Balkline Billiards

balkline billiards, group of billiard games played with three balls (red, white, and white with a spot) on a table without pockets, upon which lines are drawn parallel to all cushions and usually either 14 or 18 in (36 or 46 cm) away from them. The object of the games is to score caroms by driving a cue ball against both object balls. The eight areas between the lines and cushions are called balks, and, when both object balls are within one of them, a player may score only once or twice (depending on the game played) before driving at least one of the balls out of the balk. The large central area of the table is not a balk, and scoring there is unrestricted.

The balkline game was devised to prevent expert players from playing the balls into a corner and scoring indefinitely on a series of simple, soft shots. As a further precaution, squares called “anchors” were drawn at the intersection of the balklines and the cushions. The anchors are treated as separate balks, and scoring within them is similarly restricted. This keeps a player from maneuvering the object balls to a cushion and slightly to either side of a balkline, thus circumventing the balk rule and scoring easily.

Principal varieties of balkline billiards are 18.1 and 18.2—requiring lines 18 inches from the cushions and allowing one and two shots, respectively, within a balk—and 14.1 and 14.2, with 14-in lines and the same restrictions on shots. Other games are played occasionally, such as 28.2 and 71.2, with one line down the centre of the table parallel to the long cushions and with lines parallel to each of the short cushions, thus marking the whole table into balks and allowing no free centre area. Balkline billiards has largely fallen out of favour in the United States, having been supplanted by three-cushion billiards. It remains popular in Europe and Asia.