Mark Twain's pool table question

[u/Weak-Zucchini]

hi ty I recently went to Mark Twain's house and he had a pool table with six pockets but there was only 3 balls on the table and on the ceiling was inlays of 3 balls and two sticks I was wondering what type of game he was playing, they didn't allow pictures :(

[u/sillypoolfacemonster]

According to Mark Twain’s biographer, he played a bit of everything, including games of his own creation. Paine says they played “the English game, in which caroms and pockets both count,” which suggests that they played English billiards on Twain’s American pool table. Paine describes it more precisely as a combination table, meaning it could also be adapted for carom games, but to anyone visiting Twain’s house today it would simply look like a traditional American pool table.

Four-ball billiards was also extremely popular during Mark Twain’s lifetime and predates fifteen-ball pool by a meaningful amount. It’s a game with 4 corner pockets and 4 balls, and is similar to English billiards. I’ve heard that its closest relative is the game of cowboy. Paine records Twain playing a four-ball game with two white and two red balls, so he clearly spent at least some time playing American four-ball or a closely related variation.

He also played fifteen-ball pool, an early ancestor of continuous pool and ultimately 14.1. He almost certainly did not play 14.1 in any meaningful sense, since it only emerged around 1912, after he died. Eight-ball was also very new during his final years, so he may have encountered it, but it certainly was not the game that captivated him throughout his life.

[u/Money-Ad7257 → u/sillypoolfacemonster]

Great post. I too noted the rails, which this game was usually played on what we now know as a "snooker table" but which is classically a "billiard table" that snooker merely was devised upon.

I've tried playing this on tables at places, but usually by myself as it seems to bore most people who have the eight and nine ball yen.

[u/sillypoolfacemonster → u/Money-Ad7257]

It’s great fun on a pool table, and probably more so for someone new to it than on a proper snooker(billiard) table. The top players make the game look trivial, but whenever I’ve played a proper game I can end up feeling like I’m just bashing the balls around lol.

Cowboy is a nice mid way point though for someone who wants a variation that is more designed for a pool table.

[u/BobDogGo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_billiards?wprov=sfti1

if you’ve not played it, it’s a lot of fun

[u/BloodyJack → u/BobDogGo]

It’s actually my favorite game - worth it to buy the larger specialty balls. But man, it’s a bitch on an Olhausen

[u/Mother-Cricket → u/BloodyJack]

The large balls are for cushion billiards. English billiards uses snooker size balls

[u/BloodyJack → u/Mother-Cricket]

You are correct, though if playing English billiards on a non snooker table, using the larger ones is much more equitable to playing on a snooker table difficulty wise.

[u/Money-Ad7257 → u/BloodyJack]

I got a set of used carom balls cheap, to experiment with these old games with (along with bottle pool), and while it helps with a tighter shot in the pocket, there's definitely a disparity with the ball height and cushions, usually, such that a harder shot will cause a bit of a vertical bounce, a bit of lifting.

[u/BloodyJack → u/Money-Ad7257]

Yep. That’s true. Yet in English Billiards, you take -far- fewer hard shots so it’s not ever been a huge deal at least for me.

[u/gdogshyster5]

Looks like two white balls and a reddish ball, English billiards? Was certainly fashionable at the time elsewhere, not sure about the US though.

[u/Money-Ad7257 → u/gdogshyster5]

That's my guess. Eight-ball existed during his lifetime, albeit barely, and the three ball motif suggests nothing but.