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English Billiards

The story behind the origin of Billiards says that it is associated with a sixteenth-century pawnbroker called William Kew. He just put down three different balls and started pushing with a yard measurement stick. Hence the game initially termed as Billyard as Bill Kew started playing with a yardstick. Similarly, Cue was initially used to call as Kew. But we are not going to pass, we will start from a few decades back. 
 
Changes are a major part of life and the game changes accordingly too. In the past five decades, many changes have been seen in the three-balls game ‘English Billiards. The era in India when Wilson Jones and Michael Ferreira ruled the world of green baize, had more focus on In-offs rather than potting the red. During that time, players mostly used to play in-offs, long Jennies, short Jennies, cannons, and in very odd situations they used to pot the red when almost no other option available on the table. But during the era when Geet dominated the sport and then to Pankaj, the game has moved from "D" to Spot. The game is now fast as the players are building breaks on Top Table using pots and cannon at most, and the in-offs are majorly used for recovery shots to reach again on to Top-Table.

However, this game has always maintained a class, and the beautiful part which comes out from billiards is technique, style, control, consistency, and the most important concentration.

Billiards game is played with three balls, the red and two white balls (now one white has changed into yellow and with further modification on both white and yellow balls, there are Red dots to make it more spectator-friendly). The red is placed on the spot a.k.a Black Spot in Snooker. Both the players get one white ball which remains as their cue ball for their visits on the table. In the opening shot, the first player plays from the "D" and remains on the table till he accomplishes as many legal shots with one red ball only. During this visit, the second white ball remains with the other player and he just wait for his turn. Once the visit of one player ends, the next player starts from "D" with his handball i.e. cue ball, and start playing as many legal shots i.e. in-offs, cannons, pots to score points for every legal shot. The points are summarized as:

  • In-off from Red – 3 points
  • In-off from white – 2 points
  • Cannon – 2 points
  • Red Pot – 3 points
  • White Pot – 2 points
  • In-off after Cannon in a single shot (if cue ball strikes red at first) 2+3 = 5
  • In-off after Cannon in a single shot (if cue ball strikes white at first) 2+2 = 4

Rest all the details about the game is available in the Rules Section.