[mrbrandonking]

Whenever the author refers to “billiards,” he’s talking about a game played on a pocketless table with three balls.

He says “Pool” whenever he’s referring to pocket billiards, the game that most people are familiar with.

[yumraj]

> Whenever the author refers to “billiards,” he’s talking about a game played on a pocketless table with three balls.

You're right about 3 balls, but there are pockets in a billiards table and you do get points for pocketing the correct ball.[0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_billiards

[mrbrandonking]

Look at the picture: American pool table in the foreground, pocketless carom billiards table in the background.

My aim was to explain the author’s terminology for those who’ve never seen a table without pockets.

[frobozz]

The no-pockets version is French Billiards

[yumraj]

Ah, didn't know that. For me while growing up in India, Billiards was synonymous with the English version.

[GrumpyNl]

Thats called snooker.

[yumraj]

As the sibling comments mentioned, while snooker is also played on the English billiards table, it is a different game.

Snooker is played with 21 colored balls which must be pocketed in the correct order.

Billiards is played with 3 balls, 1 white per player (one has a black dot and the other doesn't) and a red ball.

Billiards table is bigger than the American Pool tables.

[claudiawerner]

Snooker is played on an English billiards (usually just known as "billiards" in Commonwealth countries) table.

[dhruvkar]

nope, that's different:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooker#/media/File%3ASnooke...

[snoogol]

> In 1928 what he was best at was getting the three balls close together and then “nursing” them—that is, making long runs by keeping the balls together with a soft, delicate stroke.

This means that the game is "English Billiards" with the pockets. A delicate stroke won't help in the "no-pocket billiards" as a valid shot needs to hit (atleast) 3 cushions.

[NeedMoreTea]

Is it usual to play US billiards on a pool-sized table?

I've played a fair bit of snooker and billiards (English billiards in US terms), and it's always been played on a full size snooker table. That's 12ft by 6ft.

[PeterStuer]

The preferred version her is 3-cushion. 3 balls, no pockets, the cue ball has to hit the other 2, but has to hit 3 cushions before touching the 3rd ball.

[the-dude]

I know and have played variants with 4 balls. Very much fun.