English billiards

English billiards, called simply billiards in the UK and in many former British colonies, is a cue sport that combines the aspects of carom billiards and pool. Two cue balls (one white and one yellow) and a red object ball are used (Sometimes the balls are marked with dots, similarly to carom billiards) . Each player or team uses a different cue ball. It is played on a billiards table with the same dimensions as one used for snooker and points are scored for cannons and pocketing the balls.

English billiards originated in England, and was originally called the winning and losing carambole game, folding in the names of three predecessor games, the winning game, the losing game, and an early form of carom billiards that combined to form it.

The winning game was played with two white balls, and was a 12-point contest. To start, the player who could strike a ball at one end of the table and get the ball to come to rest nearest the opposite cushion without lying against it earned the right to shoot for points first. This is the origin of the modern custom of "stringing" (or "lagging").

A player who pocketed the opponent's ball scored two points, as is still the case in modern billiards. A player missing the opponent's ball, considered a foul, added one point to the opponent's total; the shooter conceded two points if their own ball went into a pocket after striking the opponent's ball; and the player conceded three points if the cue ball was pocketed without even hitting the opponent's ball. These rules continued to exist in English billiards until 1983, when a standard of two points for all fouls was introduced.

By contrast, in the losing game a player could only score two points by pocketing the cue ball through a carom off the opponent's ball. "Winning hazard" and "losing hazard" are terms still mentioned in the official rules for these two fundamental shot types, although "pot" and "in-off" have become the usual terms for them in British English.

The final element was the cannon (or carom) shot, which came from carom billiards, a game popular in various countries of western Continental Europe, especially France, and in many parts of Asia and South America. In the 1700s, the carom game added a red object ball to the two white cue balls, and dispensed with the pockets. This ball was adopted into the English game, which retained the pockets, and the goal was to cannon off both the red and the opponent's ball on a single shot, earning 2 points. This influence on the English game appears to have come about through the popularity of French tables in English coffee houses; London alone had over two thousand such establishments in the early 18th century. One period advertisement read: "A very good French Billiard Table, little the worse for wearing, full size, with all the materials fit for French or English play".

The three ancestral games had their British heyday in the 1770s, but had combined into English billiards, with a 16-point score total, by approximately 1800. The skill required in playing these games helped retire the billiard mace in favour of the cue stick.

There are a number of pocket billiard games directly descended from English billiards, including bull dog, scratch pool, thirty-one pool and thirty-eight. The last of these gave rise to the more well-known game cowboy pool. English Billiards was virtually unknown in the United States until 1913, when Melbourn Inman visited the US and played the game against Willie Hoppe. By 1915 the game had become rather popular, prompting American billiard hall proprietors of the period to increase the number of English-style tables in their establishments. It also became favoured in British colonies; the game's longest-running champion was an Australian, Walter Lindrum, who held the World Professional Billiards Championship from 1933 until his retirement in 1950. The game remains popular in the UK, although it has been eclipsed by snooker.