Looking for the published rules of older versions of snooker

Hi,
I'm looking for some help with finding information about snooker. I'm on the lookout for:

Rules of Australian snooker from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. I've got a description of the rules. There's a mention of tournaments being played. I'm looking for the published rules that were used for these tournaments.

I'm also looking for the rules for double-snooker, snooker-billiards (developed by Thurston), ward's snooker pool, volunteer snooker, pari-snooker, tenball, sinuca brasileira, and so on. Tournaments were held for all these games, so the rules were probably in paper form. I'd be really grateful if you could help me find them.

good luck!

OK, it seems that nobody has old versions of the rules and no interest in history. But could somebody help me with translating texts from Portuguese Brazilian and French to English? I've got lots of unique texts in languages I don't speak.

All the translated texts will be published free of charge and freely available to all billiard and snooker fans.

Hi, Archivist. I have a passing interest in the history and evolution of the game, but I am certainly no expert. Your requests were for some specific rule sets and I have nothing in regards to those specifics. However, I do have a couple PDF versions of historical books that may interest you. You may already have them as I think I got them from public domain off of Google Books or something, years ago (I don't recall exactly how I came across them). These are Billiards by Captain Crawley (about 200 pages) and Billiards by Major Broadfoot (about 500 pages). I believe one is from the 1850's and the other from the 1890's. A lot about technique and history, and some info about rules for various games, but I don't think these will give you the "official" rules for tournament play that you seek.

If you are interested in these, PM me with an email address where I can send you the PDF documents. Or maybe you can Google the titles and find copies on the internet somewhere like I did years ago.

Good luck in your quests!

Hi Acesinc,
Many thanks for your reply and for offering to help! I'm sorry, but I'm new to this forum and I'm not allowed to send private messages yet. But that's okay.

I've been collecting books on billiards and snooker for over thirty years and I've got all the books from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I'm on the lookout for just two items, but they're pretty rare and I don't think many people here can help me. If anyone is interested in history but doesn't have access to the archives, I'd recommend taking a look at https://allaboutsnooker.info. This isn't an advertisement, just a suggestion! Just to be clear, the site isn't commercial – there are no banners. It's a regular historical archive, which I've put together as a hobby.

I also have PDF versions of the books. If I don't have them, I can digitise them in no time. I recently purchased the book 'Rules for playing the various games of carom and pocket billiards'. This was published by the Brunswick-Balke Collender Co. in 1925, which was the first time the rules of American snooker were published. I've digitised it and made it available for free download.

I have lots of information in my collection about different variations of snooker, but I'm looking for the official rules. I also have lots of information about billiards and snooker in languages I don't speak, so I'm looking for help from snooker enthusiasts. And I'm ready to help as much as I can.

Regards

I'm interested in how the standard game of snooker game to be.

It's such a huge leap from the 3 balls of billiards to the game we take for granted now.

Dan-cat wrote:I'm interested in how the standard game of snooker game to be.

It's such a huge leap from the 3 balls of billiards to the game we take for granted now.

It's a common mistake made by many who don't know the history of billiards! Snooker didn't actually come from English billiards, which is what we call the 'three-ball game'. It actually came from a whole different set of games.

It's now widely accepted that snooker came from black pool, but Peter Ainsworth's article, The Origin of Snooker: The Neville Chamberlain Story, challenges this. This article was published in 2017, but since then we've learned a lot more.

In the late nineteenth century, after all (almost all) the big matches in English billiards (commercial or in championships), several games of various varieties of pyramid were played. Most spectators found English billiards boring and tedious. A new game was required. And it came along.

I don't think Neville Chamberlain was the one who invented it. There are a few inaccuracies and some rather far-fetched claims in his writing. Maybe the old man was suffering from dementia when he wrote to Field. Maybe there were other reasons. But there's no evidence to back up his claim. In fact, lots of the facts show that this isn't true.

As early as the 1870s, Colonel Frederick Charles Keyser played a character called 'Snooker' on the stage in India. He knew Neville, but in his letters he never once mentioned the new billiard game. Lieutenant Daly, Lieutenant A. P. Penton from the Royal Artillery (Woolwich graduate), and none of the officers from the 11th (North Devonshire) Regiment backed up Chamberlain's story. As it happens, the nephew of one of Chamberlain's colleagues went on to become an amateur snooker champion. Did his uncle tell him anything about seeing the game being created and knowing the person who invented it?

I'm sorry, this is a topic I'm really interested in and could write a lot about. I'm not an expert like our famous people (I won't list their names, everyone knows them), but I am an ordinary collector and lover of snooker and its history. So far, the site has published less than a third of the material that I and my friends have. And we are always looking for new information.

