Artistic billiards
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Artistic billiards, sometimes called fantasy billiards or fantaisie classique, is a
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 ...
discipline in which players compete at performing 76 preset shots of varying difficulty. Each set shot has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a four-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There are a total of 500 points available to a player, representing the combined value of a perfect score on all 76 shots, although not all games are played with the full shot catalogue. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération International de Billard Artistique (CIBA). Each shot in an artistic billiards match is played from a well-defined position (in some venues within a two millimetre tolerance), and each shot must unfold in an established manner. Players are allowed three attempts at each shot. In general, the shots making up the game – even four-point shots – require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform. Such shots often require extremes in shot-making techniques that are not often employed in other games, such as , , precision multiple-rail , and combined with outlandish use of (). Players may use up to twenty separate cues providing different performance functions. For example, performing massés may require a cue with a very large diameter terminus and a specialized , while jumping may require a short, with a flat (rather than rounded), very hard and also wider cue tip than a playing cue. Some shots may require the use of props such as a small placed precisely on the and around which the player is required to make the pass on a designated side ''(see Figure A10 illustration)''. For the most part, top artistic billiard players specialize in the game to the exclusion of all others. World title competition first started in 1986 and required the use of
ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals i ...
balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in world competition was 374, by the
Frenchman The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France. The French people, especially th ...
Jean Reverchon in 1992, while the highest score in competition overall is 427 set by the
Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
Walter Bax in 2006. The game is played predominantly in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
, especially in France, Belgium and the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. The game employs a specialized vocabulary, chiefly derived from French words, encompassing many terms that have no analogues in other
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 ...
disciplines. Some examples are ''coup fouetté'' ("whip shot"; a type of force follow); ''massé coulé'' (a massé shot with follow) and ''piqué'' (describes either a massé shot with no english, or a shot in which the cue stick is steeply angled, but not held quite as vertical as it is in full massé).


Artistic pool

Artistic pool trick shot competitions on
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 ...
tables, inspired by artistic billiards, began in 1993 in the US at an amateur level and in 2000 professionally and internationally, featuring fifty-six pre-set shots to attempt, with the
World Pool-Billiard Association The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pool (pocket billiards). It was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Australia, Americas ...
sanctioning body creating the WPA World Artistic Pool Championship.


References

* *Martin Škrášek (2000)
What's Artistic Billiard?
Retrieved November 30, 2006.


External links


Confédération International de Billard Artistique
the governing body of the sport
Juanjo Trilles Cup of Creative Artistic Billiard
{{Cue sports nav Trick shots Carom billiards