Snooker table, drawn to scale

Snooker is played on a rectangular 6′ by 12′ (about 1.83m by 3.66m) table with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. At one end of the table (the ‘Baulk End’) is the so-called ‘baulk line’, which is 29 inches from the baulk end cushion. A semicircle of radius 11½ inches, called the “D”, is drawn behind this line, centred on the middle of the line. The cushion on the other side of the table is known as the ‘Top Cushion’.

At the beginning of a frame, the balls are set up in the arrangement shown. The six colours (a term referring to all coloured balls but the white and the reds) are placed on their own spots. On the baulk line, looking up the table from the ‘baulk end’, the yellow ball is located where the “D” meets the line on the right, the green ball where the “D” meets the line on the left, and the brown ball in the middle of the line. This order is often remembered using the mnemonic ‘God Bless You’, the first letter of each word being the first letter of the three colours. At the exact centre of the table sits the blue ball. Further up the table is the pink ball, which sits midway between the blue spot and the top cushion, followed by the red balls, arranged in a tightly-packed triangle behind the pink (the apex must be as close as possible to the pink ball without touching it). Finally, the black ball is placed on a spot 12¾ inches from the top cushion.

Because of the large size of “full sized” snooker tables, smaller tables are common in domestic situations and other situations where space is limited. These are often around 6 feet in length, and all the dimensions and markings are scaled down accordingly. The balls used are sometimes also scaled down.

(Wikipedia sub licenţa GNU)

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