[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...