Portal:Cue sports
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The Cue Sports Portal
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:
- Carom billiards, played on tables without pockets, typically ten feet in length, including straight rail, balkline, one-cushion carom, three-cushion billiards, artistic billiards, and four-ball
- Pocket billiards (or pool), played on six-pocket tables of seven, eight, nine, or ten-foot length, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball (the dominant professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly dominant pro game), one-pocket, and bank pool
- Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid, played on a large, six-pocket table (dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft), all of which are classified separately from pool based on distinct development histories, player culture, rules, and terminology.
Billiards has a long history from its inception in the 15th century, with many mentions in the works of Shakespeare, including the line "let's to billiards" in Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07). Enthusiasts of the sport have included Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Immanuel Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason. (Full article...)
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Image 1Masako Katsura (桂 マサ子, Katsura Masako, listen; 7 March 1913 – 20 December 1995), nicknamed "Katsy" and sometimes called the "First Lady of Billiards", was a Japanese carom billiards player who was most active in the 1950s. She was the first woman to compete and place among the best in the male-dominated world of professional billiards. First learning the game from her brother-in-law and then under the tutelage of Japanese champion Kinrey Matsuyama, Katsura became Japan's only female professional player. In competition in Japan, she took second place in the country's national three-cushion billiards championship three times. In exhibition she was noted for running 10,000 points at the game of straight rail.
After marrying a U.S. Army non-commissioned officer in 1950, Katsura emigrated to the United States in 1951. There she was invited to play in the 1952 U.S.-sponsored World Three-Cushion Championship, ultimately taking seventh place at that competition. Katsura was the first woman ever to be included in any world billiards tournament. Her fame cemented, Katsura went on an exhibition tour of the United States with eight-time world champion Welker Cochran, and later with 51-time world champion Willie Hoppe. In 1953 and 1954, she again competed for the world three-cushion crown, taking fifth and fourth places respectively. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2002 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 2002 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 April to 6 May 2002 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the final ranking event of the 2001–02 snooker season. This was the 26th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, marking the 25th anniversary of the first staging of the event at this venue. The championship was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
Peter Ebdon won his only world title by defeating seven-time winner Stephen Hendry 18–17 in the final. Ebdon defeated Matthew Stevens 17–16 in the semi-finals, and Hendry defeated the defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17–13 to reach the final. This was Hendry's ninth and last appearance in a World Championship final. There were 65 century breaks during the tournament. The highest break of the tournament was by Stevens, who achieved 145 in his quarter-final match. Hendry made 16 centuries during the event, a record for any individual tournament, equalled by Mark Williams in 2022. A total prize fund of £1,615,770 was awarded at the event, the winner receiving £260,000 (Full article...) -
Image 3The 1984 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1984 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a ranking professional snooker tournament that took place between 21 April and 7 May 1984 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The event was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was the eighth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible since the 1977 event. The event featured 94 participants, of which 78 players competed in a qualifying event held at the Redwood Lodge in Bristol from 1 to 13 April. Of these, 16 players qualified for the main stage in Sheffield, where they met 16 invited seeds. The total prize fund for the event was £200,000, the highest total pool for any snooker tournament at that time; the winner received £44,000.
The defending champion was English player Steve Davis, who had won the title twice previously. He met fellow-countryman Jimmy White in the final, which was played as a best-of-35-frames match. Davis took a significant lead of 12–4 after the first two sessions; although White battled back into the match, Davis eventually won 18–16, becoming the first player to retain the title at the Crucible. Rex Williams secured the championship's highest break, scoring a 138 in the 12th frame of his first-round loss to White. Eight century breaks were made during the competition, the fewest since the 1978 event. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy, and broadcast by BBC. (Full article...) -
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The 2019 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2019 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 April to 6 May 2019 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 43rd consecutive year the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and the 20th and final ranking event of the 2018–19 snooker season. Qualifying for the tournament took place from 10 to 17 April 2019 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event.
The winner of the title was Judd Trump, who defeated John Higgins 18–9 in the final to claim his first World Championship. In doing so, Trump became the 11th player to win all three Triple Crown titles at least once. Defending champion Mark Williams lost 9–13 to David Gilbert in the second round of the tournament. For the first time in the history of the World Snooker Championship, an amateur player appeared at the main stage of the event—debutant James Cahill defeated world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first round, before being narrowly defeated by Stephen Maguire in a second round deciding frame. (Full article...) -
Image 5The 2021 Masters (officially the 2021 Betfred Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 10 and 17 January 2021 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. It was the 47th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2020–21 season, following the 2020 UK Championship and preceding the 2021 World Snooker Championship. The top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings were invited to compete in a knockout tournament. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association organised the tournament, which was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. It was played behind closed doors because of COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom. Two players, world number one Judd Trump and Jack Lisowski, withdrew from the event after testing positive for COVID-19.
