Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the rails, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".
Dutch pool player Niels Feijen at the 2008 European Pool Championship
A player racking the balls
Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's billiard saloon in New York City, 1 January 1859.
One of many correct nine-ball racks: the 1 ball at the apex centered over the foot spot, the 9 ball at center, the other balls placed randomly, and all balls touching.
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 cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
Interior view of billiard hall, Toledo, Ohio
Billiards in the 1620s was played with a port, a king pin, pockets, and maces.
The sons of Louis, Grand Dauphin, playing the 'royal game of fortifications', an early form of obstacle billiards with similarities to modern miniature golf
Illustration of a three-ball pocket billiards game in early 19th century Tübingen, Germany, using a table much longer than the modern type
