Carom billiards

Louis XIV playing billard (1694)

Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards or simply carambole and, in some cases, used as a synonym for the game of straight rail from which many carom games derive, is the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 5 foot x ten foot pocketless tables, which often feature heated slate. At its simplest form, the object of most carom games is to score points or "counts" by caroming 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.

The title word "carom", which simply means any strike and rebound, came into use in the 1860s and is a shortening of carambola, which was earlier used to describe the red object ball. Carambola, in turn, was derived from an orange-colored, tropical Asian fruit, called a carambola in English, which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India.

There are a large array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of invention): 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.

Equipment

Cloth

The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776

Cloth has been used to cover billiards tables since the 15th century. In fact, the most famous maker of billiard cloth, Iwan Simonis was formed in 1453. Most cloths made for carom billiards tables is dyed green and made from 100% worsted wool, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed. The green color of cloth was originally chosen to emulate the look of grass, and has been so colored since the 16th century. However, the color also serves a useful function, as humans have a lower light sensitivity to green than to any other color, allowing play for longer periods of time without eye strain.

Balls

Modern billiard balls are made from phenolic resin and are normally 62.5 millimeters in diameter, weigh between 7 and 7½ ounces, and are significantly larger and heaver than their pocket billiards counterparts. The three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of a completely white cue ball, a second cue ball with typically a red or black dot on it (to aid in differentation between the two cue balls), and a third, red ball. In some sets of balls, however, the second cue ball is solid yellow.

Billiard balls have been made from many different materials since the start of the game, including clay, bakelite, celluloid, crystalite, ivory, platic, steel and wood. The dominant material from 1627 until the early to mid 1900s 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 hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who annnounced 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, sometimes exploding during manufacture and is highly flammable.

Billiard cues

George Sutton tobacco card, c. 1911

Billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from the typical pool cue which many people are more familiar with. Such cues tend to be shorter overall, with a shorter ferrule, a fatter butt, a wooden pin joint, a fast taper, and a smaller tip diameter as compared with pool cues. These features make the cue significantly stiffer, which aid in handling the larger and heaver billiard balls as compared with pool cues, but more importantly, act to reduce deflection. Deflection, sometimes called squirt, may be defined as displacement of the cue ball's path away from the parallel line formed by the cue stick's direction of travel. It is a factor that occurs every time english (sidespin) is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom billiards games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of english, coupled with great speed; a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pocket billiards.

Heated slate

The slate bed of billiard tables are 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 billard 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. 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..."

History of games

Straight rail

Main article: straight rail

Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th street and Broadway in Manhattan, January 1, 1859.‎

Straight rail, sometimes referred to as carom billiards, straight billiards, the three-ball game, the carambole game, the and the free game in Europe, is thought to date to the 1700s, 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 name 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.

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, resulting 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.

Professional straight rail in the U.S. 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 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.

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. 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 of the 'nursing' surface of the end rails and 56 inches on the long rails." Untimately, however, Despite it's 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.

Balkline

Main article: balkline

Balkline table with standard markings

Balkline succeeded the Champion's game, adding more rules to curb nursing techniques. There are many variation of balkline but all divide the table into marked regions called balk spaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the table surface in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the object balls are within that region.

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.

For the most part, the differences between one balkline game to another is 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 distant from each rail, and only 2 counts are allowed in a balkspace before a ball must leave.

Over its history balkline has had many variations including 8.2, 10.2, 12.2, 13.2, 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 still enjoys a large popularity in Europe and the Far East.

Cushion caroms

Main article: cushion caroms

Jacob Schaefer, Sr. tobacco card, circa 1880s; Schaefer was a dominant billiards player during the 19th century.

Cushion caroms, sometimes called by its original name, the indirect game,, is traceable to 1820s Britain and is a descendant of the doublet game dating to at least 1807. The game is sometimes incorrectly referred to as one-cushion or one-cushion billiards, which is the direct translation of its name into English from various other languages such as Spanish ("una banda") and German ("einband").

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 supra). Cushion caroms is rarely played in the U.S., but it still enjoys some popularity in Europe.

Three-cushion billiards

In three-cushion billiards, sometimes called three cushion carom, three-cushion, three-cushions, three-rail, rails and the angle game, the object is to carom off both object balls with at least three rails being contacted before the contact of the cue ball with the second object ball. Arising sometime in the 1870s, the origin of three cushion billiards is not entirely know. It is undisputed that the Internal Revenue Collector of the Port of St. Louis, one Wayman C. McCreery, popularized the game. At least one publication categorically states he invented the game as well.

The very first tournament at three cushion billiards was held in 1878 in St. Louis, won by New Yorker Leon Magnus. The game was infrequently played prior to 1907, with many top players of the era voicing their dislike of it. However, in 1907 after the introduction of the Lambert Trophy, the game became increasingly popular both in the U.S. and internationally. The games decline in the U.S. came about in 1952 when 51 time billiards champion Willie Hoppe announced his retirement.

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 at 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 high run at three cushion was for many years 25, set by Willie Hoppe in 1918 during an exhibition. The tournament high run is 30, set by Yoshio Toshihara in 1988. The best game at the standard 50 points was 16 innings, set by Otto Reiselt in 1926, equalled by Sang Lee in 1992 in a non-championship game. Three-cushion billiards is by the most popular carom billiards game played in the U.S. today, although overall pocket billiards is far more widespread. Three-cushion retains great popularity in parts of Europe, as well as in Korea, Japan and areas of South America.

Artistic billiards

Main article: Artistic billiards

A massé shot around a pin

In Artistic billiards, sometimes called fantasy billiards or fantaisie classique, players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty. Each set shot has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a 4-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There is a total of 500 points available to a player, The governing body of the sport is the Confédération International de Billard Artistique (CIBA).

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.

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 355, by Belgian Raymond Steylaerts, while the highest score in competition overall was set by Frenchman Jean Reverchon. The game is played predominantly in western Europe, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

External links

• Union Mondiale de Billard—The world-body for all Carom/carambole billiard games
• Carom Cafe
• Archival Billiard Resource
• Straight-Rail Billiards - History, Rules, and Technique for Straight-Rail/Carambole Billiards