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Billiards is a very popular and trendy recreation/sport now, especially among people who like to strategize. Even an amateur player knows that the most important thing about playing billiards is having the right kind of equipment, especially having the right kind of billiard table.

Nowadays, it has become quite a common luxury to have a billiard table in the game-room of your home. Billiards is not only a spiritual sport, but also, and mainly an art of harmony in mathematical thinking and agile movements. Billiards could be considered as one of the most noble entertainments, since it was a game popularized by nobility. So if you want to partake of this sport of sophistication, it would be a wise idea to invest in your own table.

First of all, let’s point out the ambiguity which exists in using the term “billiards”. Very often, various types of this game are generally called “billiards”, but they are quite different from each other and can not be classified as the same game.

In fact, there are carom billiards, known also as French billiards and pocket billiards or pool games. Each of them has its own specifics and requires specific type of tables. The main difference between them, thus, is that the first one is for pocketless gaming, the second one, to the contrary, is designed with pockets.

For both carom billiards tables and pool tables, the temperature is very important. They are often heated to about 5 degrees C above room temperature, which keeps moisture out of cloth to aid the balls rolling in a consistent manner. Heating billiard table beds is an old practice. For the first time it was Queen Victoria of England who took the initiative by heating her billiard table using zinc tubes, to keep then-used ivory balls from warping.

Carom billiards tables are used for such games as three-cushion billiards, straight rail, artistic billiards etc. Pocket billiards tables, sometimes called pool tables, are specific to the various pool games such as eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool and one-pocket. As the name implies, pocket billiards tables have pockets; normally six of them one at each corner of the table and one at the midpoint of each of the longer sides. Pocket billiard received the name of “pool” due to an association with the “poolrooms” where gamblers “pooled” their money to bet on horse races.

Billiard table sizes depend not only on the room where you settle them, but also on the game type for which they are designed. They may vary from 3.5 ft/7 ft, up to 6 ft/12 ft. Generally, for home use it’s preferable to choose 8 ft tables.

So, if you are seriously thinking to keep your “noblesse” pleasure near you, then you’ll indeed prefer to equip your house by a billiard table, rather then looking for seedy billiard houses or bars.

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