They are significantly larger and heavier than their pocket billiards counterparts, ranging between 205 and 220 grams (7.2 and 7.8 oz) with a typical weight of 210 g (7.5 oz). Modern billiard balls are made from highly resilient plastics with a typical diameter of 61.5 millimetres (2.42 in). However, as in green eyeshades, the color also serves a useful function: Humans have a higher light sensitivity to green than to any other color, so green cloth permits play for longer periods of time without eye strain. The green color of cloth was originally chosen to emulate the look of grass, and has been so colored since the 16th century. Most cloth made for carom billiards tables is a type of baize that is dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed. The predecessor company of the most famous maker of billiard cloth, Iwan Simonis, was formed in 1453. ClothĬloth has been used to cover billiards tables since the 15th century. In modern French, the word carambolage means 'successive collision', currently used mainly in reference to carom or cannon shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes). But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India), also known as star fruit. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole, which are used to describe the red object ball. The word carom, which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled 'carrom'. There are many other carom billiards games, predominantly intermediary or offshoot games combining elements of those already listed, such as the champion's game, an intermediary game between straight rail and balkline, as well as games which are hybrids of carom billiards and pocket billiards, such as American four-ball billiards, and cowboy pool.Įnglish billiards played on a snooker table was originally called the winning and losing carambole game, folding in the names of three predecessor games, the winning game, the losing game and the carambole game (an early form of straight rail), that combined to form it.

Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, cushion caroms, balkline, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards. There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines.

The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or 'counts' by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball(s) on a single shot. Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards or simply carambole (and in some cases used as a synonym for the game of straight rail from which many carom games derive), is the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 1.5-by-3.0-metre (5 by 10 ft) pocketless tables, which often feature heated slate beds.

Carom billiards in queens