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...)
Featured articles -
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
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The 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...) -
The 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...) -
The 2015 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2015 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament which took place from 19 April to 5 May 2015 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 39th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible, and was the final ranking event of the 2014–15 snooker season. Sports betting company Betfred sponsored the event for the first time in three years, having previously done so from 2009 to 2012. The top sixteen players in the snooker world rankings were placed into the draw, and another sixteen players qualified for the event at a tournament taking place from 8 to 15 April 2015 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield.
Mark Selby was the defending champion, having defeated the defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2014 final. Selby lost 11–13 in the second round to event debutant Anthony McGill, and became the 16th first-time champion unable to defend his title at the venue. Shaun Murphy, the 2005 winner, met Stuart Bingham in the final. Bingham, who was given odds of 50–1 to win the tournament by bookmakers before the start of the tournament, defeated Murphy 18–15 in the final to win the first world title of his 20-year professional career. Aged 38, Bingham became the oldest player to win the title since Ray Reardon in 1978. (Full article...) -
The 2020 Tour Championship (officially the 2020 Coral Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 to 26 June 2020, at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the second edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the second season of the Coral Cup. It was the 16th and penultimate ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season following the Gibraltar Open and preceding the World Championship. The tournament was originally scheduled for 17 to 22 March 2020, but on the morning of 17 March the event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following advice from the UK government, it had been decided that no spectators would be permitted at the event.
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, with each match played over a minimum of two sessions and the final being a best-of-19-frames match. The winner of the tournament won £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by betting company Coral. (Full article...) -
The 1987 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1987 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 18 April and 4 May 1987 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1986–87 snooker season. The championship was the 1987 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927, and had 32 participants. The highest ranked 16 players were awarded a place in the first round draw, whilst a pre-tournament qualification event for 104 professionals was held between 26 March and 4 April at the Preston Guild Hall for the remaining places. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy and had a prize fund of £400,000 with the winner receiving £80,000.
Since his 1986 victory, Joe Johnson had experienced a disappointing season leading up to the 1987 Championship, and bookmakers considered it unlikely that he would retain the title. Johnson did reach the final, a rematch of the previous year's final against Steve Davis. Davis won his fourth championship by defeating Johnson 18 frames to 14. A total of 18 century breaks were made during the tournament, the highest of which was 127 made by Davis in first frame of the final. Stephen Hendry, aged 18, became the youngest player to win a match in the tournament's history since it moved to the Crucible in 1977, whilst it was the last time that six-times champion Ray Reardon appeared. (Full article...) -
The 1985 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1985 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a professional ranking tournament in snooker that took place from 12 to 28 April 1985 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the event was the ninth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament having taken place in 1977. A five-round qualifying event for the championship was held at the Preston Guild Hall from 29 March to 5 April for 87 players, 16 of whom reached the main stage, where they met the 16 invited seeded players. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, and was sponsored by the Embassy cigarette company. The total prize fund for the event was £250,000, the highest prize pool for any snooker tournament to that date. The winner received £60,000, which was the highest amount ever received by the winner of a snooker event at that time.
The defending champion was Englishman Steve Davis, who had previously won the World Championship three times. He met Northern Irishman Dennis Taylor in the final which was a best-of-35-frames match. Davis took an early 9–1 lead, but Taylor battled back into the match and drew level at 17–17, forcing a deciding frame. The 35th frame was contested over the final black ball, with the player able to pot the ball winning the world title. After Taylor missed three attempts to pot the black, Davis missed his only attempt to leave Taylor a relatively simple pot to win his sole World Championship. The match, often referred to as the "black ball final", is commonly considered to be the best-known match in the history of snooker and a reason for the surge in the sport's popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. (Full article...) -
The 2017 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2017 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 2017 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 19th and final ranking event of the 2016–17 season which followed the China Open. It was the 41st consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible.
