Pool tables

Pool tables are the furniture on which the game of pool is played. They have a long and storied history, dating back to the days of European nobility. Pool was a name that was hung over quite a variety of games. There are more than one hundred variants of one form or another, some arising in the past 30 years, and others dating back centuries.

Pool tables were originally without pockets, and the games played on them involved ricocheting balls off the walls to score points. It was not until later iterations of the tables that pockets were added. For example, straight line billiards was a game that involved 3 balls on a pocket-less table. The scoring was achieved by striking both of the object balls with the cue ball in a single shot.
Pocket pool games were invented as a change of pace from games such as straight line. Now scoring could be achieved by removing balls from the pool table or ‘pocketing them’. In some games, such as straight pool, eight ball, or nine ball, pocketed balls stayed off the table once they were scored with. In other games, such as snooker, balls were placed back on the table after scoring.