SultanOfSwing

I always loved that tune. I can remember getting irrationally pissed off if I was forced to watch snooker on ITV.

jmood

Is snooker very different to billiards? Or pool.

I don't think snooker is so rare in America. There is even a table in the common area of the building I live in.

Sally Redux

Anian

I've never been able to work out why some Americans call it "snker". How do they not see the two o's?

SultanOfSwing

It depends on which billiards you mean. US 'billiards' tends to mean pool in my experience.

It's closer to UK billiards, played on the same 12' x 6' table but with more balls. It's not fantastically rare, but available tables to play on are harder to come by depending on where you live.

Truth be told I got irrationally pissed off any time I had to watch ITV. I made exceptions for the Champions League and The Bill, but that was about it

Pulaski

Snooker has some fundamental differences to pool, notably that both players play to pot the same set of balls, AND that some of those balls (the coloured ones of which there is only one of each colour: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black) are repeatedly returned to the table, so long as there are still red balls on the table.

Each red ball potted entitles you to try to pot a colour, any color (other than red), which is returned to the table. The cycle of red, colour, red, colour is repeated until all the reds are gone, then the colours must be potted in the order I listed them above. Every red potted is worth one point, the colours are worth 2-7 points each time they are potted. A "perfect score" of 15 reds followed by the black each time, and then all the colours, gives a score of 147.

jmood

SO complicated. Did my head in Why can't a fun game be simple :-)

SultanOfSwing

Snooker is a piece of piss. Pot a red, one point, pot a colour, 2-7 points depending on which one, replace the colour, repeat. When all the reds are down there's 27 points left. Pot balls, add up your points and enjoy.

Obviously there are tactics as well, but it's easier than, say, chess.

Bob

I have discovered that there is a snooker and pool club not far from me...that's actually a snooker club, with a pool table on the side. Which is quite cool...but not that far is still far enough that I still can't be arsed :/

SultanOfSwing

That's the shite part. My old snooker hall was close enough to walk to. I have many happy memories of heading there with my mate on a Friday night after work, with a 6-pack each, before heading to the pub to round off the evening.

Great days ...

jmood

You're an alcoholic then?

SultanOfSwing

Hardly

We could put 'em away but we were also 22. You can do that at that age quite easily.

Bob

it's the full sized tables that's rare...they tend to be much smaller when you find them.

lansbury

A Beaver got picked in the first round. A Duck didn't. What is hard to understand.

Sally Redux

Yes, definitely a WTF?