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The modern incarnation of billiards may look something like this: Walking through a smoke-filled bar to reach a room filled with pool tables and crammed with even denser smoke.  The rather unsavory crowd barely recognizes your presence, and you wonder once again why billiards has for so long been called the “noble game?”

Although your local billiards hall may not appear like  a gathering of royalty, the billiards games of yesteryear did. As long ago as the 1600s, there are records of billiards being played by British royalty, though the game hardly resembled what is played today. Read more . . .