Tenball was a

cue sports Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions o ...

tournament that was staged only once in 1995. it was a snooker/pool hybrid played on the same table and with the same balls as snooker, its rules and gameplay being a mix of those of snooker and of

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky po ...

. An ITV/

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

TV series ''Tenball'' was created that formed a tournament, featuring the game hosted by

Phillip Schofield Phillip Bryan Schofield (born 1 April 1962) is an English television presenter who works for ITV. He is currently the co-presenter of ITV's '' This Morning'' (2002–present) and ''Dancing on Ice'' (2006–2014, 2018–present) alongside Holl ...

. The show ran for one series, throughout 1995, in an eight-man tournament, won by

Jimmy White James Warren White (born 2 May 1962) is an English professional snooker player who has won three seniors World titles. Nicknamed "The Whirlwind" because of his fluid, attacking style of play, White is the 1980 World Amateur Champion, 2009 ...

Rules

The game and the ITV/

TV series ''Tenball'' focused on a tournament that was created in 1995 by a team consisting of managers Russ Lindsay and Peter Powell, snooker player

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he reached eight World S ...

who devised the rules and entrepreneur Barry Hearn who was asked to do the promotion for the event to add razzmatazz to the show. The series was hosted by

and its set was designed by Andy Walmsley. The sole season, in 1995, saw

win the tournament, while

Peter Ebdon Peter David Ebdon (born 27 August 1970) is an English former snooker player. The winner of the 2002 World Snooker Championship, Ebdon won nine world ranking events, placing twelfth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. In addit ...

achieved the highest break of 122 (out of a possible 200). The hybrid snooker/pool game the show revolves around is not regularly played outside the show, and features a () of 16 in a diamond configuration, 15 worth 1 each and a black-and-yellow 10 ball, as well as various with differing point values, on specific . The pack is not racked at the behind the as it would be in snooker, but, unlike in any other form of

pocket billiards Pool is a classification of cue sports played on a table with six pockets along the , into which balls are deposited. "Pool billiards" is sometimes hyphenated and/or spelled with a singular "billiard". The WPA itself uses "pool-billiard" in ...

, racked in the middle of the table on the . Games competed over for ITV's ''Tenball'' series featured best of five frame matches. However, unlike in regular snooker, the first potted colour in a break associated the score for every colour potted in that break thereafter, rather than the score of the colour that the ball that was potted. The series also promoted similar to pool if a foul was played, or could receive ten points for each foul shot. Three consecutive fouls from a player would cause them to retire from the frame.

Prize money

A potential £30,000 was on offer in the tournament (plus potential losers/appearance money that was not divulged), with £10,000 for a of 200, and £20,000 for the winner (

Results

References

{{Snooker season 1994/1995 Snooker variants 1990s British game shows British sports television series Snooker on television 1995 British television series debuts 1995 British television series endings ITV game shows Television series by ITV Studios London Weekend Television shows English-language television shows Defunct snooker competitions