How to Set Up 5 Balls Shot

By: paul goyette

Historically, the umbrella term for all cue based games was billiards. While that familiar name is still employed by some as a generic label for all such games, the word's usage has splintered into more exclusive competing meanings among certain groups and geographic regions. In the United Kingdom, "billiards" refers exclusively to English billiards, while in the United States it is sometimes used to refer to a particular game or class of games, or to all cue games in general, depending upon dialect and context.

There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:

    * Carom billiards, referring to games played on tables without pockets, including among others balkline and straight rail, cushion caroms, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards
    * Pocket billiards (or "pool") generally played on a table with six pockets, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball, straight pool, one-pocket and bank pool
    * Snooker, which while technically a pocket billiards game, is generally classified separately based on its historic divergence from other games, as well as a separate culture and terminology that characterize its play.