Pooling Resources

As a pool player myself, I usually have a fairly good game. I attribute this to knowing the angles the balls will go almost automatically from my knowledge of the 'billiard ball' equations of Newton's Laws of motion.

Professional players have to learn from experience only. I learn from both it would seem

Pool is played on a 2 meter table, and the pockets are large.

The game originated from another called 'Snooker' which was invented in India by the British in the days of the East India Company, circe 1770. This was played on a four meter table with smaller pockets and more balls. The rules were simple, pot a red, then another color, a red, then another color, and when all the reds are gone, pot the colors in sequence, viz yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and finally black. 90% of the time the game (called "frame") was won with still many balls on the table, each ball given a points value. red = 1, yellow = 2, green = 3, brown = 4, blue = 5, pink = 6, black = 7. Most times, a player had scored so many points it was not worth the opponenet carrying on.

Sometimes, a player would clear the table winning the frame, in one visit. One thing remained however. The MAXIMUM score from one visit to the table was 147 points (being 15 reds, 15 blacks, and then all the colors in sequence (27), total 147). This does not happen very often, as it is very difficult to use the white ball in such a way as to be able to pot the next ball afterwards (this is called 'positional' play).

The video below happened today at the Crucible theater in Sheffield, UK, at the World Championship.

Ronnie O'Sullivan not only scored 147, but did it in a very elegant way not seen before by anyone. The positional play is immaculate, especially on the shot where he pots a black and cannons into the red and pink in the middle of the table to set the red free.

It is notable that the British Commentary Team picked up that there was a chance of it as early as the 2nd ball.