The winner of the event was the defending champion and world number one Mark Selby, who defeated John Higgins 18–15 in the final. Selby won despite having fallen 4–10 behind in the second session of the match. Selby defeated Ding Junhui 17–15 in the semi-finals whilst Higgins defeated Barry Hawkins 17–8 to reach the final. This was Selby's third World Championship win; he had also won the tournament in the 2014 and 2016 tournaments. (Full article...) -
The 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...) -
The 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship was a professional pool tournament for the discipline of ten-ball organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and CueSports International. It was the fifth WPA World Ten-ball Championship; the previous championship was held in 2015. After plans for an event in both 2016 and 2018 to be held in Manila fell through, a 2019 event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part of a three-year deal for the event to be played in the United States was agreed. The event was held concurrently with the Billiard Congress of America's National Ten-ball event from July 22 to 26. The event was sponsored by cue manufacturer Predator Group.
The competition featured 64 participants, selected according to world and continental pool rankings as well as qualifying events. The tournament was played as a double-elimination bracket until 16 players remained, at which point it changed to a single-elimination format. Ko Ping-chung, representing Chinese Taipei, won the event, defeating German player Joshua Filler 10–7 in the final. Ko's brother Ko Pin-yi, who was the defending champion, lost to Filler 10–8 in the semi-final. The event featured a prize fund of $132,000, the winner receiving $30,000. (Full article...) -
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 22 balls, comprising a white cue ball, 15 red balls and 6 other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black—collectively called 'the colours'. Using a snooker cue, 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 foul committed by the opposing player or team. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points, and a snooker match ends when a player wins 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...)
Selected articles -
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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...) -
Stephen Gordon Hendry MBE (born 13 January 1969) is a Scottish retired professional snooker player and a current commentator and pundit. One of the most successful players in snooker history, he turned professional in 1985, aged 16, and rose rapidly through the snooker world rankings, reaching number four in the world by the end of his third professional season. He won his first World Snooker Championship in 1990, aged 21 years and 106 days, making him the sport's youngest world champion, a record he still holds. He won seven world titles between 1990 and 1999, setting a new modern-era record that stood outright until Ronnie O'Sullivan equalled it in 2022. He also won the Masters six times and the UK Championship five times for a career total of 18 Triple Crown tournament wins, a total exceeded only by O'Sullivan's 23. His total of 36 ranking titles is second only to O'Sullivan's 41, while his nine seasons as world number one were the most by any player under the annual ranking system used until 2010.
Hendry's five consecutive Masters titles between 1989 and 1993 and five consecutive world titles between 1992 and 1996 remain records in the modern era. His 36 consecutive victories in ranking events between March 1990 and January 1991 and his 29 consecutive wins at the Crucible between 1992 and 1997 also remain modern-era records. One of three players to have won all three Triple Crown events in a single season, he is the only player to have achieved the feat twice, in the 1989–90 and 1995–96 seasons. His 777 career century breaks include 11 maximum breaks, putting him in third place behind O'Sullivan (15) and John Higgins (13) for the most officially recognised maximums in professional competition. Awarded an MBE in 1994, he was twice named the BBC Scotland Sports Personality of the Year, in 1987 and 1996.
Hendry's form became less consistent after his sixth world title in 1996 and his career declined in the 2000s, his play increasingly affected by the yips. He reached the last of his nine world finals at the 2002 World Championship but lost in a deciding frame to Peter Ebdon. He won his last ranking title at the 2005 Malta Cup and reached his last ranking final at the 2006 UK Championship, losing 6–10 to Ebdon. During the 2011–12 season, he fell out of the top 16 in the world rankings for the first time in 23 years. He made his 27th consecutive Crucible appearance as a qualifier at the 2012 World Championship but announced his retirement from professional snooker at age 43 after losing 2–13 to Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. After almost nine years in retirement, he returned to professional competition during the 2020–21 season under an invitational tour card. He played sporadically on the professional tour over four seasons but secured only three wins in 20 professional matches and retired again after the 2023–24 season. He has also competed on the World Seniors Tour and has twice been a semi-finalist at the World Seniors Championship. (Full article...) -
William Joseph Mosconi (/mɒˈskoʊni/; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the pocket billiards game most often played in competition was called straight pool, or 14.1 continuous, a form of pool considered by most top players to be more difficult than today's fast tournament game nine-ball. Mosconi set the officially-recognized straight pool high run world record of 526 consecutive balls in 1954. (Full article...) -
Jak Jones (born 29 July 1993) is a Welsh professional snooker player.
