Carom billiards
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with the board game carrom.
 A carom billiard table and billiard balls | |
| Highest governing body | Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) |
|---|---|
| First played | 18th century France |
| Characteristics | |
| Contact | No |
| Team members | Single opponents, doubles or teams |
| Mixed gender | Yes, sometimes in separate leagues/divisions |
| Categorization | Indoor, table, cue sport |
| Equipment | Billiard ball, billiard table, cue stick |
| Venue | Billiard hall or home billiard room |
| Olympic | Proposed for 2010 |
There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, cushion caroms, balkline, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards. There are many other carom billiards games, predominantly intermediary or offshoot games combining elements of those already listed, such as the champion's game, an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline, as well as games which are hybrids of carom billiards and pocket billiards, such as English billiards played on a snooker table and its descendant games, American four-ball billiards, and cowboy pool.[1]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Etymology
The word "carom", which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled "carrom".[1]:41 Sources differ on the origin. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole or caramboler, which were earlier used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India),[1][2][3] also known as star fruit. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation.[4] In modern French, the word 'carambolage' means a multiple collision accident, similar to one ball hitting the other two.[edit] Equipment
[edit] Cloth
[edit] Balls
Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including celluloid, Bakelite, crystalate, and phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic) and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid billiard balls, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material was volatile and highly inflammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture.[1][8]
[edit] Cues
[edit] Heated slate
The slate bed of a billiard table is often heated to about 5 °C/9 °F above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. A heated table is required under international carom rules and is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards. Heating table beds is an old practice. Queen Victoria of England (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer, Jr.[1] The New York Times announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used ..."[1][11][edit] History of games
[edit] Straight rail
Main article: Balkline and straight rail
Straight rail, sometimes referred to as carom billiards, straight billiards, the three-ball game, the carambole game, and the free game in Europe, is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. It was known as French caroms, French billiards or the French game in early times, taking those bygone names from the French who popularized it. The object of straight rail is simple: one point, called a "count", is scored each time a player's cue ball makes contact with both object balls (the second cue ball and the third ball) on a single stroke. A win is achieved by reaching an agreed upon number of counts.[1]At straight rail's inception there was no restriction on the manner of scoring. However, the technique of crotching, or freezing two balls into the corner where the rails meet—the crotch—vastly increasing counts, resulted in an 1862 rule which allowed only three counts before at least one ball had to be driven away. Techniques continued to develop which increased counts greatly despite the crotching prohibition, especially the development of a variety of "nurse" techniques. The most important of these, the rail nurse, involves the progressive nudging of the object balls down a rail, ideally moving them just a few centimeters on each count, keeping them close together and positioned at the end of each stroke in the same or near the same configuration such that the nurse can be replicated again and again.[1]
Professional straight rail in the US only had a six year run from 1873 to 1879. It was succeeded by a game specifically designed to curb the use of the rail nurse so that spectators would not be subject to its repetitiveness. Today, straight rail play is relatively uncommon in the U.S. but retains popularity in Europe, where it is considered a fine practice game for both balkline and three-cushion billiards. Additionally, Europe hosts professional competitions known as pentathlons after the ancient Greek Olympic competitions, in which straight rail is featured as one of five billiards disciplines at which players compete, the other four being 47.1 balkline, cushion caroms, 71.2 balkline and three-cushion billiards.[1]
[edit] The champion's game
Further information: Balkline and straight rail
The new game appearing in 1879, called the champion's game or limited-rail, is considered an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline and was designed with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse.[1] The game employed diagonal lines—balklines—at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted, thus "cutting off four triangular spaces in the four corners, [taking] away 28 inches [711 mm] of the 'nursing' surface of the end rails and 56 inches [1422 mm] on the long rails."[12] Ultimately, however, despite its divergence from straight rail, the champion's game simply expanded the dimensions of the balk space defined under the existing crotch prohibition which was not sufficient to stop nursing.[1][edit] Balkline