If anyone is interested in specific information, just write. I will send any original in PDF format or in graphic file.

Fascinating stuff, Archivist! Your website is "starred" at the top of my Bookmarks list! Unfortunately, my own "hobby" is trying to keep my small business afloat so that doesn't afford me much leisure time; I don't even get nearly so much time on the table as I would wish. So it will take me quite a while, but I will slowly make my way through all the articles.

The first thing that caught my eye was the American Snooker rules from 1925. You may not know, but I am, I believe, the only American currently posting on the Island. I also hold the distinction as the "long poster" (which you probably already know if you have surveyed the "Rules" section of the site). I am guessing you may be my competition for Long Poster Champion if you can handle the dancing zebra TLDR memes!

As that American Snooker rule set comes from 1925 and it also comes from table manufacturer Brunswick-Balke Collender, it is a curious coincidence that my own English Billiards table (often erroneously called a "Snooker table") was manufactured by Brunswick-Balke Collender Co. in 1924. The same guy that put my table together on the factory floor could have written that article! I also learned from that article that American Snooker rules originally followed the standard English rules for foul valuations. My understanding to this point had always been that fouls are always valued at 7 points no matter the infraction. I have never played against anyone who insisted on American Snooker rules, but a lot of the really old timers (I am getting there, but not quite yet) would say that snooker was quite popular in the USA post-WWII and 7 points was the rule for all fouls. So now I see that was an evolution of the American game, not the original rule.


I also have an additional response to Dan's query, but I will do that in a separate post...

LOL

Sometimes I write long texts, but most of the time my messages are short when I'm asking or answering a question.

American Snooker. I've bought a few more books in the US, which I'm waiting for delivery of in late October or early November. Among them is the 1965 Official Rule Book for all Pocket and Carom Billiards Games, published by the Billiard Congress of America. It should definitely contain the rules of American snooker. Then I'll be able to compare.

Dan-cat wrote:I'm interested in how the standard game of snooker game to be.

It's such a huge leap from the 3 balls of billiards to the game we take for granted now.

I have given this quite a bit of thought and I have done what little research I am able, but I don't have any hard evidence of anything that I am about to write below. It is only my own personal theory of the grand scheme of how the concept of the game of Snooker came to be.

First, I like to start with a moment of silence in respect to the many, many poor majestic elephants slaughtered on the plains of Africa for the ridiculous purpose of supplying the ivory required for what ultimately evolved into our pastime. As ignorant humans, we should try to never forget the sins of our past so that we may better ourselves as we look to the future.
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The Three Ball Game, English Billiards, of course only requires three billiard balls, two White and a Red. These were ivory and very expensive. A good tusk from an unfortunate elephant would only yield up to four finished billiard balls. As African elephants are not exactly a sustainable "crop" like wheat or soybeans, if the billiard games were going to evolve beyond the Three Ball Game, a new material would be needed to manufacture the billiard balls. Thank God for the plastics industry! Save the Elephants!

But the history of Snooker begins before balls became widely manufactured from phenolic plastic. The Three Ball Game was the professional game requiring a lot of skill and time. That's not what was desired down at the local tavern. Like today, in the mid-1800's, a common working man might enjoy a betting game down at the working man's club or pub. So the game of the day was Life Pool.

Here is a photo of a Life Pool scoreboard and that pretty much tells the story of how the game of Life Pool was played:

https://www.johnhubbardantiques.net/pro ... scoreboard

Note that there is no "Black" and there are also two "White" and "Yellow". The extra White and Yellow would be distinguished by a Spot on one of them, which was actually an imperfection that was the nerve running through the tusk of the sacrificial elephant.

Life Pool was a "ring game" for wagering played by multiple players who each had their own cue ball and each player would pony up the money to join the game. The ivory cue balls were stained with a dye to get the colours shown on the board to distinguish the players' cue balls. It was "Life" Pool because each player was allotted three "lives", i.e., if a player's cue ball was potted by one of the other players, then potted ball loses a "life" and the door on the board slides over to cover one of the circles. This goes on until there is only a last player standing who wins all the money in the "Pool" collected from the bets. The last star on the board after the circle was for a "dead" player to have one last option to buy in with an extra bet to get an additional life if he so chooses.

In a way, it actually sounds quite a bit like Poker on a billiards table. Rounds of betting, the last player remaining wins the pot.

Life Pool eventually evolved into Black Pool, the difference (as you can guess) being the addition of the Black ball. Black did not belong to any player, it was a common ball and added a new wrinkle to the rounds of betting. When the striker would pot an opponent's cue ball, he would then strike at the Black (at the time, Black would occupy Center Spot, what we call Blue Spot today). If successful, the Black would be respotted and the previous potted cue ball's owner would have to put ANOTHER coin into the wager pool. And the striker would then play at the next other player's cue ball repeating the cycle. The game is getting more interesting and more expensive.