The defending champion, Stuart Bingham, had defeated Ali Carter 10–8 in the previous year's final. Bingham lost 6–5 to Yan Bingtao in the semi-finals. Yan (one of three debutants at the event, alongside Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Gary Wilson) met John Higgins in the final. Yan completed a 10–8 victory to win his first Triple Crown tournament. As the winner of the event, Yan was awarded £250,000 from the total prize pool of £725,000. The highest break of the event was a 145 made by Higgins in his quarter-final win over Ronnie O'Sullivan which earned him £15,000. (Full article...) -
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The sport of snooker has utilised a world rankings system since 1975, used to seed players on the World Snooker Tour for tournaments. Originally rankings were published once a year, at the culmination of the season, however, since 2010, the rankings have been changed to be updated after every ranking tournament. The number one ranking has been held by twelve players; Ray Reardon was the first to hold the position, and was followed by Cliff Thorburn, Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, Ding Junhui and Mark Allen.
Hendry held the number one position for the longest time under the annual format, holding it for nine years in total. Since it changed to a rolling format in 2010, Selby has held the rank longer than anyone else. (Full article...) -
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The 2020 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2020 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 31 July to 16 August 2020 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible. The final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the tournament was originally scheduled to take place from 18 April to 4 May 2020, but both the qualifying stage and the main rounds were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was one of the first to allow live audiences since the onset of the pandemic, but on the first day it was announced that the event would be played behind closed doors for subsequent days. A limited number of spectators were allowed in for the final two days of the championship.
The tournament was organised by the World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. The event had a total prize fund of £2,395,000, with the winner receiving £500,000. Qualifying for the tournament was due to be held between 8 and 15 April 2020 but instead took place from 21 to 28 July at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, with a mix of professional and invited amateur players, 16 of whom reached the main stage of the tournament where they played the top 16 players in the snooker world rankings. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. (Full article...) -
Image 8The 2014 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2014 Dafabet World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 19 April to 5 May 2014 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 38th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible. The tournament was also the last ranking event of the 2013–14 snooker season. The event was sponsored by Dafabet for the first time. A qualifying tournament was held from 8 to 16 April 2014 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield for 16 players, who met 16 seeded participants at the main championships.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having won the previous year's event by defeating Barry Hawkins in the final. Mark Selby won the 2014 event to capture his first world title by defeating O'Sullivan 18–14 in the final. This was Selby's fourth ranking title, also completing the Triple Crown of World Championship, UK Championship, and Masters titles. Neil Robertson compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, and scored his 100th century break of the season in his quarter-final win over Judd Trump. The event featured a prize fund of £1,214,000, the winner receiving £300,000. (Full article...) -
Image 9The 2021 Tour Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 to 28 March 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the third edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the third season of the Cazoo Cup. It was the 14th and penultimate ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season, following the conclusion of the WST Pro Series and preceding the World Championship.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, each match being played over two sessions. The winner of the tournament received £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by car retailer Cazoo. The defending champion was Stephen Maguire, but as a result of reduced earnings during the season he was unable to qualify and defend the title. In a repeat of the 2019 final Australian Neil Robertson played Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan. Robertson won the event defeating O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final. There were 26 century breaks made during the event, Barry Hawkins making the highest break, a 138. (Full article...) -
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Snooker (pronounced UK: /ˈsnuːkər/ SNOO-kər, US: /ˈsnʊkər/ SNUUK-ər) is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
In 1875, army officer Neville Chamberlain, stationed in India, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. (Full article...)
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Image 1Stephen Mizerak Jr. (October 12, 1944 – May 29, 2006) was an American pool player, who was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Mizerak is considered one of the best straight pool players of all time, dominant in the game during the 1970s, winning over 70 tournaments during his career. Mizerak won the World Straight Pool Championship twice, including a record 4 consecutive BCA U.S. Open Straight Pool Championship titles. Nicknamed "The Miz", he had a high run of 421 balls. (Full article...)
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Robbie Williams (born 28 December 1986) is an English professional snooker player.
