Cue sports
Cue sports are table games in which players use tapered sticks to strike balls. The family includes pool, snooker, and carom billiards.
Cue stick: A tapered stick used to strike a ball in cue sports. Its tip transfers force and spin to the ball during a shot.
Billiard physics: The mechanics of balls, cues, cloth, and cushions in billiard games. It explains how collisions, spin, and friction determine shot outcomes.
Pool (cue sports): A group of pocket billiard games played with numbered balls on a table with six pockets. Pool is the most widely recognized branch of the cue-sports family.
Bowling: A sport in which players roll a ball to knock down pins. Unlike cue sports, bowling propels the ball directly by hand rather than with a cue.
History of billiards: The development of billiard games from lawn games into indoor table sports. It traces the shared historical roots behind modern cue-sports branches.
Cue ball: The ball a player strikes with a cue to contact other balls or reach a target. Every shot begins with controlling this ball's direction, speed, and spin.
Billiard shot: An intentional strike of a cue ball, aimed to produce a desired ball movement. Players combine aim, speed, and contact point to execute each turn.
Snooker: A pocket billiard game played with 21 object balls and a cue ball on a large table. Its sequence of reds and colors creates a distinctive scoring strategy.
Carom billiards: A billiard discipline played without pockets, in which the cue ball must contact two object balls. Its pocketless tables contrast with pool and snooker, despite sharing cue-based play.
French billiards: A traditional form of carom billiards played on a pocketless table with three balls. It represents an early European lineage of cue-based table play.