American pool is a term used in the United Kingdom, and sometimes more broadly outside North America, to refer to pool (pocket billiards) cue sports that make use of formerly American-style and now world-standardised numbered billiard balls that have a standard diameter of 57 mm (2 1⁄4 in), as opposed to British-style unnumbered 56 mm (2 3⁄16 in) balls. (See for example the British streaming video site AmericanPool.CueSport.tv devoted entirely to various pool games using "American" balls.) Other "American" pool differences from British-style pool include larger pockets to accommodate the bigger balls, and diamond system markings on the rails.
The term may apply to any pool game variety using such a ball set, and is commonly applied especially to the most internationally competitive of these sports:
- Eight-ball, the most commonly played form of pool (as distinct from blackball, a.k.a. British eight-ball pool)
- Nine-ball, the leading professional variant of pool, with historical roots in the United States in the 1920s
- Ten-ball, a rotation game very similar to nine-ball, but more difficult, using ten balls instead of nine, and played called-shot
- Straight pool (a.k.a. 14.1 continuous), formerly the common sport of championship competition until overtaken by faster-playing games like nine-ball
- One-pocket, an extremely challenging game in which each player must make all shots into a single pocket.
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