History of Billiards

The cue was developed in the late 1600's. When the ball lay near the rail, the mace was a very hard thing to use because of it's big head. Whenever this happened the billiard players would turn the mace around, and hit the balls with the tail end of the mace. The tail was "queue", which is were we get the cue..Billiard equipment improved rapidly in England after 1800, largely because of the industrial revolution.Tip chalk was introduced to allow better control of the cue ball and the leather cue tip was perfected by 1823. The leather tip allowed a player to put spin on the cue ball to affect its handling on the billiard table. In billiards history, this cue-spinning ability was introduced to America by the British, which is why side-spin is today called "English". In 1826 John Thurston, an Englishman, invented the slate table bed. This material helped prevent the warping that wood beds were prone to.The two-piece cue first arrived in 1829. In 1845 Thurston was granted a patent for billiard table cushions that were made from rubber, cork, and leather. By 1850 the Billiard table had essentially evolved into its current form.

English Billiards & Snooker

Around 1770, Port and King Billiards, which had seen astonishing success having survived for probably more than 3 centuries (Pool and Snooker enthusiasts take note - your games haven't lasted a century yet), began to be super ceded in England by two new variations - 'the Winning Game' and 'the Losing Game' in which the Port and King did not feature. This was the first step in the convoluted process that led to English Billiards and Snooker. These games that were naturally exported to most of the British colonies (approximately a quarter of the world at the time) and indeed Snooker, the King of all Billiard games was invented in India.
Carambole or Carom Billiards

Meanwhile, the French had also been creative - the game of Carambole or Carambolage had been invented by 1810 and not long after wards the French started making tables without any pockets at all which was the start of the the second main branch of the Billiards family tree. The new concept of the Cannon, Carom or Carombolage was adapted by the English for their Billiards game and variations of Carambole would become popular across much of Europe, the USA and in some parts of Asia.

"Carambole is a game newly introduced from France. It is played with three balls, one being red, which is neutral; The chief object of this game is to hit with your own ball the two other balls, which is called Carambole, and by which the player wins two. Putting in the red is three, and adversary's ball two; so that seven may be gained at one stroke, by caramboling and putting in both balls. The game is sixteen up."

American Pool

In the 1800s, Americans who up to now had been simply importing and copying what was happening in Europe had started down their own path with new games called One Pocket, Four Ball Billiards and Fifteen Ball Pool which was the first of many games in the American Pool family.

Pin Billiards

Finally, the Italians were playing Pin Billiards, There seem to be two main forms of the game - Italian Five Pin Billiards (played on a table without pockets) and Danish Pin Billiards (played on a table with pockets) but it isn't clear which came first. The latter is played pretty much only in its home country whereas Italian Five Pin Billiards is also known as International Pin Billiards, presumably as a testament to the fact that it has spread to many other countries of central Europe and also South America.

The History of Billiards in America is believed to have begun when the first billiards tables arrived from England in the 1600s. American cabinetmakers were crafting quality tables by the mid 1700s and historic reports are given of George Washington winning a billiards match in 1748. By the mid 1800s, Billiard tables were appearing in public places all around America.

Billiards in America maintained a steady growth in the late 1800s and early 1900s. American Fifteen-Ball Pool or "Sixty-one Pool" is the predecessor of all modern 'Pocket Billiards' games. It was played with 15 object balls as in the English game Pyramid, but crucially, the balls are numbered 1 through 15. For sinking a ball, the player received a number of points equal to the value of the ball. The sum of the ball values in a rack is 120, so the first player who received more than half the total, or 61 , was the winner. The word "pool" means a collective bet and became a term for the game when it began to be played in 19th century "pool rooms" which were then places for betting on horse.races.

Continuous Pool replaced Fifteen-Ball Pool as the championship game when, in 1888, it was thought more fair to count the number of balls pocketed by a player and not their numerical value . Thus, the player who sank the last ball of a rack would break the next rack and his point total would be kept "continuously" from one rack to the next.

