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 1The 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...) -
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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...) -
Image 3The 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...) -
Image 4The 2019 Champion of Champions (officially the 2019 ManBetX Champion of Champions) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 4 and 10 November 2019 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, England. It was the ninth Champion of Champions event, the first of which was held in 1978. The tournament featured 16 participants who had won World Snooker events throughout the prior snooker season. In 2019, the Women's World Champion competed at the tournament for the first time. As an invitational event, the Champion of Champions tournament carried no world ranking points.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion having defeated Kyren Wilson 10–9 in the final of the 2018 event. O'Sullivan lost 5–6 to Neil Robertson in the semi-finals. Robertson defeated reigning world champion Judd Trump 10–9 in the final to win the championship, having required foul shots in the penultimate frame to avoid losing the match. There were 20 century breaks during the tournament, eight of which were made in the final. Mark Allen compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, in his semi-final loss to Trump. The tournament's total prize fund was £440,000, the winner receiving £150,000. (Full article...) -
Image 5The 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...) -
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The 2020 Masters (officially the 2020 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place at Alexandra Palace in London, England, from 12 to 19 January 2020. It was the 46th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2019–20 season, following the 2019 UK Championship and preceding the 2020 World Snooker Championship. The event invites the top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings in a knockout tournament. It was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe.
Judd Trump was the defending champion, having defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final of the previous year's event. Trump lost to Shaun Murphy 3–6 in the first round. O'Sullivan was eligible to compete, but chose not to participate, so his entry was given to Ali Carter, next on the world ranking list. Carter reached the final, where he played Stuart Bingham; recovering from 5–7 behind, Bingham won the final 10–8 to claim his first Masters title. He became the oldest Masters champion at the age of 43 years and 243 days, beating the previous record set by Ray Reardon in 1976; Bingham remained the tournament's oldest winner until 2024, when O'Sullivan won the title aged 48 years and 40 days. (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 1986 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1986 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 19 April and 5 May 1986 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1985–86 snooker season and the 1986 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927. The total prize fund was £350,000 with £70,000 awarded to the winner and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
The defending champion was Dennis Taylor, who had defeated Steve Davis 18–17 in the 1985 World Snooker Championship final to win his first world title. In defence of his title, Taylor lost in the first round of the event 6–10 to Mike Hallett. Joe Johnson the world number 16 defeated Davis 18–12 in the final to win his sole ranking event. Prior to the competition, the bookmakers' odds for a Johnson victory were 150/1. There were 20 century breaks compiled in total during the tournament, the highest of which was a 134 made by Davis in the opening frame of his quarter-final win. (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...) -
Image 10The 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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Hammad Miah (born 6 July 1993) is a British professional snooker player.
In May 2013, Miah qualified for the 2013–14 and 2014–15 professional Main Tour as one of four semi-finalists from the first 2013 Q School event. Hammad Miah is based at Whetstone Snooker Club in Barnet, England. He regained his card through the 2021 Q School Order of Merit for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons. (Full article...) -
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Allister Carter (born 25 July 1979) is an English professional snooker player. He has twice been a World Championship finalist, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won five ranking titles and briefly reached number two in the world rankings in 2010. His nickname, "The Captain", comes from his hobby of piloting aeroplanes. (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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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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Minnesota Fats, or George Hegerman, is a fictional pool hustler created by American novelist Walter Tevis.
The character appears in Tevis' novels The Hustler (1959) and The Color of Money (1984). Jackie Gleason portrayed him in the 1961 film adaptation of The Hustler. Though a real pool hustler, Rudolf Wanderone, who began calling himself "Minnesota Fats" in 1961, claimed to be the inspiration, Tevis denied that claim and insisted that "Minnesota Fats" was fictional. (Full article...) -
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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...) -
Image 7The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pool (pocket billiards). It was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Australia, Americas, Africa, and Europe. As of 2023, the WPA president is Ishaun Singh of South Africa. It is an associate of the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS), the international umbrella organization that encompasses the major cue sports. WPA is headquartered in Gauteng, South Africa. (Full article...)
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The U.S. Open Pool Championship, formerly the U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship, is an annual professional men's nine-ball pool tournament that began in its current form in 1976. The U.S. Open is one of the most sought-after titles in nine-ball and in pool generally. Traditionally, winners of the U.S. Open are given a green blazer and are awarded free entry fees to all future U.S. Open tournaments.
The Women's U.S. Open is a separate event, sanctioned by the Women's Professional Billiard Association (WPBA). (Full article...) -
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Yan Bingtao (Chinese: 颜丙涛; born 16 February 2000) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who is currently serving a five-year ban from professional competition after committing a range of match-fixing offences. He rose to prominence by winning the ISBF World Snooker Championship, the sport's world amateur title, in 2014 at age 14, which made him the tournament's youngest ever winner. He turned professional in 2016.
