24 Random Essential Billiards Terms
A reference to the amount of English applied to the object ball from the cue ball.
Linen made from flax and produced in Ireland which is often used to wrap the gripping area of the butt of a cue.
The person in charge of the game whose primary role is to ensure adherence by both players to the appropriate rules of the game being played. Other duties of the referee include racking each frame, re-spotting balls during the course of a game, maintaining the equipment associated with the table (e.g. keeping the balls clean), controlling the crowd and, if necessary, controlling the players. Formerly sometimes referred to as the umpire.
This refers to a shot that is not banked, does not hit a rail and goes into the pocket without contacting any other balls on the table.
Same as gapper
Also known as 14.1 continuous pool. This game is played on a pocketed table with the fifteen object balls and a cue ball. Every shot must begin with a call, and if made, you get to continue calling shots. The idea is to reach a predetermined score before your opponent. When all but one ball remains, the rack is started over without the apex ball in position, and the last shot is called in such a way as to break the new rack and continue play.
This is a very easy and safe shot to execute in the game of one pocket.
The ball meant to be struck and sunk in your called shot.
This is to use running english or soft speed in order to open up the angle on a particular bank shot.
Describing a shot which requires one or more balls to be played off several cushions, such as an elaborate escape or a positional shot; "he'll have to send the cue ball round the angles to get good position."
The point in match play where both players (or teams) need only one more game (frame) victory to win the match or race.
Australian: Defeated with all seven of one's object balls (in blackball or eight-ball) remaining on the table.
The United States Snooker Association (USSA) is the internationally recognized governing body of the sport of snooker in the United States. Founded in 1991 by the British-born Michael Collins, the USSA is a member of the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF), the world governing body of non-professional English billiards and snooker, and is affiliated with the American CueSports Alliance (ACS).
This is a shot where the cue ball caroms off a number of balls in a pin ball, back and forth, fashion to achieve a shot.
This is a player that will regularly loose money to a particular player that is obviously a better player.
Same as duck. Derives from an easily shot ball "hanging" in the pocket.
The act of setting up the balls for a break shot. In tournament play this will be done by the referee, but in lower-level play, players either rack for themselves or for each other depending on convention.
Named after Chicagoan J. E. Parker, it is a 3½ × 7 inch box drawn on a balkline table from the termination of a balkline with the cushion, thus defining a restricted space in which only a set number of points may be scored before one ball must be driven from the area. Now supplanted by anchor spaces, it was developed to curtail the effectiveness of the anchor nurse, which in turn had been invented to exploit a loophole in balkline rules: so long as both object balls straddled a balkline, there was no restriction on counts, as each ball lay in a separate balk space.
A bridge formed by the hand where no finger loops over the shaft of the cue. Typically, the cue stick is channeled by a "v"-shaped groove formed by the thumb and the base of the index finger.
This is a method of handicapping that designates a wild ball for a lesser player to be able to pocket at any point during a game in order to win.
Principally British: In snooker, if a player wins a match without the need for the final session to be played (for example, if a player wins a best-of-25-frames match split into three sessions - two sessions of eight frames and one of nine - by a margin of say, 13 frames to 3), then they are said to have won the match "with a session to spare".
To "give someone weight" is to give them a handicap so the game is more even in skill level. If one player is significantly better than the other in a game, then you can add some weight, more or less balls for someone, to even the difficulty load between each player.
The pocket in snooker that is closest to the green spot.
The number of balls pocketed in an inning in pool (e.g., a run of five balls), or points scored in a row in carom billiards (e.g., a run of five points). Compare British break (sense 2), which is applied to pool as well as snooker in British English.