The future of Billiards

[Luso]

whats are your hopes to the future of this sport. where do you play? and in your country are the billiards popular or is loosing for pool or snooker.

[1lawyer]

It is a shame billiards is not as popular as it once was in England. I still enjoy a game of it now and again and used to play it a lot when I was younger. My grandfather was very good and won lots of trophies and I must say I think it can help a great deal in snooker to learn about angles and how to 'make a cannon' - something billiards is all about.

[DandyA]

yep I agree ... billiards is a good game - me and my friends hire a snooker table for 3hrs (fixed) and if we've got a few minutes left at the end after playing snooker, we'll have a quick game of billiards ... I think my hb at billiards is about 18 ...

it's just a shame the likes of Joe Davis and Walter Lindrum proved the game was *too* easy so snooker took over ...

mind you, saw on the internet a 3 cushion carom tournament just a couple of weeks ago - really got into that - woud really love to have a go on a carom table but I guess they don't exist in the UK - well, I've never seen one anyway ...

[davipp]

I prefer billiards though I'm not the best player. I recently made a concious decision to concentrate on my billiards rather than snooker. I play in a local billiard comp on Monday nights and a snooker comp on Tuesday nights. My game I feel has improved in both because I'm not confusing my brain chopping and changing my practice routines. In other words I'm letting the snooker take care of itself.
Definitely helps the getting out of snookers knowing the angles.
It is a shame that more younger players don't play, it is a great game

[pigeonslayer]

I have played in my local league, which will soon celebrate its Centenary.

Billiards is in decline - we now only get 16 teams (5 players per team) playing each season in two divisions of 9 teams. Each year the number is dropping.
The effect is that you get all of the decent players gravitating to a small number of teams, so for the past 10 years or so 2 or 3 teams have dominated the league, and players just get fed up getting hammered every week.

Personally I love the game - got my highest break for a number of years last season - an 86 (missed an easy cannon - the ton was definitely in sight!!), and my snooker game has definitely benefitted.

[Luso]

Here in Portugal we have some clubs that have billiards. The 3 best football clubs(F.C Porto,Sporting C.P and Benfica) have billiards division. Thats the reason portugal still have some players of this sport.
I play in Associação Lisbonense dos Amadores de Bilhar but is only for fun.

[RocketRoy1983]

Every week our legaue matches consist of 4 snooker and 1 billiards and I enjoy watching the billiards. You have to play at least 3 matches in order to gain a handicap for the following season. My HB in Billiards is 25.

[Luso]

what cues do you recomend?
I have 2 Adam cues and 1 Bufallo cue, one of the Adam's is sign by Torbjorn Blomdahl that play in the final against Dick Jaspers.

[baldblindgit]

[QUOTE=pigeonslayer;377628]I have played in my local league, which will soon celebrate its Centenary.

Billiards is in decline - we now only get 16 teams (5 players per team) playing each season in two divisions of 9 teams. Each year the number is dropping.

In my home town (Derby) the institues Billiards leagues have now vanished! where once there were about 8 or so divisions, the same thing has actually happened to Snooker to! Next season we will be down to 2 divisions, when i started playing in 1967 there were 7 or 8 snooker divisions, this seems to have mirrored the general decline of snooker in some parts, i think there has been some discussion about why this has happened so i will not comment any more on that.

on Billards however, its such a shame that so many people will never play this fine game, imv perhaps the most elegent and aesthetically beautiful game that has ever been created.

Also playing Billiards is immensely useful to your snooker, the best snooker i played in the 1980's was due in no small manner to taking up a bit of billiards, the practice routines i took up to improve my billiards gave me better cueing and concentration for snooker.

I do hope Billiards has a future, its beauty and skill will hopefully continue to attract young cuemen who want to experience something new.

[bongo]

Playing very well at Billiards is probably more satisfying than playing very well at snooker.

