Pool Equipment

Pool Tables, Pool Cues, Balls...

The basic pool equipment consists of billiard table, a set of billiard balls, the cue, the rack and the chalk. Other pool equipment includes accessories such as the mechanical bridge, cue cases and more. Here you can learn about the basic billiards and pool equipment essential to most billiard games.

Billiard Tables

The billiard table is the most important pool equipment. The size of the billiard table can vary from one pool hall to another. In any case, billiard tables are rectangles and their length is usually double their width. In order to meet with the requirements of the WPA, a billiard table has to be either 8 foot or 9 foot long. In bars or home billiard rooms, 7 foot tables are acceptable. The bar billiards tables are usually operated with coins.

Billiard tables used in pocket billiard games such as 8-ball, 9-ball and snooker, have six pockets: two side pockets and four corner pockets. The tables must be covered with a cloth, usually made of wool and colored green.

Billiard table is also the most expensive purchase for home pool equipment. A quality billiard table can cost at least 5,000 dollars. There are cheaper billiard tables, but their playing surface is of a lower quality and therefore can effect the play. A good billiard table has to have a thick playing surface of at least 0.75 inch.

Billiard Balls

A standard set of billiard balls to be used in pool games consists of 15 object ball and the cue ball. The cue ball is always white and the colors of the object balls can be different in differnet parts of the world. In most cases, the balls numbered 1-7 are solid colored (yellow, blue, red, purple, orange, green and brown), the ball numbered 8 is black and the balls numbered 9-15 are all white with a colored stripe in the middle in corresponding colors to those of the 1-7 billiard balls.

The size of the billiard balls also vary from one billiard game to another. Generally, billiard balls used in pool games are a bit bigger than the balls used in snooker games; the balls used in carom billiard games are even bigger.

The billiard balls used in official pool and billiard tournaments are required to be composed of a plastic called phenolic resin. Billiard balls made of polyester are often used in recreational billiard games.

Cues

The cue is an essential pool equipment used to strike the cue ball in all billiard games. There are two basic types of cues: the one-piece or the two-piece cue stick, when the latter is held together by a joint between the butt of cue and the shaft end. Two-piece cues are usually of better quality than the one-piece and therefore more pricy. However, the pool equipment market offers some quality inexpensive cues. Here you can find recommendations to cue sticks priced at 100 dollars or less.

Site Map