There are many different types of billiard games. Two of the most popular games in billiards are Eight Ball and Nine Ball. These are followed by Cut Throat and One Pocket. Snooker is up there pretty high, but it all depends on which country you are from.
One type of billiards game that used to be popular is a game called Straight Pool. Its popularity has dropped over the years, as the game takes a lot longer to complete compared to 8-ball and 9-ball, which are much newer billiards games then Straight Pool.
In my opinion Eight Ball became the most popular game because of the bar room tables. There are 15 balls and all of them are used in the game. A game consists of one rack and can be completed in a reasonable time frame.
The billiards game that gets the most tournament time would be 9 ball, besides the trick shot challenges. Nine ball is usually played best out of 9 racks, or whoever gets to 5 first. You do not have to call shots and the object is to get the nine ball in any way you can, shooting the balls in the respectable order.
One Pocket is a kind of similar to 8-ball, the only difference is that you must hit all of your balls in that same pocket, making it a much more difficult game to run a rack on than 8-ball or 9-ball. The pockets are usually the bottom corner pockets, the side where the ball are racked at.
Cut throat is a game played by 3 players, and is very popular in the bar scene. One player gets 1-5, the second player gets 6-10 and the third player gets 11-15. The main purpose of this game is to be the last player in with your balls on the table.
Snooker is a game that is played on a table that is much bigger than a bar table, and slightly bigger than a tournament table. The game is based on a point system, which is based on 6 unnumbered balls of different colors. Red=1, yellow=2, green=3, brown=4, blue=5, pink=6, and black=7, for further rules on the game of snooker you can visit Wikipedia.
