalk to give it some grip.
The full rules of the game of Snooker are complex and strictly adhered to in pro play and can be gleaned from the aforementioned web site and in any case this is not the place to type out the full rules of Snooker. I will end by just observing that an amateur chalks his ‘cue’ AFTER a shot whereas the professional chalks his ‘cue’ BEFORE the shot. How true that is.
All through this review I have referred to the player as he or him. I am not being sexist as the fair sex can make equally good snooker or billiards players. It has been done purely for literary convenience.