Jones is from Cwmbran, Torfaen in South Wales. He became a professional in 2010 at the age of 16 after winning the 2010 European Under-19 Snooker Championship in Malta.
He reached the final of the 2024 World Snooker Championship as a qualifier, losing 18–14 to Kyren Wilson in the final. (Full article...) -
Aloysius Yapp (/ˌæloʊˈɪʃəs/; Chinese: 叶浚惟; pinyin: Yè Jùnwéi; born 2 May 1996) is a Singaporean professional pool player. He was the world junior champion in nine-ball in 2014 and runner-up in the 2021. In 2023, Yapp defeated David Alcaide of Spain in the final, 13-7, to win the International Open 9-Ball Championship in Norfolk Virginia, USA. (Full article...)
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Artistic billiards final at the 2013 European Carom Billiards Championship
Artistic billiards is a cue sport played on a billiard table. A discipline of carom billiards, players aim to recreate a portion of 76 pre-set shots of varying difficulty against an opponent. Each of the 76 shots has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a four-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an eleven-point maximum. There are a total of 500 points available to a player, representing the combined value of a perfect score on all 76 shots, although not all games are played with the full shot catalogue. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération International de Billard Artistique.
A version of the game, played on a pocket billiards table known as artistic pool began in the 1970s, with official competitions starting in 1993. These events are run and organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). (Full article...) -
Niels Feijen (born 3 February 1977, The Hague) is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship. (Full article...) -
Danny DiLiberto is an American retired professional pool player nicknamed "Buffalo Danny".
A veteran player from the Johnston City era, a teacher, an author, and previously working as a commentator for Accu-Stats, DiLiberto is an active member of the pocket billiards community. He was elected into the One Pocket Hall of Fame in 2004 for his "outstanding contribution to the legacy of the game of one pocket". (Full article...) -
Jean Bessems (born 4 January 1945) is a former professional Dutch carom and artistic billiards player. Bessems won the Artistic Billiards World Championship in 1985 and 1988, and finished as runner-up in 1984. (Full article...) -
Jack Lisowski (born 25 June 1991) is an English professional snooker player from Churchdown, Gloucestershire. He turned professional in 2010 by finishing first in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. A left-handed player, he is known for his attacking style of play.
Lisowski has reached six ranking finals but has been runner-up each time, losing three finals to Judd Trump, two to Neil Robertson and one to Mark Selby. He has made one maximum break in professional competition. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the 1810s reign of Ioan Caragea introduced Wallachia to carom billiards, sugar sculptures, and an eponymous plague?
- ... that Kyren Wilson won the first four frames in all of his snooker matches at the 2023 Tour Championship?
- ... that the 1947 World Snooker Championship was the first world snooker championship where the winner wasn't Joe Davis?
- ... that Gary Wilson threw his snooker cue to the floor in anger at the 2022 UK Championship?
- ... that a snooker table used at the 2022 Turkish Masters was fixed with a car jack?
- ... that Mark Williams travelled for more than 13 hours to be a last-minute replacement at the 2022 Hong Kong Masters?
- ... that the final of the 2009 IBSF women's snooker championship was interrupted so that drug tests could be conducted on the players?
- ... that referee Jan Verhaas was informed of an error he made at the 2022 Masters by a member of the crowd?
Related portals and projects
Good articles -
These are Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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Desmond Rex Williams BEM (born 20 July 1933) is an English retired professional billiards and snooker player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break in snooker, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship from Clark McConachy in 1968, the first time that the title had been contested since 1951. Williams retained the title in several challenge matches in the 1970s and, after losing it to Fred Davis in 1980, regained it from 1982 to 1983.