Williams turned professional in 2012 after qualifying in Event 3 of the Q School and gained a two-year tour card for the 2012/13 and 2013/14 snooker seasons. (Full article...) -
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Alfredo de Oro (28 April 1863 – 23 April 1948) was a Cuban professional carom billiards and pool player who several times held the world title in both three-cushion billiards and straight pool simultaneously. He was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1967, the first non-American to receive the honor. He was ranked number 4 on the Billiards Digest 50 Greatest Players of the Century. (Full article...) -
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James Rempe (born November 4, 1947, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, US) is an American professional pocket billiards (pool) player, and was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 2002. (Full article...) -
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Karen Corr (born 10 November 1969) is a Northern Irish professional pool and former snooker and English billiards player. She was inducted in the BCA Hall of Fame in 2012. (Full article...) -
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Jacob Schaefer Sr. (February 2, 1855 – March 8, 1910), nicknamed "The Wizard", was a professional carom billiards player, especially of the straight rail and balkline games, and was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1968.
Schaefer was born in 1855 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the first US-born son of German emigrants. He was the father of fellow billiards pro Jacob Schaefer Jr. (1894-1975).
Schaefer first started playing billiards at the age of eleven, at a billiard hall that was owned by his step-father John Berg. At the time of the 1870 United States census, he was listed as "Jacob Berg", aged fifteen at Leavenworth, Kansas in the home of John Berg, who was a billiard hall owner. He was the best player in Leavenworth by the age of fifteen. Schaefer's debut as a professional player came in 1873. Before May 1874, he had become the champion of Kansas. (Full article...) -
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Li Hang (Chinese: 李行; pinyin: Lǐ Háng; born 4 October 1990) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who, in 2023, was permanently banned from the sport after committing a range of match-fixing offences. Li first competed professionally during the 2008–09 season. His best performances during his professional career were reaching two ranking semi-finals. He reached a career high of 28th in the snooker world rankings in 2019.
In December 2022, the WPBSA suspended Li from the professional tour amid a match-fixing investigation. In January 2023, it charged him with fixing a match, being concerned in fixing matches, approaching a player to fix a match, seeking to obstruct the investigation, and betting on snooker matches. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, Li received a lifetime ban from the sport. (Full article...) -
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Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast.
Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his career, reaching his highest ranking, 26th, for the 2004–05 season, and has reached one ranking final, at the 2014 Players Championship Grand Final, where he lost 4–0 to Barry Hawkins. Alongside this, Greene reached a ranking semi-final, at the 2007 Grand Prix, losing to the eventual champion Marco Fu, and five quarter-finals.
Representing Northern Ireland with teammate Mark Allen, he reached the final of the 2011 World Cup, where they lost to China. (Full article...) -
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Reanne Evans MBE (born 25 October 1985) is an English professional snooker player who competes on the World Snooker Tour and the World Women's Snooker Tour and works as a pundit on televised snooker broadcasts. Widely recognised as the most successful female player in the sport's history, she is a record 12-time winner of the World Women's Snooker Championship and is the reigning World Mixed Doubles champion (with Luca Brecel). She received an MBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for her services to women's snooker.
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Evans began playing snooker at age 13. She competed in her first World Women's Snooker Championship in 2002, aged 16, when she reached the semi-finals. She won the women's world title 10 consecutive times between 2005 and 2014 and added further world titles in 2016 and 2019. Her other records on the women's tour include 12 UK Women's Snooker Championships, 58 ranking titles, and 90 consecutive victories between 2008 and 2011. She has achieved the highest break on the women's tour, having made 140 twice.
Granted a wildcard to the professional World Snooker Tour for the 2010–11 season, she became the first woman since Allison Fisher 16 years previously to compete professionally, but was relegated at the end of the season after 18 consecutive defeats. In 2013, she qualified for the Wuxi Classic as an amateur competitor, becoming the first woman to reach the final stages of a professional ranking snooker tournament. Granted wildcards to the World Snooker Championship qualifying rounds in 2015 and from 2017 to 2021, she reached the second qualifying round in 2017 after defeating Finnish player Robin Hull 10–8. (Full article...) -
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Ricky Walden (born 11 November 1982) is an English professional snooker player from Chester.
Walden turned professional in 2000 and it took him eight years to win his first ranking title at the Shanghai Masters. He has since won the 2012 Wuxi Classic and the 2014 International Championship and has been inside the top 16 in the season-ending rankings on four occasions. A former world Top 6 player, Walden has reached the televised stages of the World Snooker Championship on nine occasions as of 2023, with his best result being a semi-finalist in 2013. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that Fraser Patrick likened playing in the 2019 Q School to being in a boxing match with Anthony Joshua?
- ... that after winning the 2024 Masters, snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan is both the youngest and oldest winner of the tournament?
- ... that referee Jan Verhaas was informed of an error he made at the 2022 Masters by a member of the crowd?