Aged 17 years and 284 days, Yan became the youngest player ever to contest a ranking final when he faced Mark Williams at the 2017 Northern Ireland Open, but lost in a deciding frame. Yan claimed his first ranking title at the 2019 Riga Masters, becoming the third Chinese player, after Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo, to win a ranking event. He made his Masters debut at the 2021 event, where he defeated John Higgins 10–8 in the final to win his first Triple Crown title. Aged 20, Yan became the youngest Masters winner since then-19-year-old Ronnie O'Sullivan won it in 1995.
In December 2022, the WPBSA suspended Yan from the professional tour amid a match-fixing investigation. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, he was banned from competing professionally until 11 December 2027. (Full article...) -
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Thorsten Hohmann (born 14 July 1979 in Fulda, West Germany) is a German professional pool player, nicknamed "the Hitman." He is a three-time world champion, winning the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 2003, and 2013, and winning the WPA World Straight Pool Championship in 2006. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that referee Jan Verhaas was informed of an error he made at the 2022 Masters by a member of the crowd?
- ... that Fraser Patrick likened playing in the 2019 Q School to being in a boxing match with Anthony Joshua?
- ... that Mark Williams travelled for more than 13 hours to be a last-minute replacement at the 2022 Hong Kong Masters?
- ... that the Highfield Cocoa and Coffee House in Sheffield, England, sold tea, coffee and cocoa at a penny a pint and also provided billiards and reading rooms?
- ... that a snooker table used at the 2022 Turkish Masters was fixed with a car jack?
- ... 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 during a match at the snooker 2021 UK Championship, player Mark Williams fell asleep?
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Image 1Daryl Peach (born 8 March 1972) is an English professional pool player, from Lancashire, who resides in Blackpool, England. He won the 2007 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, where he defeated the Philippines' Roberto Gomez 17–15 in the final to become the first British player to win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship.
Representing England with partner Mark Gray, Peach has competed at the World Cup of Pool on six occasions, reaching the final in 2008 and 2015. Peach represented Great Britain and won the inaugural World Team Championship in 2010. He has also represented Europe in the Mosconi Cup in 1995 and 2007, and was a member of the winning team on both occasions. Peach was the youngest winner of the World Pool Masters, his first pool tournament, winning the 1995 event at the age of 23 years and three months. He is also the first player to have been ranked number one in the UK rankings, European tour rankings, and WPA World rankings concurrently. (Full article...) -
Image 2The 2002 Irish Masters (known as the 2002 Citywest Irish Masters for sponsorship reasons) was a professional invitational snooker tournament which was held at the Citywest Hotel in Saggart, Dublin, from 19 to 24 March. It was the 25th edition of the Irish Masters and the fourth and final World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) invitational event of the 2001–02 season; it followed the third invitational event, the 2002 Masters, held in February. The tournament was co-sponsored by the Citywest hotel group and the Department of Health and Children and broadcast by RTÉ.
Third-ranked John Higgins won the competition, defeating the world number seven Peter Ebdon ten frames to three (10–3) in the final. It was Higgins' second Irish Masters victory, his fourth in a tournament that season and the 24th of his career. In the semi-finals Higgins defeated Matthew Stevens 6–5 and Ebdon won 6–3 over Ken Doherty. Higgins produced the tournament's highest break of 140 in the eighth frame of his semi-final match against Stevens to earn €5,000 and a further €100,000 for winning the event. (Full article...) -
Image 3Jimmy White's 2: Cueball is a snooker and pool video game developed by Awesome Developments and published by Virgin Interactive as a sequel to Jimmy White's 'Whirlwind' Snooker. It was originally released in 1999 for Windows and Dreamcast. A PlayStation version was released in 2000 in Europe and North America, with Bay Area Multimedia handling distribution for the latter territory. Archer Maclean, the designer of the original game, led the development team. The game includes mini-games connected with a pub setting. A Game Boy Color version of the game was released in 2000. A sequel to Cueball, called Jimmy White's Cueball World, was released in Europe for the PC in 2001. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with the PC and Dreamcast versions faring better than the PlayStation port. (Full article...)
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The Triple Crown in professional snooker refers to winning the sport's three longest-running and most prestigious tournaments: the World Snooker Championship (first held in 1927 and staged as a knockout tournament continuously since 1969), the invitational Masters (held annually since 1975), and the UK Championship (held annually since 1977). In January 2020, the three tournaments were formally named the Triple Crown Series.