He played a leading role in the re-establishment of the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964, and lost twice to John Pulman, once in a single match and once in a series of matches played in South Africa. When the Championship reverted to being a knockout from 1969, he reached the semi-finals three times. In 1968 he initiated the revival of the Professional Billiards Players Association (known as the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association from 1970). He chaired the association, barring a few weeks in 1983, until 1987, and again from 1997 to 1999. (Full article...) -
The 2019 Riga Masters (also known as the 2019 Kaspersky Riga Masters due to sponsorship) was a professional ranking snooker tournament held from 26 to 28 July 2019 at the Arēna Rīga in Riga, Latvia. It was the sixth Riga Masters event, with the first being held in 2013, and the first ranking event of the 2019/2020 snooker season. The defending champion, Neil Robertson, previously defeated Jack Lisowski in the 2018 final. However, Robertson and several other players were forced to withdraw from qualifying round matches due to flight cancellations, and therefore could not compete in the event.
Yan Bingtao defeated Mark Joyce 5–2 in the final, winning the event and earning his first career ranking title. Yan became the first teenager to win a ranking event in 13 years since Ding Junhui won the 2006 Northern Ireland Trophy aged 19. No players from the top 20 in the world reached the quarter-finals. Lisowski scored the highest break of the tournament, a 145. The event had a total prize fund of £278,000 with the winner receiving £50,000. Qualifying for the event was held between 10 and 13 June 2019 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield, England. (Full article...) -
The 2018 Masters (officially the 2018 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 14 and 21 January 2018 in London, England, and the second Triple Crown event of the 2017–18 snooker season. It was the 44th staging of the Masters, and was broadcast in Europe by the BBC and Eurosport.
The event saw two first-time Triple Crown finalists. Mark Allen won his first, defeating Kyren Wilson 10–7 in the final. Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan lost 1–6 in the quarter-finals to the eventual champion, Allen. It was O'Sullivan's first defeat at the Masters since 2015. (Full article...) -
The 2001 Nations Cup (officially the 2001 Coalite Nations Cup) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at The Hexagon, in Reading, Berkshire, England, from 13 to 21 January 2001. It was a World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association team competition held as part of the 2000–01 snooker season and the third and final edition of the Nations Cup. The competition was contested by eight nations of three players each, with one of them qualifying via a play-off match. It was sponsored by smokeless coal manufacturer Coalite.
England were the tournament's defending champions but were eliminated in the group stages after finishing third in their group. Scotland's Stephen Hendry, John Higgins and Alan McManus won the competition, defeating the Republic of Ireland's (ROI) Ken Doherty, Fergal O'Brien and Michael Judge six frames to two (6–2) in the final. During the match, referee Alan Chamberlain courted controversy when he cautioned O'Brien over slow play since the television coverage was due to end soon after. The event's highest break was a 131 made by Thai player Phaitoon Phonbun in the second frame of his nation's group match with Malta. (Full article...) -
Margaret 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...) -
The 2019–20 Challenge Tour was a series of snooker tournaments that took place during the 2019–20 snooker season. The Challenge Tour was the second-tier tour for players not on the main World Snooker Tour. The top player in the final rankings earned a two-year card to the World Snooker Tour from the 2020–21 snooker season. The following eight players in the rankings progressed to a play-off event, with the winner of that event also receiving a two-year place on the World Snooker Tour. Two of the events were postponed: Event five was rearranged due to poor weather conditions, whilst the play-off was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Played between August and July, the series was contested over ten events. Ashley Hugill finished top of the rankings, winning two of the events. Hugill had already earned a place on the World Snooker Tour having won the 2020 WSF Open, so second placed Lukas Kleckers
earned a tour card. Third ranked Andrew Pagett also received a place on the World Snooker Tour after his victory in the 2020 EBSA European Snooker Championship. Allan Taylor, who had finished seventh in the rankings, won the play-off tournament and a place on the World Snooker Tour. (Full article...) -
Kristina Olegovna Tkach (Russian: Кристина Олеговна Ткач, romanized: Kristina Tkach; born 19 January 1999) is a Russian professional pool player. She became the 2017 WPA World Nine-ball Junior Championship winner, defeating Lee Woo-jin in the final 9–6. Tkach is a four time European champion having won the eight-ball event in 2016 and 2019, as well as Straight pool in 2017 and 2019. In addition, she is a nine-time Junior European Champion.
