Bar billiards
Encyclopedia
Bar Billiards is a form of billiards
which is often thought to be based on the traditional game of bagatelle
. It is actually based on the French/Belgian Billard Russe game that preceded it.
Bar billiards in its current form started in the UK
in the 1930s when an Englishman David Gill saw Billard Russe being played in Belgium and persuaded the Jelkes company of Holloway Road
in London
to make a similar table. It is a traditional game played in leagues in Sussex
, Berkshire
, Oxfordshire
, Buckinghamshire
, Surrey
, Kent
, Cambridgeshire
, Hampshire
, Norfolk
and Northamptonshire
. These counties comprise the All England Bar Billiards Association. There are also leagues in Guernsey and Jersey. Tables were also made by Sams, Riley, Burroughs & Watts and Clare. The standard 'League' tables have a playing surface approximately 32 inches wide. Sams also made a narrower version with a 28 inch width playing surface.
There are eight balls for play - seven white and one red. Potting the red ball in any hole scores double points.
On the playfield are normally placed three pegs (skittles) with a horizontal wire through the peg. The wire prevents the peg from falling completely down the hole. There are two white pegs, one either side of the 100 hole, and one black peg in front of the '200' hole. Earlier versions of the game used mushroom
s instead of pegs, as they used to have a thin stalk and a flattish rounded cap. In this version the mushrooms were normally placed just in front of the 50 and 200 holes, often with a fourth mushroom in front of the 100 hole. This version was often referred to as 'Russian Billiards', probably named after the very siimilar French game 'Billard Russe' which has a longer history. There are a couple of leagues that still play this version in east Anglia in the Norwich and Sudbury areas.
If a white peg is knocked over then the player's break is ended and all score acquired during that break is discarded. Knocking down the black peg ends the player's break and all points are lost. In the case that a white and a black peg are both knocked over, then only the first peg to be knocked over is used.
All shots are played from one end of the table so access to all sides of the table is not necessary (ideal for a smallish bar or pub). A white ball is placed on a starting spot, then another ball (the red ball, if available) will be placed on a spot a few inches in front of that. Players take alternate turns at the table, the 'turn' being known as a 'break. If the player fails to pot a ball then the break has ended and the second player takes his break by placing another ball on the first spot. If all balls are in play, then the closest ball to the 'D' (the semicircle around the first spot) is removed and put on the spot. If a player fails to hit a ball, then the break ends and all points earned in that break are lost.
The play is time-limited (normally a coin will give 15-17 minutes of play). After this time a bar drops inside the table stopping any potted balls from returning, leading to a steady decrease in the number of balls in play.
The last ball can only be potted by getting it into the '100' or '200' point hole after bouncing off one side cushion.
. This is a list of past winners and runners up:-
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...
which is often thought to be based on the traditional game of bagatelle
Bagatelle
Bagatelle is a billiards-derived indoor table game, the object of which is to get a number of balls past wooden pins into holes...
. It is actually based on the French/Belgian Billard Russe game that preceded it.
Bar billiards in its current form started in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in the 1930s when an Englishman David Gill saw Billard Russe being played in Belgium and persuaded the Jelkes company of Holloway Road
Holloway Road
Holloway Road is a road in London. It is one of the main shopping streets in North London, and carries the A1 road as it passes through Holloway, in the London Borough of Islington...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to make a similar table. It is a traditional game played in leagues in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
and Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
. These counties comprise the All England Bar Billiards Association. There are also leagues in Guernsey and Jersey. Tables were also made by Sams, Riley, Burroughs & Watts and Clare. The standard 'League' tables have a playing surface approximately 32 inches wide. Sams also made a narrower version with a 28 inch width playing surface.
The game
Bar billiards is played on a special bar billiards table without side and corner pockets, but with 9 holes in the playing surface which are assigned certain point values (from 10 to 200).There are eight balls for play - seven white and one red. Potting the red ball in any hole scores double points.
On the playfield are normally placed three pegs (skittles) with a horizontal wire through the peg. The wire prevents the peg from falling completely down the hole. There are two white pegs, one either side of the 100 hole, and one black peg in front of the '200' hole. Earlier versions of the game used mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
s instead of pegs, as they used to have a thin stalk and a flattish rounded cap. In this version the mushrooms were normally placed just in front of the 50 and 200 holes, often with a fourth mushroom in front of the 100 hole. This version was often referred to as 'Russian Billiards', probably named after the very siimilar French game 'Billard Russe' which has a longer history. There are a couple of leagues that still play this version in east Anglia in the Norwich and Sudbury areas.