There was another game developed around the same time that we stupid humans quit slaughtering elephants for the sole purpose of our idle pastimes and started using some of our intelligence to utilize an appropriate material for manufacturing billiard balls. Now, balls could be made cheaply in great quantities so the number of balls on the table for any particular "game" would not need to be limited anymore. And Pyramids was begat. Fifteen Reds formed in a triangle, the simple concept of the game between two players was to pot more balls than the other player. Solid striking and clever positioning techniques were needed to be the best at this two person game.

And there you go, Dan-Cat. The rest is obvious. Combine the two games together, use a common White cue ball by both players, make use of the existing "cue ball" Colours and designate each Colour with a spot and a point value. The Spots already pre-existed from the Three Ball Game so there wasn't anything new added there (as opposed to Joe Davis' big mistake of trying to introduce Snooker Plus). Like Black Pool, the Colours would be potted as a "reward" for potting the previous ball (now Red rather than the other player's cue ball), and the Colours would be respotted afterward, like Black had been. The "invention" of the Game is generally credited to Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain though as Archivist stated, that is likely not entirely true. As seen in my theory above, the Game more likely simply evolved from previous iterations rather than up and being "invented" one day. Perhaps there is no individual that may be credited, but instead a general evolution through the input of many players.

As I stated, I make no claim of hard evidence of the above, merely my own speculation. I am open to any correction that anyone may offer.

Great version, Acesinc!
I agree with some of what you say, but unfortunately some of it contradicts the facts.

1. Pyramid billiards existed long before plastic balls were invented.
2. Since the beginning of the 19th century, when a large number of books on the theory and practice of billiards were published, the rules of a large number of games using different numbers of balls were described. Not only Life Pool and Black Pool were available to fans of the game. I have not counted, but I can say that there are no less than two dozen of them. I am only talking about games whose rules were published in books.
3. In the first third of the nineteenth century, the press repeatedly published information about games in which coloured balls ("pool balls") were used in addition to red balls built in the shape of a pyramid. The balls were then made of ivory.

I agree with this:

1. Modern snooker is a combination of pyramids and black pool. Or one of the exotic types of pool that existed in almost every club or casino in India and Australia.

2. At the beginning of the twentieth century, billiard ball manufacturers 'bet' on snooker precisely because the set contained many more balls than the set for pool or pyramid separately. S.A.M. and other authors have written about this.

Special thanks must go to John Roberts Jr who organised the first professional commercial snooker match with Tom Reece in 1908, which consisted of 101 frames. Prior to this, snooker was played either as a leisure game or in tournaments after playing English billiards. Snooker was not recognised as a game in its own right.

OK, there's a lot to talk about. But there is not enough space on the forum to quote all the articles about snooker :)

Thanks for updating my knowledge base, Archivist. As I said, I'm no historical expert. My time is consumed with my business (which I also greatly enjoy, by the way; I live by the wisdom, "Enjoy what you do and you will never work a day in your life.") so what little "recreation" time I have, I try to play the game. Research on history like this is only occasional.

About Pyramids (or Pyramid Pool) existing before the phenolic balls, yes, that doesn't surprise me. I suppose my point here is that there is (or should be) a distinction between the "elite" game and the common game. As I understand it, Billiards as a concept was rather a game of royalty, an effort to control the environment by bringing the "lawn games" of croquet and bowls indoors during inclement weather. Indeed, the first billiard tables had hoops as targets rather than pockets. This was well outside the reach of the common man. So the elites surely would have fiddled with many variables, such as Pyramids, despite expense of ivory balls. For the common man, expense would be a factor, which would be why the games would be Pool games, many bodies putting up a little money each to extend enjoyment of the game at not too great an expense for all the "losers". The two player games were less interesting because one player walks away rich and the other walks away poor. Again, this is analogous to Poker. A two player version of Poker is not very interesting at all.

So while I'm sure you're correct that Pyramids existed during the ivory ball days, I doubt that it was common to the unwashed masses.

In fact, where Colonel Neville Chamberlain comes in, yes, I always thought it doubtful that he "invented" Snooker. Just like I said about Poker above, I expect that at some time, perhaps there were just two players available on an Indian Royal Army base, so a good betting ring game was not to be had. So rather than a plain ol' boring game of Pyramids, they would have been trying this new idea of combining Black Pool (a multi-player game) and Pyramids (a two player game). This would extend the game, require more skill, and not cause anyone to lose too much money. The story is that a fresh (stupid) cadet on the base was referred to as a "snooker". So I speculate that Colonel Chamberlain was in a two player game of this new type with a player who then remarked (something like), "I missed that pot. I feel like a snooker." And Neville Chamberlain came back with something like, "Don't worry. This new game is so difficult, we all look like snookers." And that then is where I believe he took credit for "inventing" the game.

