Straight rail, also called straight billiards, three-ball billiards, or the free game, is a discipline of
carom billiards
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by ' one's ...
that is the most basic form of the game. The game is played on a unmarked
billiard table
A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, pool, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, ...
, usually in size, and three
billiard balls, one, usually white, that serves as the for the first player, a second cue ball for the second player (differentiated by a spot or by being yellow), and an object ball, usually red. The object of the game is to score points by striking the player's assigned cue ball with a
cue stick
A cue stick (or simply cue, more specifically billiards cue, pool cue, or snooker cue) is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the . Cues are tapered st ...
so it makes contact with both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball in the same , known as a . Games are played to a predetermined number of points.
History
Straight rail, from which other carom games derive, is thought to date to the 18th century, although no exact time of origin is known. The derivation of the name ''straight rail'' is not clear, though may be a reference to the pocketless table. An early mention appears in the March 23, 1881, edition of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', wherein it is referred to as "the straight rail game."
In 1855, the first public stakes straight rail match in the U.S. took place in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. The contestants,
Michael Phelan Michael or Mike Phelan may refer to:
* Michael Francis Phelan (1875–1941), Member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts
* Michael L. Phelan (born 1947), judge of the Federal Court of Canada
* Mike Phelan (born 1962), Eng ...
and a Monsieur Damon of Paris battled for s