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.
Famous quotes containing the words american and/or pool:
“An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say “Gentlemen” to the person with whom he is conversing.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“I see by the papers that you have once more stirred that pool of intellectual stagnation, the educational convention.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)