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The game of artistic billiards is as interesting as its name. If you wish to play artistic billiards, your shots require absolute precision. This game demands a player of great caliber as the shots are taken from pre-determined positions. There are 76 pre-designated shots and they are categorized according to their difficulty of execution. As a player of artistic billiards, you do not have the choice of taking a shot from a position of your choice.

If you are one of those who have a knack for hitting the bulls eye every time, you can take a shot at artistic or fantasy billiards. Accuracy and precision rule the roost in the game. There are a total of 500 points up for grabs. Depending upon the difficulty level of hitting each shot, points are assigned to each of the shots. For a comparatively easier shot, a maximum of four points can be scored. If you manage to take a clean strike at the most difficult shot, you gather 11 points in your kitty.

Your cue is your tool to success. A player can use a maximum of twenty different kinds of cues, each of them designed to hit from a particular position. With a whole range of improvised shotmaking techniques in your armor, you can emerge as a successful player.

Do you wish to become a professional billiards player and join the ranks of all time greats or at least be in the same league as champions.  There are many who have made it to the top by virtue of their talent and sheer hard work.

Apart from playing the game earnestly, you also need to take care of certain finer points. For example, joining a club of professional billiards players or interacting with state level players would give you an insight on how the game is played on professional level. Participating in tournaments that attract maximum viewer attention and are extensively covered by international channels like World 8-Ball Championship, 9-Ball Challenge and U.S Open One Pocket Championship and is the perfect way to enter the realm of professional billiards.

Professional billiards players look up to a win in any of these tournaments. You also tend to earn respect amongst the followers of the game. Following the career of these players would give you an idea about how to chalk out your career plan and go about it. Finally but most importantly there is no other alternative to continuous practice and it is the key to becoming a professional billiards player.

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Does thinking about indoor games evoke memories of endless sessions of pool and snooker with your friends? If you are an avid fan of billiards or snooker, you must know about the different types of balls used for the different games. A game of carom is never played with the ball used for American style pool game.

If you only ever play casually, then the type of ball which is used might not concern you too much. However, if you take your games a little more seriously, you will undoubtedly be keen to make sure that you are using balls which are of the correct size. As with any game, whether it be pool, poker, or polo, it is important to use the correct equipment in order to achieve the best result. Therefore, Billiard enthusiasts should make sure they have a good knowledge of correct cue ball size.

Lets take, for example, the ball sets used for snooker games. The standard snooker balls measure 52.5 mm in diameter, however some balls also measure 52.4 mm. They have no standard weights, however, they usually weigh around 3 g. On the other hand, for a game of three-cushion, straight or balkline, you need balls that are 61.5 mm in diameter.

If you specialize in the game of Russian pyramid, you need to use a different set of billiards balls (with 68 or 72 mm diameter) from those used in Bumper pool (balls with 52.5 mm diameter). The blackball (British-style pool) uses 4.76 cm cue balls and 5.08 cm object balls, while the American-style pool uses balls with 5.715 cm in diameter.

Do you know how the balls where initially manufactured? They were fashioned out of ivory from elephant tusks. However, today phenolic resin is the most common material used for manufacturing these balls.

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Cue sport involves balls of different sizes, colors, coatings and patterns etc that determine friction coefficient, resilience and hardness. Earliest pool balls were made of clay, wood and later ivory but contemporary balls are manufactured by plastic materials that are not prone to chipping or cracking.

In carom billiards, balls are not numbered and 61.5 mm in diameter. Here four/three balls are played with two red object balls and one white/yellow cue ball for each player. American style pool balls are larger than British pool balls and are widely used worldwide. These are 2.25cm in diameter with 0.005cm tolerance, colored and numbered. Typically there are nine-ball or eight-ball games played by fifteen balls in pocket billiards. In a British style blackball game 5.08 cm object balls and 4.76 cm cue balls are used but without any numbering. Twenty two colored balls of same weight and of 52.5 mm diameter (tolerance 0.05mm) are played in snooker.

In Russian Pyramid and Finnish Kaisa games, all-white numbered object balls are played by yellow/red cue balls. These balls are 68 mm or 72 mm in diameter. Bumper pool requires eight object balls and two special balls of approximately 52.5mm diameter. Also there are some special training balls for beginners and novelty balls like Blacklight, Boble ball, Tag ball etc.

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If you want to taste the classic fervor of billiards, then artistic billiards is the one you need. The artistic billiards or fantaisie classique is a type of carom billiards originated in Western Europe.

This tests how well you can handle difficult shots with 76 pre-set shots. The perfect execution of the most difficult shot has 11 point, where 4 point is given to the perfect execution of the least difficult shots. Thus total of 500 points you can score in 76 shots.

The shot-making techniques of this game require you to have high skill, patience, analysis, logic, and artistic talent. There are definite postures exclusively for artistic billiards, not found in other types. Few of the most used game techniques are masse, force draws, jumps, force follows, kicking etc.

There are around 20 cues available. You can choose one from them depending upon the shot you require. For a tip, try masse with short and light cue that has a flat, hard and wide cue tip. Each shot is given three chances to perform.

So if you want to test how special you are, and how well you understand this game, go for artistic billiards. It would be the ultimate assessment of your talent and skill

Welcome to the billiards world of the unseen.
This is part 1 of our new microscopic billiards series.

Cue Tips
When you’re busy playing a game there’s no more that a little thought that goes towards the humble pool cue tip.  The poor tip is relegated to the back of your mind as you waltz around the table, yet remain so reliant on its performance.

Take a look at the image.  This is an image looking down onto a tip from above, scanned at x32 on an electron microscope.  Its amazing to see such detail.  Notice all the tiny cracks on the fibrous surface.  This is the bare surface of which the chalk will adhere to.  The chalk acts to keep these fibers from being impacted, thus keeping friction between cuetip and ball.  If you’re a greatly visual person like me then this post will help you to think why chalking needs to take place.  Next time spare a thought for the humble tip.

Image courtesy of www.8ballsecrets.com