- ... that Turkish carom billiards champion Güzin Müjde Karakaşlı grew up playing volleyball for about 12 years?
- ... that the final of the 2009 IBSF women's snooker championship was interrupted so that drug tests could be conducted on the players?
- ... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
- ... that both finalists at the 2008 World Snooker Championship made maximum breaks during the tournament?
- ... that during a match at the snooker 2021 UK Championship, player Mark Williams fell asleep?
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Image 1Margaret Fefilova Styer (formerly Marharyta Fefilava; born 31 May 1997) is a Belarusian professional pool player from Minsk, Belarus. Fefilova has won a total of 29 Belarusian national women's championships, with an additional three national championships in mixed competitions against both men and women. She is the first player from Belarus to win a medal at the European Pool Championships, a bronze medal in the nine-ball competition in 2015. She also reached the final of the European Girls Championship in 2014, losing 3–6 to Kamila Khodjaeva.
Fefilova is a regular player on the Euro Tour and the Baltic Pool League. In 2017, she became the number one ranked player on the Euro Tour for the first time after winning two Tour events, the Dutch Open and the Portugal Open. In 2019, she reached three finals, bringing her career total to six finals on the Euro Tour. Fefilova alongside Yana Shut were the first Belarusian billiard players to receive state funding. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2019 Antalya Open (also known as the 2019 Dynamic Billiard Antalya Open) was a professional nine-ball pool tournament held from 7 to 10 November 2019 in the Limak Atlantis Resort in Antalya, Turkey. The event was the sixth and final Euro Tour event of 2019, following the Klagenfurt Open. The men's event was won by Estonia's Denis Grabe, who won his third Tour win, defeating Eklent Kaçi 9–2. The women's event was won by Poland's Oliwia Zalewska, who won her first Tour event. She defeated Tina Vogelmann in the final 7–6. (Full article...)
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Efren Manalang Reyes OLD PLH (born August 26, 1954), popularly known by the nicknames "Bata" (Tagalog for 'Kid') and "the Magician", is a Filipino professional pool player, who is widely regarded as the greatest pool player of all time, and especially famed for his skill at the challenging one-pocket discipline. In 2003, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
A winner of over 100 international titles, Reyes was the first player to win the WPA World Championships in two different pool disciplines. Among his numerous titles, Reyes is a WPA World Nine-ball Champion and WPA World Eight-ball Champion, a U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship winner, a four-time Sands Regency Nine-ball Open winner, a four-time All Japan Championship winner, a seven-time WPA Asian Nine-ball Tour Champion, and a record thirteen-time Derby City Classic winner. Reyes also represented the Philippines at the World Cup of Pool, winning the event with his partner Francisco Bustamante in 2006 and 2009. Reyes defeated American champion Earl Strickland twice in The Color of Money challenge match in 1996 and a rematch in 2001. In their first challenge match in 1996, Reyes took home the winner-take-all prize of $100,000, the highest single-event purse in the history of pool at that time. (Full article...) -
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Steve Davis OBE (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World Snooker Championship finals in nine years, winning six world titles, and held the world number one ranking for seven consecutive seasons. He was runner-up to Dennis Taylor in one of snooker's most famous matches, the 1985 World Championship final, which ended in a dramatic black-ball conclusion that attracted 18.5 million viewers, still the largest British television audience for any broadcast after midnight and any broadcast on BBC Two.
As well as his six world titles, Davis won the UK Championship six times and the Masters three times for a total of 15 Triple Crown titles, placing him third behind Ronnie O'Sullivan (23 titles) and Stephen Hendry (18). During the 1987–88 season, he became the first player to win all three Triple Crown events in a single season, a feat matched by only two other players—Hendry and Mark Williams. He holds the record for the most professional titles overall, with 84 individual wins, or 98 including team and pro–am competition (see tables below). His career total of 28 ranking titles places him fourth behind O'Sullivan (41 titles), Hendry (36) and John Higgins (31). Davis became the first player to make an officially recognised maximum break in professional competition—at the 1982 Classic—and he was also the first to earn £1 million in career prize money. (Full article...) -
Image 5Clifford Wilson (10 May 1934 – 21 May 1994) was a Welsh professional snooker player who reached the highest ranking of 16, in 1988-89. He was the 1978 World Amateur Champion and won the 1991 World Seniors Championship. He was a successful junior player, known for his fast attacking snooker and potting ability, and won the British Under-19 Championship in 1951 and 1952. In the early 1950s both Wilson and future six-times World Professional Champion Ray Reardon lived in Tredegar, where they played a succession of money matches that attracted large enthusiastic crowds.
