What is the difference between a billiard table and a pool table?

Answer 1

All three are different kinds of cue games: Billiards, Pool, and snooker.

Billiard tables have larger pockets and use slightly larger balls than snooker. Other than that the tables are very similar in size and design. The smaller snooker balls are red, and yellow with white cue balls. They are not numbered like billiard balls and the game is entirely different than say 8 or 9 ball played in the USA. A billiard table can be converted to snooker because you can make the holes smaller to accommodate the snooker balls, but not vice-versa.

In snooker you keep score and after all the balls are potted it is the one with the highest score that wins. 147 is the maximum score but theoretically 155 is possible. With billiards an infinite score is theoretically possible. In pool it is ho pots all their balls and the black first that wins.

Answer 2

Considering the size difference in the balls used in Pool and Billiards, Pool cues usually are made out of maple wood and come fitted with 13mm tip while Billiard cues are usually made out of Ash wood and come fitted with 8.5mm tips.

Answer 3

Snooker covers only one game, billiards covers English Billiards and pocket billiards.

The rules of play, equipment, and how to win or lose are entirey different for all three. They cannot be compared as "differences" they must simply each be defined.

English Billiards uses 3 balls and has a few different ways to play.

Snooker uses 22 balls and is fairly straightforward for rules of play.

Pocket Billiards covers at least 4 different popular games, each having a different goal to result in a win.

Each of these uses a cue and the player uses it to hit a cue ball which then has to hit other balls as a part of the game. Knowledge of any one of these adapts the player to be able to quickly learn the differences for any of the others - but, strategy is different for each type of game.

Answer 4

While the term "billiards" is appropriate to use when naming any game played on a billiards table, before laying out the rules of a pool game, let's quickly distinguish the difference between "billiards" and "pool" and thus, the objects of the games. Some die-hard pool and billiards players consider "billiards" to be "carom" games only, a carom being the act of hitting two balls with one stroke of a pool cue. Pool, on the other hand, is "pocket billiards": the act of hitting a ball into a pocket. Now, to be sure, pocket billiards takes on many forms, each differentiated largely by the number and size of balls used in play. Most traditional American pool games, though, such as the kind you'd play at the corner pub or in your own basement, are "8-ball pool" games played with 16 balls: 15 colored and one white "cue ball." Basic Rules of the Game

At the start of a pool game, players must "rack" the balls in a triangular pool rack; all balls must be touching. The first shot of the game is a "break shot": one player breaks the group of colored, or "object," balls by hitting the cue ball into the mass. Object balls come in both solid colors and stripes; during a game, one player will use the solid balls and the other will use the striped balls. Each player will take turns attempting to hit his group of balls into one of the six pockets on a standard pool table. During play, players are required to "call their shots," or announce which ball is intended for which hole at the time of a shot. A player's turn lasts until he does not shoot a ball into a pocket. Whichever player pockets all his balls first is the winner, though sinking the black 8-ball at any point in the game ends it; the player who pocketed it, before pocketing his remaining assigned balls, loses. * http://www.billiardsauthority.com/pool-tables/billiardspoolrulesarticle.cfm

Answer 5

Nothing. Pool is an old and universally accepted slang term for pocket billiards.

It is derived from a gambling reference as in pool of gamblers.

Answer 6

Billiard balls used in snooker tend to be bigger and heavier then the balls used in pool. The billiard ball for instance is often 61.5 mm as opposed to the 57.15 mm for most pool balls.