Eight-Ball Pool was invented shortly after 1900 and is one of the most widely played of all Billiards games today.

Straight Pool followed in 1910. Also known as 14.1 Continuous. The object is to pot 14 of the 15 balls one after the other and in any order leaving just one ball whereupon all the others are racked up and the break continues. One point is scored for each ball potted.

Nine-Ball Pool seems to have developed around 1920. This game is now more popular in Europe particularly in Sweden and Germany. Balls one to nine are racked up in a diamond with the nine ball in the middle and the one ball nearest the baulk line. Each shot must always hit the lowest numbered ball on the table first and then pocket a ball or make two balls reach a cushion. If this isn't achieved, it is a foul and the balls are re-racked for the opponent to play.

With the general nature of the game of Billiards it is no surprise that some of the greatest movies of all time involve the game of billiards.The social settings of the old pool halls, The tension of the competition at the table builds as the game progresses. Add in the sound effects, the chalk a little smoke, A variety of Characters and a couple hustlers and you have the setting for a classic movie. Most would agree the greatest pool drama is the 1961 classic The Hustler starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie and the great Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards.
Paul Newman also starred in its sequel, made 25 years later, The Color of Money. In it, Newman is an older, wiser Fast Eddie, taking on a young protege, played by Tom Cruise.

THE HUSTLER
Paul Newman delivers a career performance in his portrayal of a pool shark in hard-hitting drama.
Staring Piper Laurie, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott.
Directed by Robert Rossen

14-1 or More commonly called Straight Pool was the game of choice in the early days of The Hustlers and Road Men. Fast Eddie (Paul Newman) is the young hopeful on the way to challenging past master of the green baize, Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason ) for his world title. Pool-hall America: a merciless macho world where success demands absolute ruthlessness and coming in second means a personal hell of inadequacy

Interesting facts about the movie The Hustler

The classic pool movie, starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson and Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, used the Ames Billiard Academy in Times Square, a second-floor loft at 160 West 44th Street, at Seventh Avenue, for its on-location pool hall.

Just off camera during the weeks of shooting was Willie Mosconi, then the national pocket billiards champion, who shot for Newman in the close-ups (Gleason, a hustler himself, did his own shooting). Mosconi also had to set up shots easy enough for the actors to polish off when the scene called for it.

The pool hall was deliberately dirtied up to help underscore the film's seedy mood, with a cracked-paint job, knee-high spittoons and a faded poster reading "Please do not spit on the floor."

New York added real larceny to the local color during the shooting: two municipal electrical inspectors were arrested and charged with trying to shake down 20th Century Fox to overlook any electrical violations on the set.

Changing pastimes and the decline of Times Square took its toll on Ames. "The place later became a hangout for those just kicked out of the movie houses at 4 in the morning," the owner, Abe Ames, said in July 1966, when the poolroom closed its doors. Furthermore, all the hustlers were playing elsewhere in big-money tournaments, thanks in part to the success of the movie that Ames helped bring to life.

A high-rise tower occupies that block, and the poolroom's corner now houses the studio for the ABC show "Good Morning America."

And here's a piece of trivia for would-be hustlers: The film's working title during the New York shooting was "Sin of Angels."

The movie the made Pool boom again in the 1980s

The Color of Money

Powerhouse acting and distinctive character development propel this keen followup to the atmospheric melodrama, "The Hustler."

Pool hustler Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) finds the young,promising pool player Vincent (Tom Cruise) in a local bar and he sees in him a younger version of himself. After hearing Vincent break open those 9 ball racks like thunder Fast Eddie was hooked again.
To try and make it as in the old days, Eddie offers to teach Vincent how to be a hustler. After some hesitations Vincent accepts and Eddie takes him and Vincent's girlfriend, Carmen on a tour through the country to work the pool halls. However, Vincent's tendency to show off his talent and by doing so warning off the players and losing money, soon leads to a confrontation with Eddie. Soon they find each other playing in the same tournament together that Fast Eddie had trained and groomed Vincent for those long months on the road.