Queen Victoria (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. It is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards, and even local billiard halls often have this feature in countries where carom games are popular. A heated table is required under international tournament rules. The slate bed of a carom billiard table is often heated to about 5 ☌ (9 ☏) above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. Most cloth made for carom billiard tables is a type of baize that is typically dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool with no nap, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed. The billiard table used for carom billiards is a pocketless version, and is typically 3.0 by 1.5 metres (10 ft × 5 ft). In modern French, the word carambolage means 'successive collision', currently used mainly in reference to carom or cannon shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, and there is no direct evidence for such a derivation. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola (which was a corruption of the original name of the fruit, karambal in the Marathi language of India), also known as star fruit.

It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole, which are used to describe the red object ball.

The word carom, which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled 'carrom'. The Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) is the highest international governing body of competitive carom billiards. It is also popular in Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam, but is now considered obscure in North America, having been supplanted by pool in popularity. Ĭarom billiards is popular in Europe, particularly France, where it originated. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are (chronologically by apparent date of development): straight rail, one-cushion, balkline, three-cushion and artistic billiards.

There is a large array of carom billiards disciplines. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or 'counts' by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activitiesĬarom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables.

Carom billiards