Tkach is a regular player on the Euro Tour events, reaching the Tour number one in 2016. She is the second most successful player of all time on the tour behind Jasmin Ouschan, having won seven events beginning with the 2016 North Cyprus Open. (Full article...) -
The 1928 World Snooker Championship was a professional snooker tournament held at various venues from 28 December 1927 to 17 May 1928. It was the second staging of the World Snooker Championship. It was played on a challenge basis with the other six entrants playing off for the right to challenge defending champion Joe Davis in the final. The final was held at the Camkin's Hall in Birmingham, England, with three of the other matches contested there, and one each played in Leamington Spa and Nottingham.
Davis won 16–13 in the final against Fred Lawrence, and retained the title. Davis had won the professional billiards championship earlier in May, and became the first person to hold the professional titles in billiards and snooker titles concurrently, and then the first person to win them both in the same season. The highest break of the snooker tournament was 46, compiled by Alec Mann in the third frame of his first round match against Albert Cope. (Full article...) -
The 2019 Paul Hunter Classic was a professional non-ranking invitational snooker tournament. The event took place between 24 and 25 August 2019 at the Stadthalle in Fürth, Germany. The tournament was the 2019 edition of the Paul Hunter Classic first held in 2004 as the Grand Prix Fürth. The tournament is named in honour of snooker professional, Paul Hunter who won the 2004 event and died in 2006. The event featured a 16-player bracket with a qualification tournament that was held in Nuremberg, Germany. As the tournament was dropped as a ranking event, independent promoters Dragonstars Event Management promoted the event providing prize money for the tournament.
Kyren Wilson was the defending champion, having defeated Peter Ebdon 4–2 in the 2018 final. Barry Hawkins won the title 4–3 defeating Wilson in the final. Wison lead 3–2 and required one frame to win the title, he was one ball from winning but lost the frame 64–65 and incredibly Hawkins won the decider to win the title. The event also featured an exhibition Speed Snooker Cup tournament which ran concurrently with the main event, which was won by Gary Wilson. Barry Hawkins scored the highest break of the event, a 120 in the third round of the final. (Full article...) -
The 2019 UK Championship (officially the 2019 Betway UK Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 26 November to 8 December 2019 in the Barbican Centre, York, England. The 43rd edition of the UK Championship, it was the seventh ranking tournament and the first Triple Crown event of the 2019–20 season. The event was broadcast on BBC Sport in the United Kingdom and on Eurosport throughout Europe. The tournament was sponsored by betting company Betway.
The defending champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan, had won the previous two championships, defeating Shaun Murphy 10–5 in the 2017 final, and Mark Allen 10–6 in the 2018 final. O'Sullivan was eliminated in the last 16 by Ding Junhui, who won the match 6–4 and proceeded to reach the final of the event, defeating compatriots Liang Wenbo and Yan Bingtao, both 6–2, in the two intervening rounds. Ding's opponent in the final was Stephen Maguire, who had won his semi-final 6–0 against Mark Allen. Ding defeated Maguire 10–6 to win his third UK championship. (Full article...)
General images -
The following are images from various cue sports-related articles on Wikipedia.
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A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports)) -
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A full-size snooker table set up for a game (from Snooker) -
A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports)) -
Jerome Keogh invented the game in 1910. (from Straight pool) -
alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker) -
alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker) -
alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker) -
Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards) -
alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker) -
Cigarette card, c. 1911, showing George Sutton playing balkline (from Carom billiards) -
Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards) -
A 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) -
A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker) -
The World Snooker Championship trophy (from Snooker) -
Steve Davis won the World Championship six times in the 1980s. (from Snooker) -
Louis XIV playing billiards (1694) (from Carom billiards) -
Ronnie O'Sullivan has won seven world titles in the 21st century. (from Snooker) -
alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker) -
alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker) -
A 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) -
alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker) -
A massé shot around a pin (from Carom billiards) -
The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards) -
Illustration A: Aerial view of a snooker table with the twenty-two 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) -
Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards) -
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A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk and two cues (from Snooker)
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