Anyway, I am about to embark for a weekend out at my brother's remote cabin. If you have a response, I won't see it for a couple days so please don't be offended. Very interesting topic you have raised, Archivist.

Acesinc, I think you're mixing up the eras a bit. :) It's true that billiards was the game of kings (or royal game) during the 14th-15th-16th-17th centuries. It was a game for the aristocracy and the wealthy, and the tables and accessories were very expensive. Since the 18th century, books and the press have been writing more and more about games played in regular pubs and clubs. Billiard tables became a must-have item in officers' casinos. And at this time, the game started to be played in different ways in different countries. English billiards is played with three balls on a large table, French billiards is mostly carambole, and German billiards is pyramids. This doesn't mean that everyone in these countries played only their own versions of the game. In many books, the games were called by their country or national names. I don't think people in Germany at that time had much more money than people in England or France, so they probably didn't have the chance to play pyramids. :)

And you don't necessarily need two people to play pyramids. Shell Out is a multi-player variant that was popular in many countries.

What a great read all that is.

Secret documents!

I'm in a John Le Carré

LOL

Archivist wrote:volunteer snooker

Is it the versions published by the Billiards Association & Control Council you want? I can give you the 1926 and 1935 versions.

edit: and 1945 too.

Empire State Human wrote:

Archivist wrote:volunteer snooker

Is it the versions published by the Billiards Association & Control Council you want? I can give you the 1926 and 1935 versions.

edit: and 1945 too.

I've only got the 1936 text, so I'd be really grateful if you could send me all the others you're willing to share. It's important for me to see how the rules have evolved over time. Please get in touch via https://allaboutsnooker.info/contact/.

It's a shame nobody has the rules for other snooker variants.

Ok, I've just sent the 1926 text. I've marked it 'TOP SECRET'.

My TOP SECRET document was intercepted.

Message blocked
Your message to admin@allaboutsnooker.info has been blocked. See technical details below for more information.
LEARN MORE
Warning This link will take you to a third-party site
The response from the remote server was:

521 5.3.0 Upstream error, please check https://developers.cloudflare.com/email ... postmaster for possible reasons why. 3t5JvZTDdqUE

Oh well, guess I'll just post the link in the thread then.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JafrPv ... sp=sharing

I wonder if the 1926 rules were the first to include volunteer snooker. I have one hardcopy version of the rules that pre-dates it from what was then the Billiard Association, I think from 1905, which refers to the 'revised and redrafted' rules for Billiards of 1898, and I believe was the first to feature 'Snooker's Pool'. It has an appendix with a couple of amendments from council meetings 1901-1905. Obviously, there's no volunteer snooker in that book.

I also have a few scans of pdfs which other people have done (rules published by Brunswick, Briggs, Hoyle) and also random articles and references to rules (and probably some modern matches/incidents as well) I found on the British Newspaper Archive.

I'll try and scan the 1935 and 1945 books tomorrow.

Empire State Human wrote:I wonder if the 1926 rules were the first to include volunteer snooker. I have one hardcopy version of the rules that pre-dates it from what was then the Billiard Association, I think from 1905, which refers to the 'revised and redrafted' rules for Billiards of 1898, and I believe was the first to feature 'Snooker's Pool'. It has an appendix with a couple of amendments from council meetings 1901-1905. Obviously, there's no volunteer snooker in that book.

I also have a few scans of pdfs which other people have done (rules published by Brunswick, Briggs, Hoyle) and also random articles and references to rules (and probably some modern matches/incidents as well) I found on the British Newspaper Archive.

I'll try and scan the 1935 and 1945 books tomorrow.

Many thanks for your help. I'd be really grateful if you could share some more materials. Just to clarify, I said 'contact me', not 'send file me'. Just a heads-up: the mailbox has a file size limit.

Regarding the 'secret documents'. I know it's pretty funny, and I'm laughing too. I'm curious about its origin. I mentioned 'unique letters' and that's a whole other story. Every collector has something rare and unique, otherwise there's no point in collecting. If everyone thinks my collection is funny, great. I wasn't trying to sell anything; I was just asking for help. I've never been on forums or social media before. I guess I'm too old and conservative to start now.


I apologise for distracting the Island from the usual stuff. If anyone does wish to help with information or translations I would be very grateful. I have provided contacts.

Oh god there’s two of them.