If a white peg is knocked over then the player's break is ended and all score acquired during that break is discarded. Knocking down the black peg ends the player's break and all points are lost. In the case that a white and a black peg are both knocked over, then only the first peg to be knocked over is used.
All shots are played from one end of the table so access to all sides of the table is not necessary (ideal for a smallish bar or pub). A white ball is placed on a starting spot, then another ball (the red ball, if available) will be placed on a spot a few inches in front of that. Players take alternate turns at the table, the 'turn' being known as a 'break. If the player fails to pot a ball then the break has ended and the second player takes his break by placing another ball on the first spot. If all balls are in play, then the closest ball to the 'D' (the semicircle around the first spot) is removed and put on the spot. If a player fails to hit a ball, then the break ends and all points earned in that break are lost.
The play is time-limited (normally a coin will give 15-17 minutes of play). After this time a bar drops inside the table stopping any potted balls from returning, leading to a steady decrease in the number of balls in play.
The last ball can only be potted by getting it into the '100' or '200' point hole after bouncing off one side cushion.
Bar Billiards World Championship
The Bar Billiards World Championship (previously called the British Isles Open up to 1999) is held every year in JerseyJersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
. This is a list of past winners and runners up:-
| Year | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Harry Siddal (Jersey) | Derek Payne (Oxon) |
| 1982 | Graham Bisson (Jersey) | Clarrie Querrie (Jersey) |
| 1983 | Tim Ringsdore (Jersey) | Micky Daw (Jersey) |
| 1984 | Peter Noel (Jersey) | Don Cadec (Jersey) |
| 1985 | Bernie McCluskey (Berkshire) | Paul Webb (Guernsey) |
| 1986 | Dave Harris (Berkshire) | Peter Noel (Jersey) |
| 1987 | Wayne Poingdestre (Jersey) | Kevin Tunstall (Oxon) |
| 1988 | Alan Le Blond (Jersey) | Micky Daw (Jersey) |
| 1989 | Trevor Gallienne (Guernsey) | Bob Taylor (Kent) |
| 1990 | Steve Ahier (Jersey) | Terry Race (Sussex) |
| 1991 | Steve Ahier (Jersey) | Simon Tinto (Surrey) |
| 1992 | Dennis Helleur (Jersey) | Harry Barbet (Jersey) |
| 1993 | Kevin Tunstall (Oxon) | Graham Bisson (Jersey) |
| 1994 | Kevin Tunstall (Oxon) | Tony Walsh (Berkshire) |
| 1995 | Tony Walsh (Berkshire) | Mark Brewster (Kent) |
| 1996 | Terry Oakley (Surrey) | Don Cadec (Jersey) |
| 1997 | Jim Millward (Sussex) | Steve Ahier (Jersey) |
| 1998 | Keith Sheard (Oxon) | Nick Barnett (Jersey) |
| 1999 | Peter Noel (Jersey) | Terry Race (Sussex) |
| 2000 | Bernie McCluskey (Berkshire) | Bob King (Jersey) |
| 2001 | Jim Millward (Sussex) | Kevin Tunstall (Oxon) |
| 2002 | Terry Race (Sussex) | Nigel Ryall (Jersey) |
| 2003 | Jim Millward (Sussex) | Terry Race (Sussex) |
| 2004 | Terry Race (Sussex) | Nigel Ryall (Jersey) |
| 2005 | Graeme Le Monnier (Jersey) | Harry Barbet (Jersey) |
| 2006 | Kevin Tunstall (Oxon) | Jim Millward (Sussex) |
| 2007 | Trevor Gallienne (Guernsey) | Jim Millward (Sussex) |
| 2008 | Trevor Gallienne (Guernsey) | Kevin Tunstall (Sussex) |
| 2009 | Phil Collins (Cholsey Cholsey Cholsey is a village and civil parish south of Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire. In 1974 it was transferred from Berkshire to the county of Oxfordshire, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire.... ) |
Paul Sainsbury (Berkshire) |
| 2010 | Jim Millward (Sussex) | Graham Bisson (Jersey) |
External links
- All England Association
- British Bar Billiards Forum
- Dover, Deal and District Bar Billiards
- Tunbridge Wells Bar Billiards
- Cambridge Bar Billiards
- Guernsey Bar Billiards
- Jersey Bar Billiards
- Witney Bar Billiards Association
- Sussex Bar Billiards
- Brighton Bar Billiards
- Lewes and District Bar Billiards
- Bar Billiards - Tournament
- Norwich Bar Billiards
- Online Guide to Traditional Games - also has information about the French and Italian versions