What Are The Types Of Billiard Balls?
Different billiard balls are used for each version of billiard pool. Each ball set has a different friction or coating on them which can really make a difference, especially for professionals. Different billiard hall establishments will keep several kinds of balls for the different games. The right ball can make all the difference in pool.
Billiard balls are all constructed on the same principle. All balls are round and made of some kind of plastic compound. The first balls were made from wood, and they were also made out of ivory for awhile. However, when it became known that the elephants were about to die out because of over-killing, they stopped making them out of ivory. After all, only 8 balls were able to be made per elephant. The material celluloid and other plastics have been used to make the balls most recently. These are used because they are chip resistant. Every professional billiard pool player has their own brand of billiard accessories that they prefer. However, the untrained person probably couldn't tell the difference. Each different version of billiards is played with a different set of balls of varying sizes.
Each game of billiards uses different billiard equipment. The game that uses the biggest set of balls is Carom. This game only uses three or four balls, and they are red, white, and white with a dot. There are several games that can be played with these balls, and they are usually played on pocket-less billiard tables. American billiards pool uses the next biggest ball. All of the American games use pocket games, and there are 16 of them. The first 7 balls are solid colors, and the last 8 are stripes.
The cue ball is always white. Some games use all the balls, but others use only 10. The next biggest sized game balls are used in British billiards, which is sometimes called blackball. These balls are 16 again, with half red and half yellow, and a white cue ball and a black 8 ball. Blackball is played differently than English billiard pool. Snooker uses the smallest balls out of all the ball types. Snooker uses 22 balls, of varying colors. There are 15 red balls, 6 other colored balls, and 1 white cue ball.
There are many different billiard balls. Different balls go with different games. Knowing the ones to use for which billiards game is very important. Impress your friends by talking to a billiard club member about the different kinds of billiards balls they carry. If you know the right balls for the different billiard pool games, then you will have a useful skill that every billiards player should know.