50 Fun Facts About Pool

How many pockets does a pool table have?

Carom billiards is played on a table with none at all, and snooker on a larger six-pocket table.

Around what year did eight-ball arise in the United States, as a development of pyramid pool?

The game arose around 1900 in the United States as a development of pyramid pool.

In eight-ball, which balls are the stripes?

The solids run 1 to 7, and the black 8 must be racked in the centre of the triangle.

Where must the 8 ball sit in a standard eight-ball rack?

The two back corners must hold one stripe and one solid.

In nine-ball, which object sits at the front of the diamond rack?

The 9 goes in the centre, and whoever legally pockets it wins, even on the break.

In nine-ball, what must the cue ball contact first on every shot?

The game was established in America by 1920, and it is now the main professional format.

Straight pool is also known by what name?

Players call any ball into any pocket for one point each; after 14 are sunk the balls are re-racked around the fifteenth.

Which body governs the game as an international competitive sport?

The WPA specifies balls of 2 1/4 inches weighing 5.5 to 6 ounces.

Modern pool tables range from 3.5 by 7 ft up to what size?

Every size keeps the 2:1 ratio of length to width.

On a high-quality table, the playing surface under the cloth is made of what?

The cushions around it are vulcanised rubber, and the rail markers are called sights or diamonds.

Why is billiard cloth traditionally green?

Cue sports evolved indoors from stick-and-ball lawn games now called ground billiards.

Which French king is recorded as having the first known indoor billiard table?

Mary, Queen of Scots later complained when her table was taken away during her imprisonment at Tutbury Castle.

The word 'billiard' may come from the French 'billart', meaning what?

The predecessor of the cue was the mace, a golf-club-like implement for shoving the ball.

Until the early 20th century, high-quality billiard balls were made from what?

No more than eight balls could be cut from a single elephant's tusks, which is why a New York supplier offered $10,000 for a substitute.

Which inventor patented an 'ivory imitation' billiard ball of nitrocellulose and camphor in 1869?

It was an early celluloid, and the search for a ball material helped launch the plastics industry.

Under what brand does Belgian firm Saluc make the phenolic resin balls used in pro play?

A regulation pool ball is 2 1/4 inches across; snooker balls are smaller at 52.5 mm.

A standard pool ball has what diameter?

The WPA tolerance is plus or minus 0.005 inch.

A pool cue is typically about how long?

Most weigh between 16 and 21 ounces, and quality pool cues are made from hard rock maple.

Why do players apply chalk to the tip of a cue?

Ideally you chalk every other shot; the tip itself is leather, glued to a cuff called the ferrule.

Snooker cues are almost always made from which wood?

Pool cues, by contrast, favour straight-grained hard rock maple for the shaft.

Willie Mosconi set the straight-pool record in 1954 by running how many consecutive balls?

'Mr. Pocket Billiards' did it in an exhibition in Springfield, Ohio, and won the world straight pool title 19 times between 1941 and 1957.

The Mosconi Cup, founded in 1994, pits the United States against which team?

The nine-ball event is modelled on golf's Ryder Cup and was created by Sky Sports and Matchroom Sport.

Which 1961 film starred Paul Newman as pool shark 'Fast Eddie' Felson?

Jackie Gleason played Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi was technical adviser; the film earned nine Oscar nominations.

Paul Newman won his only Academy Award for reprising Fast Eddie in which 1986 sequel?

Both films are based on novels by Walter Tevis, who also wrote The Queen's Gambit.

Real-life player Rudolf Wanderone took the name Minnesota Fats from where?

Previously 'New York Fats', he never won a major tournament but hosted Celebrity Billiards on TV.

Which Filipino player, nicknamed 'The Magician' and 'Bata', is widely called the greatest of all time?

In 1996 he came from 17 racks down to beat Earl Strickland 120-117 for the largest purse in pool history.

Jeanette Lee, world No. 1 in the 1990s, is known by which nickname?

The Korean-American from Brooklyn always wore black and won World Games gold in 2001.

Snooker's first rules were finalised in 1882 by British Army officers stationed in which country?

The word was army slang for a raw recruit; Neville Chamberlain, the officer, is not the later prime minister.

What is the maximum break in snooker?

Fifteen reds each followed by a black, then the six colours in order.

Since 1977 the World Snooker Championship has been staged at which Sheffield venue?

A full-size snooker table is 12 by 6 feet, far bigger than any pool table.

Which of the three main cue-sport families is played on a table with no pockets?

Three-cushion is its best-known game; pool uses six pockets and snooker a larger six-pocket table.

Which imprisoned royal complained when her billiard table was taken away at Tutbury Castle?

Her body was reportedly wrapped in the table's cloth after her execution in 1587.

Under WPA specifications, how much does a pool ball weigh?

That is 160 to 170 grams; the industry sometimes calls the game 'pocket billiards'.

Straight pool was superseded as the main professional game in which decade?

Faster games suited television; straight pool matches were traditionally played to 100 or 150 points.

The Great Bath, thought to be the world's first swimming pool, was dug in the 3rd millennium BC where?

The Indus Valley city is in modern Pakistan.

Who built the first heated swimming pool, in his gardens on Rome's Esquiline Hill?

The patron of Virgil and Horace built it sometime between 38 and 8 BC.

How long is an Olympic-size swimming pool?

It is 25 metres wide and divided into eight lanes of 2.5 metres each.

The world's largest swimming pool, more than a kilometre long, is in which country?

The San Alfonso del Mar seawater pool at Algarrobo covers about 8 hectares.

Which chemical is most commonly used to kill pathogens in swimming pool water?

It is usually added as a hypochlorite salt; bromine is the main alternative.

By 1837, how many indoor pools with diving boards existed in London?

Britain's swimming boom followed, with the National Swimming Society organising early competitions.

Rack markings called 'diamonds' are inlaid along a pool table's rails. What are they also called?

Players use them to aim bank and kick shots; the head and foot spots are marked on the cloth itself.

Which piece of equipment came before the cue and resembled a small golf club for shoving the ball?

Players eventually turned it round to use the narrow handle, and the cue was born.

The OED speculates the word 'pool' comes from French poule, literally meaning what?

In the medieval jeu de la poule, players supposedly stoned a live chicken and the first to hit it won the pooled stakes.

The oldest known use of 'pool' for a billiards-like game appeared in 1797 in a newspaper from which US state?

The term later stuck to all new pocket-billiards games as the sport boomed in the United States.

Before the familiar colours arrived by 1889, pool object balls were uniformly what colour?

They were told apart only by numbers; English pyramid and life pool players first adopted different colours, and stripes came last.

What was the earliest rotation game, a mid-19th-century variant of fifteen-ball pool, called?

The name 'rotation' came from how balls were placed around the table in its unracked offshoot, Chicago.

In one-pocket, how many balls must a player sink in their assigned pocket to win?

The game descends from 18th-century handicapped 'cramp' games and rewards defence far more than offence.

In which decade were nine-ball's origins in the United States?

Its exact origins are unknown; it uses the same equipment as eight-ball and is now the predominant professional game.

Which company introduced red, yellow and black eight-ball sets in 1925 so spectators could follow suits?

Those colours later became standard in the British-originating variant, blackball.

Seven-ball, credited to William D. Clayton, racks its object balls in what shape?

Players are also restricted to pocketing the money ball on their designated side of the table.