• 목록
• 답변
• 글쓰기
• 게시판 리스트 옵션
  • 수정
  • 삭제

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the professional tour was confined to events played within the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. In an effort to boost popularity of snooker, Davis introduced a variation known as "snooker plus" in 1959, which added two extra colours, but this version of the game was short-lived. The popularity of snooker has led to the creation of many variations based on the standard game, but using different rules or equipment, including six-red snooker, the short-lived "snooker plus", and the more recent Snooker Shoot Out version. Snooker featured in an 1887 issue of the Sporting Life newspaper in England, which led to a growth in popularity. However, the British public's interest in snooker had waned significantly by the late 2000s. Warning that the sport was "lurching into terminal crisis", what is billiards The Guardian newspaper predicted in 2010 that snooker would cease to exist as a professional sport within ten years. 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments.

In the 2022-23 season, only two professional ranking tournaments were played outside the UK, the European Masters in Fürth and the German Masters in Berlin, while lucrative Chinese events remained off the calendar. The prize money for professional events increased, with the top players earning several million pounds over the course of their careers. Top professional players compete in regular tournaments around the world, earning millions of pounds on the World Snooker Tour, a circuit of international events featuring competitors of many different nationalities. Each segment of the string (bead) represents one point as the players can move one or several beads along the string. A player earns a single extra shot by scoring a hoop point (hitting the striker's ball through a hoop), or two extra shots by causing their ball to contact another ball - an action called a "roquet". A number of rules have developed which detail what must be done when one or both of the cue ball and fifteenth object ball are either in the rack area at the time an intragame rack is necessary, or are in such close proximity to the intragame racking area, that the physical rack cannot be used without moving the one or the other.

When a player pockets the cue ball, there are two common outcomes as a result of the foul. Balls pocketed on the break, or as the result of a foul while the table is still open, are not used to assign the suits. The World Snooker Championship first took place in 1927. Joe Davis, a key figure and pioneer in the early growth of the sport, won fifteen successive world championships between 1927 and 1946. The "modern era" of snooker began in 1969 after the broadcaster BBC commissioned the television series Pot Black, later airing daily coverage of the World Championship, which was first televised in 1978. The most prominent players of the modern era are Ray Reardon in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, each winning at least six world titles. Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128-player professional tour is financially unsustainable.

As professional snooker grew as a mainstream sport, it became heavily dependent on tobacco advertising. Snooker accessories include: chalk for the tip of the cue, used to help apply spin on the cue ball; various sorts of rest, such as the swan or spider for playing shots that are difficult to play by hand; extensions for lengthening the cue stick; a triangle for racking the reds; and a scoreboard which is typically attached to a wall near the snooker table. If there are not enough points remaining on the table for a player to win the frame, that player may offer to concede the frame while at the table (but not while their opponent is still at the table); a frame concession is a common occurrence in professional snooker. In England and Wales, there are around 170 clubs affiliated with the Croquet Association. All points scored in the break before the foul was committed are awarded to the striker, but no points are scored for any ball pocketed during the foul shot. At the end of each shot, the cue ball remains in the position where it has come to rest (unless it has entered a pocket, where it is returned to the "D") ready for the next shot.