A combination of factors, including Reardon leaving Tredegar, led to Wilson virtually giving up the game from 1957 to 1972, but after being asked to take up a vacant place in a works team, he returned to playing and later became the 1978 World Amateur Champion, achieving his victory with an 11–5 win in the final against Joe Johnson. In 1979 Wilson turned professional, aged 45, and, still playing with an attacking style, reached several ranking tournament quarter-finals during his career. At the inaugural World Seniors Championship in 1991 he beat Eddie Charlton 5–4 in the final to take the title. He won the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1956, 1977 and 1979, and was runner-up in the Welsh Professional Championship in 1981 and 1984. He suffered from a number of health conditions, including poor eyesight, during his career, but continued to play professionally until his death in 1994 at the age of 60. (Full article...) -
Image 6The Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) (formerly called the Billiards Association and Control Council (BA&CC)) was the governing body of the games of English billiards and snooker and organised professional and amateur championships in both sports. It was formed in 1919 by the union of the Billiards Association (founded in 1885) and the Billiards Control Club (founded in 1908).
The B&SCC lost control of both the amateur and professional games in the early 1970s, following a dispute with professional players over challenge matches for the World Billiards Championship, and dissatisfaction from snooker associations outside the UK about the balance of voting power in the organisation, with a large proportion of votes being held in a small number of English areas. Following the loss of its government funding, the B&SCC went into voluntary liquidation in 1992 and its assets were later acquired by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. (Full article...) -
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Michaela Tabb (born 11 December 1967) is a Scottish snooker and pool referee. She established significant milestones for female officials in professional cue sports, beginning in pool, where she officiated at top tournaments such as the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the Mosconi Cup. She qualified in 2001 to referee on the World Snooker Tour and was the sport's highest profile female referee for the next 14 years. She became the first woman to officiate at a professional ranking snooker tournament at the 2002 Welsh Open, and the first woman to referee a ranking tournament final at the 2007 Welsh Open. She is the only woman to have refereed the World Snooker Championship final, which she did twice, in 2009 and 2012.
Tabb left the professional snooker tour in March 2015 following a dispute with the sport's commercial arm, World Snooker Ltd, against which she brought a case alleging sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, and breach of contract. The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in September 2015, under which World Snooker Ltd paid Tabb an undisclosed financial sum. She has continued to referee at pool events and on the World Seniors Tour. (Full article...) -
Image 8Herbert John Pulman (12 December 1923 – 25 December 1998) was an English professional snooker player who was the World Snooker Champion from 1957 to 1968. He first won the title at the 1957 Championship and retained it across seven challenges from 1964 to 1968, three of them against Fred Davis and two against Rex Williams. When the tournament reverted to a knockout event in 1969, he lost 18–25 in the first round to the eventual champion John Spencer. After finishing as runner-up to Ray Reardon in 1970, Pulman never again reached the final, although he was a losing semi-finalist in 1977.
He turned professional in 1946, shortly after winning the English Amateur Championship, and achieved three News of the World Snooker Tournament titles, in 1954, 1957 and 1958. An emotional player, he was prone to venting his frustration and missing important shots. He generally played attacking snooker in his early career, but he made more use of safety tactics in the 1970s. (Full article...) -
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Carom billiards, also called French billiards, sometimes Carambole billiards, or plainly just Carom is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France.
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, one-cushion, balkline, three-cushion and artistic billiards. (Full article...) -
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The 2019 Masters (officially the 2019 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament, that took place between 13 and 20 January 2019 in London, England and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2018–19 snooker season. It was the 45th staging of the Masters, and was broadcast in Europe by the BBC and Eurosport.
Judd Trump reached his first Masters final, while Ronnie O'Sullivan reached the final for a record-extending 13th time. Trump led 7–1 after the afternoon session and went on to win the match 10–4, despite O'Sullivan making two century breaks in the evening session. It was O'Sullivan's heaviest defeat in a Masters final. (Full article...)
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Image 1A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
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Image 2alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 3alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 4Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
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Image 5A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 6The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
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Image 7A close-up view of a cue tip about to strike the cue ball, the aim being to pot the red ball into a corner pocket (from Snooker)
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Image 8A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 10alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 13Illustration A: Aerial view of a snooker table with the balls in their starting positions. The cue ball (white) may be placed anywhere in the semicircle (known as the "D") at the start of the game. (from Snooker)
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Image 14alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 15A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponent (from Carom billiards)
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Image 16A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from Snooker)
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Image 17Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
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Image 18alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 21Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
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Image 22alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 25Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 26alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 27A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from Snooker)
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Image 28Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards)
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Cue sports portal The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. |
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