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Pool and Billards News:
70th Annual Predator World Tournament of Straight Pool
3 Sep 2010 at 9:20pm
For the fifth straight year, Dragon Promotions will produce the 70th Annual Predator World Tourna...
Pool Players Flock to APA National Championships by Thousands
3 Sep 2010 at 11:21am
More than $1 Million in Prize Money Awarded in 30th Annual Team Championships by InsidePOOL Staff...
Kraber Becomes a Bride on OB Cues Ladies Tour
30 Aug 2010 at 8:17pm
Texas wasn?t the only thing hot the weekend of August 21-22?when the OB Cues Ladies? Tour held th...
Bryant Bests Port Arthur Field
30 Aug 2010 at 11:28am
Crazy 8?s Family Pool Hall in Port Arthur, Texas played host to the Lone Star Tour?s twelfth stop...
Fu Takes Women's World Billiards Championship
29 Aug 2010 at 6:13pm
WPA Women?s World 9-Ball Championships / Shenyang, China by InsidePOOL Staff The 2010 WPA Women?s...
Egeln Excels in Brooklyn
29 Aug 2010 at 6:06pm
Tri-State Tour / Brooklyn, NY by InsidePOOL Staff An undefeated run through the Tri-State Tour?s ...
World Women's Billiards Championship Down to Final Four
28 Aug 2010 at 6:13pm
WPA World Women?s 9-Ball Championship / Shenyang, China by InsidePOOL Staff The World Women?s 9-B...
Women's 9-Ball Championship in Single-Elimination Phase
27 Aug 2010 at 10:39am
WPA Women?s World 9-Ball Championship / Shenyang, China by InsidePOOL Staff The Women?s World 9-B...

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To create the most complete and definitive source of information about the past and present of the Sport of Billards.

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To be your source for the Sport of Billards related information. We will supply our visitors with up to date news, stories, and latest news in the Billiards News Links section.

Billards:
Cue sports (sometimes spelled cuesports) are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber cushions.

Historically, the umbrella term was Billiards. While that familiar name is still employed by some as a generic label for all such games, the word's usage has splintered into more exclusive competing meanings among certain groups and geographic regions. In the United Kingdom, "billiards" refers exclusively to English billiards, while in the United States it is sometimes used to refer to a particular game or class of games, or to all cue games in general, depending upon dialect and context.

There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:

* Carom Billiards, referring to games played on tables without pockets, including among others balkline and straight rail, cushion caroms, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards
* Pocket Billiards (or "pool") generally played on a table with six pockets, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball, straight pool, one-pocket and bank pool
* Snooker, which while technically a pocket billiards game, is generally classified separately based on its historic divergence from other games, as well as a separate culture and terminology that characterize its play.
More obscurely, there are games that make use of obstacles and targets, and table-top games played with disks instead of balls.

Billiards has a long and rich history stretching from its inception in the 15th century; to the wrapping of the body of Mary, Queen of Scots in her billiard table cover in 1586; through its many mentions in the works of Shakespeare, including the famous line "let us to billiards" in Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07); to the dome on Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, which conceals a billiard room he hid, as billiards was illegal in Virginia at that time; and through the many famous enthusiasts of the sport including, Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W.C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason, and many others.

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