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Pyramid pool, or simply pyramids, is a form of pool that was played mainly in the 19th century. It was one of several pool games that were popular at this time, and was forerunner to modern games such as
The earliest rules were recorded in Vienna in 1795 under the name ''à la Figaro'' or ''à la pyramide''. In Continental Europe, the game was played with a red cue ball and unnumbered white object balls. Any number of object balls could be used, but the earliest minimum was twelve with later rule books recommending fifteen, twenty-one, or twenty-four balls. The game arrived in English-speaking countries by 1850 but the colours were reversed with the cue ball being white and the object balls red.
Pyramid pool, or simply pyramids, is a form of pool that was played mainly in the 19th century. It was one of several pool games that were popular at this time, and was forerunner to modern games such as eight-ball
Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls ...
, blackball
Blackball, black-ball, black ball, blackballed, or blackballing may refer to:
* Blackballing, a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot
Film
* ''Blackball'' (film), a 2003 film starring Paul Kaye
* '' Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Stor ...
, straight pool, and Russian pyramid
Russian pyramid, also known as Russian billiards (russian: ру́сский билья́рд, ), is a form of billiards played on a large billiard table with narrow pockets. It is popular across Eastern Europe as well as countries of the form ...
. Along with black pool, it was one of the progenitor cue sports
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions ...
of snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in Ind ...
.
Rules
were racked in a triangle with any remaining balls placed at the back of the triangle. It could be played by several players, with an agreed stake per ball pocketed, or with just two players in which case the winner is the one to first sink over half the balls. Teams were also allowed if there were an even number of players. In early versions of the game, when one object ball remained, the game shifted so one player took possession of the original cue ball, while the other used the object ball, as they attempted to sink the other player's designated ball. This rule was dropped in the United States during the late 19th century. An early version of pyramid pool awarded the entire pool to the player that sank the last ball. Originally, balls did not need be to . The calling of shots was added in the early 1880s in the United States.History
The earliest rules were recorded in Vienna in 1795 under the name ''à la Figaro'' or ''à la pyramide''. In Continental Europe, the game was played with a red cue ball and unnumbered white object balls. Any number of object balls could be used, but the earliest minimum was twelve with later rule books recommending fifteen, twenty-one, or twenty-four balls. The game arrived in English-speaking countries by 1850 but the colours were reversed with the cue ball being white and the object balls red.
Legacy
In 1875, this game combined with black pool to formsnooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in Ind ...
. In the United States, pyramid pool developed into fifteen-ball pool
Fifteen-ball pool, also known as sixty-one pool, is a pocket billiards game developed in America in the nineteenth century from pyramid pool. Created by members of the Bassford's Billiard & Chess Rooms in Manhattan during the late 1830s or 1840s ...
, a precursor to rotation
Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...
and straight pool. Since the middle of the 20th century, the American version of pyramid pool has been known as basic pool or basic pocket billiards which now uses modern pool balls.
Notes
References
* Pool (cue sports) History of snooker {{notstub