[cocked hat]

Billiards

It's been a long time since I've got my billy balls out, but I remember the game as being far harder than snooker and only the very best club players could manage the odd break.It would be good to see a televised competition to see how well todays pro's compete.

[bongo]

Billiards requires such different strokes than in snooker. For somebody that has never played billiards before would play the shots as a snooker player would. It's such a skillful game when played properly.

And for it's future, in my opinion it doesn't have a future past the amateur game. In a few years it is my prediction that there will be no World Professional Championship and all it will be is an amateur game (no professional game).

I would actually go as far as saying that this is entirely the WPBSA's fault.

[JanieWatkins]

The game has contracted a lot in recent years but there are a few good signs of upturns.

Obviously India is THE hotbed of billiards in the world.

and it's still well supported in Australia and New Zealand.

Countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam are sending billiards players to international events also and Myanmar in particular have some useful players, although most of these players from the far east tend to be carom players who also play billiards.

Malta and Thailand also still produce strong billiards players. And Austria have a billiards circuit on their calendar too.


the EBOS series is going form strength to strength and they've alreayd put out a full calendar for next season.

Playing a couple of the EBOs events alongside the European snooker events has proved popular and several snooker players have tried their hand at billiards and from the continent the Carom players have too.

For the first time in its 40 year history, billiards will be included in the Home Internationals this year. Sadly Wales is struggling to get a team together but no problems for England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I think Jersey will also have a team but I'm not sure year about Guernsey and Isle of Man.

[bongo]

The game has contracted a lot in recent years but there are a few good signs of upturns.

Obviously India is THE hotbed of billiards in the world.

and it's still well supported in Australia and New Zealand.

Countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam are sending billiards players to international events also and Myanmar in particular have some useful players, although most of these players from the far east tend to be carom players who also play billiards.

Malta and Thailand also still produce strong billiards players. And Austria have a billiards circuit on their calendar too.


the EBOS series is going form strength to strength and they've alreayd put out a full calendar for next season.

Playing a couple of the EBOs events alongside the European snooker events has proved popular and several snooker players have tried their hand at billiards and from the continent the Carom players have too.

For the first time in its 40 year history, billiards will be included in the Home Internationals this year. Sadly Wales is struggling to get a team together but no problems for England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I think Jersey will also have a team but I'm not sure year about Guernsey and Isle of Man.

Good news Janie. Thanks for posting that. But what about the professional game - One event a year, in a snooker club. Not good enough in my opinion. They are supposed to be the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.

It has been mentioned before that there may not be ANY sport which is more beautiful to play and elegant to watch than billiards. I am not just saying that because I love billiards, it may very well be true.

[jb134]

Just a couple of points in answer to a few earlier posts, Lindrum etc certainly did not prove the game was "too easy". What they did was master it, or more precisely certain scoring methods, very, very thoroughly.

As a spectator sport, this killed it and remember many if not most or all professional billiards matches relied on gate money to generate revenue for the players at least as much if not in fact more than sponsorship etc.

Imagine the state professional snooker would be in, in fact look at the state it WAS in operating under similar conditions.

The WPBSA, rightly or wrongly focussed almost all their attention on snooker in the boom days, snooker was the sport on TV, the sport with all the heroes and consequently was the sport the kids played and the sport that grew.

The future of billiards, like the future of almost anything else lies in the young, if enough children and young people can be taught the basics and the basic shots then enough will fall in love with the game to ensure its survival.

Sadly, that does little or nothing to help the top players and enthusiasts now, EBOS is a fabulous initiative run by willing, enthusiastic, lovers of the game and players are coming out the woodwork to participate. This cannot be spoken about in sufficiently glowing terms.

I'd love to see a nationwide network of coaches going to kids snooker events and demonstrating the basic shots and equally importantly a few "fancy" shots to capture the kids imaginations.

Am not sure there is a cuesport website in the world the equal of englishbilliards.org in terms of the footage and technical information available. If that information can be passed to enough people of all ages, the game has a chance.