History of Pool Games
- Pool games began as an indoor variation of the lawn game croquet, where the object is to knock balls under arches. To this day, pool tables are covered with green material, like an artificial lawn. The earliest pool tables had six pockets and an arch, or wicket, like in a croquet game. The cue stick was invented in the 1600s. Croquet-like mallets were awkward to use on a pool table, whereas a long, thin cue stick made it easy to aim the balls. By the 1800s, the wicket had disappeared from pool tables and players had discovered how to use chalk on the ends of cue sticks to make better shots.
- Between 1770 and 1920, the most common pool game in Britain was English billiards. The game used three balls on a rectangular pool table with six pockets. Pool probably came to the United States because of English settlers. American billiards, a variation of English billiards, was the most common pool game in the U.S. until the 1870s. It used four balls on a table with four pockets. Players received extra points by making a carom, or hitting two balls with the cue ball on the same strike. American billiards developed into various carom games, where the object is to hit balls into one another on a table without pockets.
- Fifteen-ball pool was invented in New York in the 1830s. The game uses 15 pool balls, numbered from one to 15. When a player pocketed a ball, he gained the number of points marked on the ball. The game ended when one player reached 61 points, which was half the maximum number of possible points. In 1888, 15-ball developed into continuous pool, in which each ball was worth one point and the object was to pocket as many balls as possible. This in turn developed into modern pocket billiards.
- Another modern 15-ball variation is eight-ball. Instead of trying to pocket the most balls overall, each player tries to pocket either the striped or solid balls, followed by the eight-ball. Invented in the early 1900s, eight-ball is still a very common game with many rule variations. Another common game is nine-ball, invented sometime after 1920, which uses nine balls numbered one through nine and arranged in a diamond to start. The object is to pocket the balls in order from lowest to highest, with stiff penalties for pocketing the wrong ball. Nine-ball became popular in the 1970s because of its rapid pace, which made it well-suited for both television and tournaments.
