Is Snooker Harder Than Billiards?

10/25/2008 9:30:07 PM

Is Snooker Harder Than Billiards?

I was posting in another thread, and it occurred to me that this would be a healthy debate. The questions;

Do you think snooker is harder than billiards?
Could a skilled snooker player beat an equally skilled billiard player at billiards, and vice versa?

Just wondering. I actually love both games. I grew up on, and love, billiards.

But when I was about twenty, I discovered snooker. I was building a home bar for my apartment at a female friends house. The girls father was letting me build it there with his gear. I had bought him a 40 of J&B as a "thank you" for the use of his yard and tools. On one of the days when the home bar was almost done, the father asked me if I would like to play a game of snooker.

Not having played snooker before, nor having known the rules, I somehow said yes.

Well, it was great. Snooker is a great game, but I do not feel that snooker players have a sustainable advantage over billiard players. Initially I thought that because the games are so different, a snooker player would develop skills different from those a billiard player would.

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Is Snooker Harder Than Billiards?

Replies & Comments

Mitch Alsup on 11/3/2008 1:28:16 PM
Are you talking about 3-cusion billiards or one of the myriad of pocket billiards games commonly known as pool?

I suspect the order would be: 3-c billiards is harder than Snooker is harder than 9-ball is harder than 8-ball But I think 14.1 might be harder than snooker or less hard depending. Rational: it is rare that a 3-c billiards player can make a point 3 shots in a row, while there are examples of snooker players running 100 points in under 3 minutes, and 14.1 continuous players (the great ones) hitting more than 100 shots in a row.

There are many places that one could install a billiards table that would not allow a snooker table to fit. There are many more places that could place a 8 foot or 7 foot pocket billiards table where neither 9", 10" or 12" tables would fit.

None of the above depricates the greatness of any of the games mentioned--each becomes a speciality in-and-of itself at the top levels.

quickshot on 11/3/2008 3:58:45 PM
I have never played snooker nor have ai ever seen a snooker table. I understand it is 12 ft. I think Mitch makes a good rational explanation between the games.

homefried1 on 12/20/2008 9:24:59 AM
On a snooker table, that balls are about 3/4 the size of pool balls, and the pockets are about 2/3 the size. The pockets have rubber around them too. You CANNOT wobble one in, if it isn't straight down the middle, it'll "jaw " up. There used to be a GREAT player, many say the best the world has produced, named Danny Sercey who lived in Charlotte.

He used to play a game called payball, where you played 6 ball on a snooker table with regular pool balls, every made ball paid, and the 6 ball paid double and got you the next break.

I think snooker is probably the hardest game of them all, and pay ball the hardest of the games on a snooker table.

OneFourSeven on 12/4/2009 11:30:23 AM
Interesting, I've never heard of six ball. I've played a variation of Snooker called "three ball" where you only set up three red balls - but all the colours are set up like in a normal game. It just makes for a much faster game (and changes the strategy a little), but it's extremely good for practicing potting the colours off their spots.

I find Snooker a lot more difficult to play than the average billiard game. It simply comes down to table-size. Any small error that you have in your game (be it stroke, potting, positional play) is magnified due to the size of a Snooker table. Plus, you can't cheat the pockets in the same manner that you can on an eight-ball table.

Fox523 on 4/2/2010 8:00:38 AM
It is almost like asking "Which ice cream tastes better: vanilla, chocolate or strawberry?"

To play "perfectly" requires plenty of experience and skill - plus having the circumstances add up to make it happen.

But in a nut-shell the following are equal:

snooker 147 points (36 balls pocketed) straight pool 125 points (125 balls pocketed) 3-cushion (carom) billiards 10 points

Legacy Billiards on 9/19/2011 11:58:19 PM
I am not sure that I agree that billiard is a more challenging game than snooker.

I personally do not believe either game is harder or easier, they are just challenging in general. Snooker is all about shot-making.

guest on 9/24/2011 4:34:38 AM
Hi .... is snooker harder than billiards ? . well each cuesport has its own individual problems to overcome . Take snooker , here your playing on a 12 ft x 6 ft table with a cloth that has a lot of response on the cue ball when spin is applied and a lot smaller pockets , so accuracy and a lot of controlled shots have to be played to create a high break .

Billiards however is played on a much smaller table 7ft x 4ft , the pockets are bigger and the coth is not so responsive to the spin on the white ball so a totally different disipline is needed to play this game effectively .

English 8 ball pool is played on an even smaller table being 6ft x 3ft which has the combination of attributes relating to billiards and snooker in the respect of the pockets being big like a billiards table and the cloth being responsive like a snooker table .

All in all each cuesport has several things in common i:e cues , balls , pockets etc , but because each one has different disiplines to master for someone to be good at it , i don't think the question should be " is snooker harder than billiards " but what might be more fitting is " how hard is it to adapt from snooker to billiards "

Another thing that doesn't help the intergration of all these cuesports is the rests at the tables , when you are using different rests all the time it is very hard to get used to playing certain shots , now this particular problem has been overcome by a new rest kit on the market called **ACCU-REST which can be used for all cuesports ** and it is for the player themselves and is totally portable so you can finally master your rest play , but you have to master the change in the speed of cloths , response of spin on balls and the different degree of accuracy required in all of them to be good in any given combination of cuesports .

tasha_silvester on 11/7/2012 4:30:07 AM
It is very hard to say which game is harder as each one has different techniques and rules to play. Both the games have their own charms and difficulties and who can play it perfectly totally depends upon his or her interest, techniques and expertise in the particular game.

user1612266629 on 2/2/2021 3:50:30 AM
I was presented with the opportunity to play snooker many years ago and found a British book that purported to teach the novice the game. It also included billiards and the author strongly favored billiards as the better of the two games.

Something he wrote stuck with me.

It was, to the effect that if one learned billiards it would be easy to pick up snooker. A good billiards player would automatically be a competent snooker player but the converse was not true. Based on that, admittedly biased account, an "expert" held that billiards is the better game and requires more skill to play well.

In fact I seem to recall the author stating that snooker originated as a diversion to be entertained while waiting for a billiards game to materialize.

Tarocoon on 3/5/2021 2:48:35 AM
Snooker probably requires more skill - speaking at a basic level. I think you can get away with being a bit rustier at pool. Shorter distances mean less emphasis on technique. Certainly, of the good snooker and pool players I know, they feel a need to practice more often at snooker to maintain form.

A good pool player might need to work on their technique to be a good snooker player. An average player will struggle to even play at a level that keeps it interesting.

Is Snooker Harder Than Billiards?

Title: Is Snooker Harder Than Billiards?
Author: billiardsforum (Billiards Forum)
Published: 10/25/2008 9:30:07 PM