Any player who has won all three Triple Crown tournaments at least once over the course of their career is said to have won a "career Triple Crown", and they gain the right to wear an embroidered crown on their waistcoat to reflect the achievement. As of 2023, eleven players have won a career Triple Crown: Steve Davis, Terry Griffiths, Stephen Hendry, Alex Higgins, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Judd Trump, and Mark Williams. O'Sullivan has won the most Triple Crown titles, with 23; Hendry has won 18, and Davis 15. (Full article...) -
Image 5Gerda Hofstätter Gergerson (born 9 February 1971), nicknamed "G-Force", is an Austrian professional pool player. Hofstätter won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 1995. She is a winner at the European Pool Championship on nine occasions, and won the Austrian national Championship seventeen times. Hofstätter is a two-time Hall of Fame inductee being voted into both the Women's Professional Billiard Association and Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fames in the Greatest Players Category. Hofstätter was the Austrian Sportswoman of the Year for Carinthia in 1993. Hofstätter played on the WPBA Tour until her retirement, doing so from 1993 onward. (Full article...)
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Image 6The 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...) -
Image 7The 2007 Malta Cup was the 2007 edition of the Malta Cup snooker tournament, held from 28 January to 4 February 2007 at the Hilton Conference Center in Portomaso, Malta. The tournament was the fourth of seven World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) ranking events in the 2006/2007 season, the 200th world ranking tournament and the 16th edition of the event. It was the third time that the competition was called the Malta Cup, which was renamed from the European Open, first held in 1989. The tournament was broadcast in the United Kingdom and Europe by Eurosport.
Shaun Murphy defeated first-time ranking finalist Ryan Day by nine frames to four (9–4) in the best-of-17 frames final to claim the second ranking-event title of his career. Murphy beat Ricky Walden, Stephen Lee, Graeme Dott and Ali Carter en route to reaching the final. Anthony Hamilton compiled the competition's highest break of 136 in the first round of his match against Tom Ford, whilst Stephen Hendry was the first player to compile a 700th career century in his game over Robert Milkins. The Malta Cup followed the UK Championship and preceded the Welsh Open. (Full article...) -
Image 8The 2017 Masters (officially the 2017 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 22 January 2017 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 43rd staging of the Masters and the second Triple Crown event of the 2016/17 snooker season, following the 2016 UK Championship and preceding the 2017 World Snooker Championship.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Barry Hawkins 10–1 in the final of the 2016 event. O'Sullivan reached a record-extending 12th Masters final and successfully defended his title, defeating Joe Perry 10–7 to win the tournament for a record seventh time, surpassing the six titles won by Stephen Hendry. This was the first successful title defence at the Masters since Paul Hunter in 2002. Marco Fu compiled the highest break of the tournament, scoring a 141 in his semi-final match against O'Sullivan. (Full article...) -
Image 9The 2004 European Open was the 2004 edition of the European Open snooker tournament, held from 1 to 6 March 2004, at the Hilton Conference Centre, Portomaso, Malta. It was the final year the event was known as European Open, as the event was renamed to Malta Cup in next year. Stephen Maguire defeated Jimmy White by nine frames to three (9–3) in the final to claim his first ranking-event title, transforming him from "talented underachiever into a world-ranking event winner", according to The Times. In the semi-finals Maguire defeated Stephen Lee and White beat Tony Drago. The tournament was the fifth of eight WPBSA ranking events in the 2003/2004 season, following the Welsh Open and preceding the Irish Masters. (Full article...)
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Image 10The 2006 World Cup of Pool (also known as the 2006 PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional nine-ball pool competition, the first World Cup of Pool, a scotch doubles knockout championship representing 32 national teams. The event was held at the Newport Centre in Newport, Wales, from 22 to 27 August 2006. The event was held as a single-elimination tournament, for a total prize fund of $250,000 with $60,000 being awarded to the winner. The tournament was organised by Matchroom Sport, sponsored by poker website Partypoker, and broadcast on Sky TV.
The event was won by the Filipino team of Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante who defeated the American duo of Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris 13–5 in the final. The event saw multiple world pool champions in the field, as well as snooker world champions in Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan. The unseeded Vietnamese team of Nguyen Thanh Nam and Lương Chí Dũng reached the semi-finals, where they won $8,000 each, three-times the country's national average wage. (Full article...)
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Image 1alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 2Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the World Championship seven times in the 21st century. (from Snooker)
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Image 3A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk, and two cue sticks (from Snooker)
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Image 8alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 9A 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 11alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 12alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 13A 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 14Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards)
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Image 15A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker)
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Image 16Historic 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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Image 17Illustration 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 18Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 19A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 20alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 21A full-size snooker table set up for the start of a game (from Snooker)
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Image 22Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards)
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Image 23A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports))
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Image 24The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards)
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Image 25alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Image 26alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker)
Major topics
Pool games | ||
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Carom billiards | ||
Snooker | ||
Other games | ||
Resources | ||
Major international tournaments |
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Other events | ||
Governing bodies | ||
Categories | ||
Cue sports portal The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. |
More topics
Early events | |
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Match-play | |
Challenges | |
Knock-outs | |
Crucible era | |
Related articles | |
Tournaments | |
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Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
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Ranking events | |
Non-ranking events | |
Seniors events |
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Tours and series | |
Related lists | |
Categories
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