Are you interested in games like pool or snooker? If so, you may wonder what the rules are, how to play, and which game is more popular, pool or snooker.
Pool is far more popular than snooker as it is a much faster-paced game with fewer rules, and anyone can play pool relatively easily. Snooker is not as popular as pool. This lack of popularity is due to the high skill level required to play and snooker tables costing more to purchase.
The history of pool and snooker might surprise you. It is a little more complicated than you might think, so let’s unravel the mystery of where these two games originated and find out which is more popular, pool or snooker.
Which Game Is More Popular, Pool Or Snooker?
The game of pool is the more popular cue sport as the tables can be found in many gaming venues, providing the opportunity to learn to play this fun game. You will likely find a pool table in most pubs, arcades, game rooms, and many private homes. Due to the smaller size of the tables and more affordable price pool is a game that is accessible to almost everyone.
Even if you don’t consider the size and price, there are many variations of pool, meaning that you can play regardless of your skill level or what version of the game you know.
To better understand why pool is more popular than snooker, we need to look at how these two cue sports developed. Looking at the details and rules of pool and snooker will allow us to better understand why the game of pool is more popular than snooker.
How Did Pool And Snooker Come To Be?
Before playing pool or snooker, people played billiards. In the 15th century, the game of billiards was quite popular. Royalty and men in the armed forces predominantly played billiards. According to historical accounts, billiards was an adaptation to the lawn game, croquet.
Croquet was played outdoors on a lawn, but play would often be interrupted by rain. The game was moved indoors and adapted to what then became known as billiards. Today’s green covering of billiard, pool, and snooker tables are reminiscent of the lawns on which the croquet games were played.
There were no guard rails, cushions, or pockets on a billiards table. Billiards, also known as English billiards, was played on a table with only holes for the balls to fall through (also known as potting the ball). After the ball was potted, it would fall to the floor.
Originally balls were pushed with a stick called a mace. A cue eventually replaced the mace and is used to strike the balls rather than push them.
Originally, billiards rules only allowed for two people to play the game. Over time, new games evolved from billiards, such as Life pool and Pyramid pool. These games allowed more players to participate in a single game.
By the 19th century, two forms of offspring games from billiards, Life pool, and pyramids merged to make the game we now know as snooker.
While billiards, pool, and snooker all have their origins in croquet, they are all sports in their own right today.
Snooker Equipment And Game Play
Snooker is played on a rectangular table with dimensions that are twice as long as they are wide. A full-size snooker table measures twelve feet by six feet. The table is usually made from slate and is covered with green felt.
The game of snooker uses a total of twenty-two balls. One white ball, called the striker ball or cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six red balls. Each of the balls has a corresponding value.
The last piece of equipment needed to play snooker is the cue which may not measure less than three feet in length. The cue is used to strike the cue ball, and the cue may never contact or strike any other ball on the table.
Potting each ball earns the player a corresponding point value.
- Each red ball earns just one point
- The yellow ball is worth two points
- A green ball earns three points
- The brown ball is worth four points
- A blue ball is worth five points
- The pink ball earns the player six points
- The black is worth seven points
Snooker is played on a table with six pockets. A snooker table is about twice the size of your standard pool table. The dimensions are approximately twelve feet by six feet. However, this can vary slightly depending on the manufacturer.
On top of having a larger table, snooker has larger balls (snooker balls are generally two and one-sixteenth inches in diameter) and smaller pockets. Some tables have pockets that are only a fraction of an inch bigger than the balls. Having pockets that are only slightly bigger than the ball makes pocketing your balls a much more difficult task.
Snooker rules require that two people take turns at the table. To win a round in snooker, a player needs to have more points than their opponent. Achieving a high score requires potting all the balls on the table in the correct order.
Pool Table And Game Play
Because so many game variations exist, we will focus on just one version, called blackball pool, also sometimes referred to as English pool.
The blackball pool game is played on a standard three-foot by six-foot table with six pockets, one on each corner and one in the middle of each long side. Pool balls are generally two inches in diameter, with the cue ball being slightly smaller, at one and seven-eighths inches in diameter.
Like many other versions of pool, the blackball pool only has fifteen object balls and one cue ball. These object balls are divided into two groups of seven balls each, with one group being red and the other being yellow. The remaining ball is the black ball.
The cue used for pool is generally between fifty-seven and fifty-nine inches long.
The way to play blackball pool is by taking turns shooting until someone pots one of the colors. After you have potted a color, that is your color for the rest of the game.
Beyond that, the rest of the rules are more straightforward than snooker. A basic summary of the pool game rules states that if you pot the cue ball, it is automatically the opponent’s turn. If you pot the black ball before clearing the other colored balls, the game is over, and the opponent wins.
There are more rules than this, but most casual pool players are happy to play without overcomplicating the game.
As we are sure you will agree, a non-complicated game is far more enjoyable and easier to follow by both the players and the spectators. The ease of gameplay and enjoyability for all has resulted in the game of pool emerging as the most popular and frequently played cue game.
Conclusion
In total, we have learned that pool is the more popular cue game between pool and snooker and that snooker was derived from the combination of 2 versions of pool.
We have also determined that pool is a much easier and faster game to play.
