Artistic Billiards Or Fantasy Billiards

Billiards is a pretty old game; there are ancient documents depicting game play as early as the 13th century. Back then the game was a lot different.

People back then would use a stick with a forked end instead of the common pool stick we have today. Why they did that, nobody knows...it is obviously a silly thing to do.

Now billiards is played in many different games; there are basically two types of billiards that each game will fit into. Pocket billiards and carom billiards.

Pocket billiards are obviously games like eight ball, straight pool, and anything where you use pockets in game play. Carom is where you do not use pockets to play like with balkline and straight rail, cushion billiards, and three cushion billiards.

Artistic billiards is unique because it is easily adapted between the two different genres of billiards. In artistic billiards or fantasy billiards the players set up trick shots.

Each trick is assigned a certain amount of points depending on the difficulty of the trick. Traditionally this game is played with a booklet of 76 trick shots that are to be performed.

But when I play I just like to play around ten shots. This game is a fun one, because it is so easily adapted to your liking; you do not have to deal with technical rules about hitting other balls first or not hitting enough cushions...

You treat each trick shot like it was its own game. Assign the specified trick shot, whether it be a curve, jump or bounce, and the first player to accomplish the shot will get full points.

If a player cannot perform the shot he will receive zero points. However, if it is performed but in a sloppy manner half points are given; accordingly if it is somewhere between a sloppy and perfect shot then you should be awarded somewhere between half and full points.

The difficulty of the shot should directly affect the amount of points possible. Generally shots are scored from 4-11, 4 being the easiest type of shots and 11 being master level difficulty.

This game will help develop technique. It will make you a precise shooter.

When playing other games many players may rely on luck a lot. This game there is no luck.

You must learn to successfully hit the shot; otherwise you will never score any points. This is a game of skill and precision and accuracy, learning this game and playing it often will help with other pool games as well.

In fact many people buy a pool table specifically for this game. This game is great for beginners and pros, just switch up the tricks.