Pin billiards may refer to any of a fairly large number of billiard games that uses a , or a set of "pins" or "s". The earliest form of billiards,

ground billiards Ground billiards is a modern term for a family of medieval European lawn games, the original names of which are mostly unknown, played with a long-handled mallet (the '), wooden balls, a hoop (the ''pass''), and an upright skittle or pin (the ' ...

, was played with a single pin called the "king". Table billiards kept the king until the mid-18th century. There are billiard games played with as many as thirteen pins.

Italian pin billiards

Pin billiards has two distinct variations of pin billiards; played with similar rules to

carom billiards Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score or "counts" by ' one's o ...

. Italian five-pin billiards, also known as , is played with five pins in a + formation, with points being given for knocking over pins with the s. The game is common across a wide area and also inspired

Danish Pin Billiards Danish billiards or ''keglebillard'', sometimes called Danish five-pin billiards, is the traditional cue sport of Denmark, and the game remains predominantly played in that country. It makes use of a 5 × 10 ft (approximately 1.5&nbs ...

. Italian nine-pin billiards, which is also known as , is a variation of the sport, with a higher complexity of scoring, and has further variations such as and .

Danish pin billiards

A Danish variation, known as ''Keglebillard'' is played on a carom sized table, however, it is also played with s. The game is unusual for billiards, as both players play with the same cue-ball, (using a red ball). A variant (usually found in social settings is known as ''skomager'').

Bar billiards

Mostly played in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

, bar billiards originated in the 1930s. It is unique in that it is played on a carom-sized table with holes in the playing surface, but none at the sides or corners. There are two types of pins a table may have: mushroom-shaped ones or pins with a needle piercing through the center. Both are designed to prevent them from falling into the holes. Knocking one over incurs a penalty. Balls falling through the holes are returned to the playing end of the table. All shots are played 'from hand'. The duration of the game is controlled by a coin-operated clockwork mechanism, which drops a bar to prevent balls returning into play.

Other games

* Bottle pool is essentially a pin billiards game but instead uses a leather bottle. * Devil's pool, played in Australia, which uses obelisk-shaped pins (like over-sized

dominoes Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also c ...

) as targets and obstacles.

References

{{Cue sports nav Obstacle billiards