My Red Balls are Snookered

Just finished watching a bit of Snooker. Like cricket, and driving, in England, Snooker is easier to understand if you've done a litte research. And that's just what I did.

For starters the Brits have a bigger... table: 12' x 6' to be exact. And they have more... balls: 22 including the cue ball. Your goal is to score as many points as you can through sinking, or "potting," the balls, while limiting your opponents doing the same, even going so far as trying to force your opponent to commit fouls, which cost points. A snooker is a shot that leaves the opponent unable to hit a legal ball directly. In fact that's how the game got it's name. The verb tense of "snooker" means to bully or to put in trouble.

So, basically you sink balls, alternating from one of the 15 red balls (1 point each), to a yellow (2), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6), or black (7) ball, and back again, until all the balls are gone (basically). Until all the red balls are potted, each time one of the other colored balls it potted, it is placed back on the table. If a player is unable to pot a ball, then the other player takes his (or her) turn. Winner of the frame is the player with the most points. A match consists of an odd number of frames, and the winner of the match is the first to reach the majority of wins (10 in a 19-frame game, for instance).

There are more intricacies to the game (much like cricket), and certainly more strategies, but this should give you just enough information to understand while watching the game. Check out this site or this one for a bit more information. It's easier to get snookered at Snooker if you're knackered, or something like that. Enjoy.