What is the Difference Between Pool and Billiards – FYI

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(Newswire.net — October 13, 2019) — Pool and billiards actually appear to be quite similar but these two are different on the basis of pockets, balls, the size of the cue stick and size of the table. Some people use the terms pool and billiards in an interchangeable manner. But this is not completely correct but not incorrect too. Pool is one type of billiard game. If you are still confused, read on to know more about pool/billiards tables. Both the games are pretty interesting. But if you want to play the game in the right manner, you have to be aware of the differences between the two.

What is the Difference Between Pool and Billiards

We have discussed on the basic difference between the pool and billiards. Also, we have provided the details about these two games and how they are played. Read below to know in details about these two games. First we will discuss about what the pool is and billiards is, then we will go to their differences. 

What is billiards?

Billiards is a family of games that can be played with a cue stick on a table with some pockets. Professional billiards repair companies say the original name of this game is ‘carom billiards’. Billiards is subdivided into 3 categories – pool, snooker and carom billiards.

What is pool?

As mentioned earlier, the pool is one of the types of billiards game. The word ‘pool’ refers to the billiard games that have pockets. Pocketed billiards was the original term that is used for the pool game. It uses object balls ranging from 9 to 15 depending on which game you are playing. 

Differences between pool and billiards.

Billiards is played on a table which has no pockets and it uses 3 balls. There is one white ball with a spot, one white ball without a spot and one red ball. On the other hand, pool is played on the table with 6 pockets along with 9 to 15 object balls along with an additional cue ball. The number of balls actually depends on which type of pool that you are playing. Also, the clothes used for pool and billiards are different from one another.

Cloth on the pool table makes the balls travel much slower. On the other hand, cloth on the billiards table is much faster. In the game of pool, the table size will be at least 3.5 x 7 while the billiards table will be much larger with a minimum size of 5’ x 10’. Another difference between the pool and billiards is that the cue sticks are smaller but thicker in billiards. But the pool cues are much longer and they have a thinner shaft. 

In conclusion

So, do you have a question in mind – what is the difference between pool and billiards? You might have just got the answer for it. Though people use them interchangeably, it is not entirely true. Both of them do have pool tables and felt on the table, but there are some small yet significant differences between the pool and billiards. You need to make sure that you are getting the differences right before you finally decide to play one.