.: 147 Snooker Club :.
THE GAME
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), 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 is particularly popular in many of the                       English-speaking and Commonwealth countries, and in China, with the top                       professional players attaining multi-million pound career earnings from the                       game..
 
Who Invented Snooker?
The game of snooker was invented by a Britain, Colonel Sir                       Neville Chamberlain of the British Army garrisons of India. The game is                       believed to have came about as a mix of other billiard games, mainly english                       billiards, this new billiard sport of snooker surfaced around 1875.
The term snooker was used as a derogatory term for the first                       year recruits of the Royal Military Academy of Woolwich in England. For many                       years the game was known as 'Snookers Pool' and was played with a smaller                       number of balls and to very different scoring rules than the game we know                       today.
It wasn't until the Early 1900's that the game evolved to                       the game it is now. Played by the army officers and aristocracy stationed in India the game grew in complexity and in its parts. The game of snooker has                       pretty much stayed the same since.
 
History
The game is generally regarded to have 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. 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 had been organised by Joe Davis who, as a professional
English                       Billiard 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. Things saw some improvement                       when in 1969, when David Atenbourgh who was then a top official of the BBC,                       commissioned the snooker tournament Pot Black to demonstrate the potential of                       colour television , with the green table and multi-coloured balls being ideal                       for showing off the advantages of colour broadcasting. The TV series became a                       ratings success and was for a time the second most popular show on BBC Two                       Interest in the game increased and the 1978 World Championship was the first to                       be fully televised. The game quickly became a mainstream sport in the UK,                       Ireland and much of the Commenwealth and has enjoyed much success in the last                       30 years, with most of the ranking tournaments being televised. In recent years                       the loss of tobacco sponsership has led to a decrease in the number of                       professional tournaments, although some new sponsors have been sourced; and the                       popularity of the game in the Far East and China, with emerging talents such as                       Liang Wenbo and more established players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu,                       bodes well for the future of the sport in that part of the world.
 
The Game
The object of the game is to score more points than the                       opponent by potting object balls in a predefined order. At the start of a                       frame, the balls are positioned as shown and the players take it in turns to                       hit a shot in a single strike from the tio of the cue, their aim being to pot                       one of the red balls and score a point. If they do pot at least one red, then                       it remains in the pocket and they are allowed another shot - this time the aim                       being to pot one of the colours. If successful, then they gain the value of the                       colour potted. It is returned to its correct position on the table and they                       must try to pot another red again. This process continues until they fail to                       pot the desired ball, at which point their opponent comes back to the table to                       play the next shot. The game continues in this manner until all the reds are                       potted and only the 6 colours are left on the table; at that point the aim is                       then to pot the colours in the above order. When a colour is potted in this                       phase of a frame, it remains off the table. When the final ball is potted, the                       frame is over and the player with the most points wins it. A match where five                       frames would be the winner is called a "best of nine", because that                       would be the maximum number frames that could be played.
 
Points may also be scored in a game when a player's opponent                       fouls A foul can occur for numerous reasons, such as hitting a colour first                       when the player was attempting to hit a red, potting the cue ball, or failing                       to escape from "a snooker" (a situation where the previous player                       finished their turn leaving the cue ball in a position where the object ball                       cannot be hit directly). Points gained from a foul vary from a minimum of 4 to                       a maximum of 7 if the black ball is involved.
 
One                       game, from the balls in their starting position until the last ball is potted,                       is called a frame. A match generally consists of a predefined number of frames                       and the player who wins the most frames wins the match overall. Most matches                       tend to consist of a relatively small number of frames, although longer matches                       exist to test all aspects of a player's game. The final of the World                       Championship, for example, is up to 35 frames in length (first to 18), and is                       played over  two days.
Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated                       by a referee who is the sole judge of fair play.
Other  terminology                       used in snooker includes a player's break, which refers to the total number of                       consecutive points a player has amassed (excluding fouls) when at one visit to                       the table. A player attaining a break of 15, for example, could have reached it                       by potting a red then a black, then a red then a pink, before failing to pot                       the next red. The traditional maximum break in snooker is to pot all reds with                       blacks then all colours, which would yield 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum".
Accessories used for snooker include chalk for the tip of                       the cue, rests of various sorts (needed often, due to the length of a full-size                       table), a triangle to rack the reds, and a scoreboard. The principal drawback                       of snooker on a full-size table is the size of the room (22 ft x                       16 ft) required to hold the large table with adequate room for cueing on all                       sides. This limits the number of locations in which the game can easily be                       played. While pool tables are common to many pubs, snooker tends to be played                       either in private surroundings or in public snooker halls. The game can also be                       played on smaller tables using fewer red balls. The variants in table size are:                       10' x 5', 9' x 4.5', 8' x 4', 6' x 3' (the smallest for realistic play) and 4'                       x 2'. Smaller tables can come in a variety of styles, such as fold away or                       dining-
table                       convertible.