Snooker

Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a large baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regulation (full-size) table is 12 ft × 6 ft (3.6 m x 1.8 m). It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours yellow (2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7). A player (or team) wins a frame (individual game) of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent(s), using the cue ball to pot the red and coloured balls. A player wins a match when a certain number of frames have been won.

Snooker, generally regarded as having been invented in India by British Army officers, is particularly popular in many of the English-speaking and Commonwealth countries, with top professional players attaining multi-million pound career earnings from the game.

It is commonly accepted that snooker originated in the latter half of the 19th century. Billiards had been a popular activity amongst British Army officers stationed in India, and variations on the more traditional billiard games were devised. One variation, devised in the officers' mess in Jabalpur during 1874 or 1875, was to add coloured balls in addition to the reds and black which were used for pyramid pool and life pool. The word snooker also has military origins, being a slang term for first-year cadets or inexperienced personnel. One version of events states that Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain of the Devonshire regiment was playing this new game when his opponent failed to pot a ball and Chamberlain called him a snooker.[6] It thus became attached to the billiards game now bearing its name as inexperienced players were labelled as snookers.

The game of snooker grew in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and by 1927 the first World Snooker Championship[4] had been organised by Joe Davis who, as a professional English billiards and snooker player, moved the game from a pastime activity into a more professional sphere. Joe Davis won every world championship until 1946 when he retired. The game went into a decline through the 1950s and 1960s with little interest generated outside of those who played.