Snooker & Pool Balls

Get Your Game on With Snooker Pool Balls

Snooker is part of a broader family of cue sports, which are games played with a cue stick and billiard balls on a cloth-covered table. Snooker, carom billiards, and pool are the three main variations of billiards, and they each have different numbers of balls, cues, and tables. Snooker got its start in India as a game played by British Army officers in the late 1800s, and it is now a widely played game in the UK and other countries.

There are distinctive differences between snooker, billiards, and pool balls. You need to know what the differences are before you purchase them online in order to ensure you acquire the correct snooker balls for your needs.

A pool ball set has 9 to 15 object balls and a cue ball. All the balls are a standard 2 1/4 inches in diameter. Billiards has three balls that are larger than balls in pool, with a measurement of 61 to 61 1/2 millimetres (2 3/8 to 2 7/16 inches) in diameter. Snooker has 15 unmarked red balls, 6 unmarked coloured balls, and a cue ball. Snooker balls are standard measurements of 52 millimetres (2 1/16 inches) in diameter, and American snooker coloured balls are numbered and measure 54 millimetres (2 1/8 inches).

The official rules for snooker do not state a specific weight requirement for snooker balls. The rules simply state that there is a maximum allowance of 3 grams difference between the lightest and heaviest balls in the set.

Vintage snooker balls were historically made from ivory for top-quality sets and from clay or wood for cheaper sets. In later years .they were made of Bakelite, a heavy plastic resin that is used for objects like telephones and costume jewellery. They were afterward made from a very dense resin called super azimuth crystalate, which now makes for highly collectable sets. Modern snooker balls are made of a light plastic, which offers good control and minimal dust accumulation during play.

You will need a snooker table, a rack, and a snooker cue stick. Snooker tables are larger than pool and billiards tables. The standard UK size is 2 by 4 metres (12 by 6 feet). Snooker cue sticks are the same length as other cue sticks, but they are lighter in weight and have a smaller tip diameter. A standard triangular rack is used for both pool and snooker.