Artistic billiards, sometimes called fantasy billiards or fantaisie classique, is a carom billiards 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 4-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an 11-point maximum for shots deemed highest in difficulty level. There is 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 an exacting 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 4-point shots – require a high degree of skill, devoted practice and specialized knowledge to perform. Such shots often require extremes in shot-making techniques

Billiard Techniques

Cue sports techniques are an immensely important aspect of game play in the various cue sports such as carom billiards, pool, snooker and other games...

 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

Cue stick

A cue stick , is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the...

 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

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

 balls. However, this requirement was dropped in 1990. The highest score ever achieved in world competition was 374, by the Frenchman

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 Jean Reverchon in 1992, while the highest score in competition overall is 427 set by the Belgian Walter Bax in 2006. The game is played predominantly in Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

, especially in France, Belgium and the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. The game employs a specialized vocabulary, chiefly derived from French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 words, encompassing many terms that have no analogues in other cue sports 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

Pocket billiards

Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...

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.

External links

• Confédération International de Billard Artistique, the governing body of the sport
• Three-time world champion Jean Reverchon's website
• Juanjo Trilles Cup of Creative Artistic Billiard