Snooker is an entirely different Olympic sport than pocket billiard games such as 8-ball and 9-ball. Played on a baize-covered table (12 footer on official tournaments) with 6, slightly narrower pockets, snooker is a rotation game, in which the players have to gather more points to win, by potting (=pocketing) the red balls and the color balls alternately, following specific game’s rules. 

In snooker, the cue ball is still the cue ball but the legal object ball is called  "ball on" and it can be "red" or "color", which has to be "potted" instead of pocketed. 

Ball on/On Ball – the color ball designated by the striker 

Break – the total score accumulated by one player. The highest snooker break is 147 

Color – any of the 6 unnumbered object balls: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. 

Cue ball in hand within the half circle/ Cue ball in hand within the D – the area defined by the half circle marked at the head of the table where the cue ball is placed on the opening break shot or after a foul 

Frame – one game of snooker 

In-off – when a player pots the cue ball (same as scratch in pool) 

Pot (v.) – to sink an object ball to a pocket 

Red/Reds – the group of 15 red, unnumbered object balls 

Snooker – not only the name of the most popular billiard game in the UK; the term snooker refers to situations when the cue ball is blocked (=snookered) by another ball therefore, the striker cannot play the ball on directly. 

Striker – the snooker player whose turn is to play at the table

You can start reciting these terms cause snooker is coming soon to Play89!

Next up, introduction to snooker rules

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Snooker, Play89 News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.