Tenball was a

cue sports Cue sports are a wide variety of Game of skill, games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a Baize, cloth-covered billiards table, table bounded by elastic bumpers known a ...

tournament that was staged only once, in 1995. It was a hybrid of

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

and

pool Pool may refer to: Bodies of water * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a roc ...

rules and gameplay, played on a snooker table with snooker balls. An ITV/

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT; now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 ...

TV series ''Tenball'', hosted by

Phillip Schofield Phillip Bryan Schofield ( ; born 1 April 1962) is an English television presenter. He began his career as a Children's BBC continuity announcer from 1985 to 1987, and went on to present a wide range of high-profile programmes for the BBC and ...

, ran for one 1995 series, forming an eight-man tournament, ultimately won by

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won ten ranking events. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his swift and attacking style of play, White has reached six World Snooker Championship finals ...

Rules

The game and the ITV/

TV series ''Tenball'' focused on a tournament that was created in 1995 by a team consisting of managers Russ Lindsay and Peter Powell, snooker player

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He dominated professional snooker in the 1980s, when he reached eight ...

who devised the rules and entrepreneur

Barry Hearn Barry Maurice William Hearn (born 19 June 1948) is an English sports promoter who is founder and president of Matchroom Sport. Through Matchroom, Hearn is also involved in many sports including boxing, snooker, darts, pool, tenpin bowling, gol ...

who was asked to do the promotion for the event to add razzmatazz to the show. The series was hosted by

and its set was designed by Andy Walmsley. The sole season, in 1995, saw

win the tournament, while

Peter Ebdon Peter David Ebdon (born 27 August 1970) is an English retired professional snooker player who is a former world champion and current coach. Ebdon won nine ranking titles during his career, placing him in joint 14th position (with John Parrott ...

achieved the highest break of 122 (out of a possible 200). The hybrid snooker/pool game the show revolves around is not regularly played outside the show, and features a () of 16 in a diamond configuration, 15 worth 1 each and a black-and-yellow 10 ball, as well as various with differing point values, on specific . The pack is not racked at the behind the as it would be in snooker, but, unlike in any other form of

pocket billiards Pool is a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the , into which balls are shot. "Pool billiards" is sometimes hyphenated and/or spelled with a singular "billiard". The WPA itself uses "pool-billiar ...

, racked in the middle of the table on the . Games competed over for ITV's ''Tenball'' series featured best of five frame matches. However, unlike in regular snooker, the first potted colour in a break associated the score for every colour potted in that break thereafter, rather than the score of the colour that the ball that was potted. The series also promoted similar to pool if a foul was played, or could receive ten points for each foul shot. Three consecutive fouls from a player would cause them to lose the frame.

Prize money

A potential £30,000 was on offer in the tournament (plus potential losers/appearance money that was not divulged), with £10,000 for a of 200, and £20,000 for the winner (

Results

Eight players competed in the Tenball tournament. In the semi-finals, Jimmy White defeated Tony Drago with a score of 3-1, while Ronnie O'Sullivan triumphed over Stephen Hendry with a 3-1 victory. The final saw Jimmy White emerging victorious against Ronnie O'Sullivan with a score of 3-1.

References

{{Snooker season 1994/1995 1995 British television series debuts 1995 British television series endings 1990s British game shows 1990s British sports television series Defunct snooker competitions British English-language television shows ITV game shows London Weekend Television shows Snooker on television Snooker variants Television series by ITV Studios