Main article: Balkline and straight rail
In the balkline games, rather than drawing balklines a few inches from the corners, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing balklines a certain distance lengthwise and widthwise across the length of the table a set number of inches parallel out from each rail. This divides the table into eight rectangular balkspaces. Additionally, rectangles are drawn where each balkline meets a rail, called anchor spaces, which developed to stop a number of nursing techniques that exploited the fact that if the object balls straddled a balkline, no count limit was in place.[1]
For the most part, the differences between one balkline game and another are defined by two measures: 1) the spacing of the balklines, and 2) the number of points that are allowed in each balk space before at least one ball must leave the region. Generally, balkline games, and their particular restrictions, are given numerical names indicating both of these characteristics; the first number indicated inches and the second, after a dot, indicates the count restriction which is always either one or two. For example, the name 18.2 balkline, one of the more prominent balkline games, indicates that balklines are drawn 18 inches (460 mm) distant from each rail, and only 2 counts are allowed in a balkspace before a ball must leave.[1]
Over its history balkline has had many variations including 8.2, 10.2, 12.2,[1] 13.2,[15] 12½.2, 14.1, 14.2, 18.1, 18.2, 28.2, 38.2, 39.2, 42.2, 45.1, 45.2, 47.1, 47.2, 57.2 and 71.2 balkline. In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominate carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards (and pocket billiards). Balkline is not very common in the U.S., but remains popular in Europe and the Far East.[1]
[edit] Cushion caroms
Main article: cushion caroms
The object of the game is to score cushion caroms, meaning a carom off of both object balls with at least one rail being struck before the hit on the second object ball. Cushions caroms was defunct for a number of years, but was revived in the late 1860s as another alternative to straight rail, for the same reasons that balkline developed, i.e., as an alternative to the tedium engendered by the use of the "rail nurse" (see above). Cushion caroms is rarely played in the U.S., but it still enjoys some popularity in Europe.[1][17]
[edit] Three-cushion billiards
Main article: Three-cushion billiards
In three-cushion billiards, sometimes called three-cushion carom,[18] the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three rail cushions being contacted before the contact of the cue ball with the second object ball. Three-cushion is a very difficult game. Averaging one point per inning is professional-level play, and averaging 1.5 to 2 is world-class play. An average of one means that for every turn at the table, a player makes 1 point and misses once, thus making a point on 50% of his or her shots.The origin of the game is not entirely known. It is undisputed that one Wayman Crow McCreery of St. Louis, Missouri popularized the game in the 1870s.[1][19][20] The first three-cushion billiards tournament took place January 14–31, 1878 in St. Louis, with McCreery a participant and New Yorker Leon Magnus the winner. The high run for the tournament was just 6 points, and the high average a 0.75.[21] The game was infrequently played, with many top carom players of the era voicing their dislike of it, until after the 1907 introduction of the Lambert Trophy.[1][22] By 1924, three-cushion had become so popular that two giants in other billiard disciplines agreed to take up the game especially for a challenge match. On September 22, 1924, Willie Hoppe, the world's balkline champion (who later took up three-cushion with a passion), and Ralph Greenleaf, the world's straight pool title holder, played a well advertised, multi-day, match to 600 points. Hoppe was the eventual winner with a final score in of 600–527.
Three-cushion billiards retains great popularity in parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America,[1] and is the most popular carom billiards game played in the US today, where pool is far more widespread. The principal governing body of the sport is the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB). It had been staging world three-cushion championships since the late 1920s.[23] The International Olympic Committee-recognized World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) cooperates with the UMB to keep their rulesets synchronized.
[edit] Artistic billiards
Main article: Artistic billiards
Each shot in an artistic billiards match is played from a well-defined position (in some venues within an exacting two millimeter tolerance), and each shot must unfold in an established manner. Players are allowed three attempts at each shot. In general, the shots making up the game—even 4-point shots—require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform.[1][24]
World title competition first started in 1986 and required the use of ivory balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in world competition was 374, by the Frenchman Jean Reverchon in 1992, while the highest score in competition overall is 427 set by Belgian Walter Bax on March 12, 2006 at a competition held in Deurne, Belgium, beating his own previous record of 425.[25] The game is played predominantly in western Europe, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
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