Снукер: история, развитие и современное состояние

Cue sport

Snooker (pronounced /UK/'/s//n//uː//k//ər/ SNOOkər, /US/'/s//n//ʊ//k//ər/ SNUUKər) and black pool, which involved the potting of designated balls. The word snooker was, at the time, a slang term used in the British Army to describe new recruits and inexperienced military personnel; Chamberlain used it to deride the inferior performance of a young fellow officer at the table. Snooker featured in an 1887 issue of the Sporting Life newspaper in England, which led to a growth in popularity. To cater for the growing interest, smaller and more open snooker clubs were formed. In 1969, David Attenborough, then the controller of BBC2, commissioned the snooker tournament television series Pot Black, primarily to showcase the potential of the BBC's new colour television service, as the green table and multi coloured balls provided an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of the new broadcasting technology. In the same year, the 1969 World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format, with eight players competing. Due to these developments, the year 1969 is taken to mark the beginning of snooker's modern era. The World Snooker Championship moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has been staged ever since, and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to receive daily television coverage. In the early 2000s, a ban on tobacco advertising led to a reduction in the number of professional tournaments, In the same year, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in the World Snooker Tour, pledging to revitalise the "moribund" professional game. Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128 player professional tour is financially unsustainable. During the COVID 19 pandemic, the professional tour was confined to events played within the United Kingdom and Ireland. In the 2022–23 season, only two professional ranking tournaments were played outside the UK, the European Masters in Fürth and the German Masters in Berlin, while lucrative Chinese events remained off the calendar. Stephen Maguire in 2023 criticised the World Snooker Tour and World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, claiming that "the game is dying right in front of our eyes", and stating that some players ranked within the world's top 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments. Snooker referees are an integral part of the sport, and some have become well known personalities in their own right. Len Ganley, John Street, and John Williams together refereed 17 of the first 20 World Snooker finals held at the Crucible Theatre. Since 2000, non British and female referees have become more prominent in the sport. Dutch referee Jan Verhaas became the first non Briton to referee a World Championship final in 2003, while Michaela Tabb became the first woman to do so in 2009. Tabb was the only woman refereeing on the professional tour when she joined it in 2002, but tournaments now routinely feature female referees such as Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston.

A standard full size snooker table measures , with a rectangular measuring The playing surface is surrounded by small along each side of the table. The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushions is A maximum break in snooker is achieved by potting all reds with blacks, then potting all six colours, yielding 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum".

Professional snooker players compete on the World Snooker Tour, which is a circuit of world ranking tournaments and invitational events held throughout the snooker season. All competitions are open to professional players who have qualified for the tour, and selected amateur players, but most events include a separate qualification stage. Players can qualify for the tour by virtue of their position in the world rankings from prior seasons, by winning continental championships, or through the Challenge Tour or Q School events. Some additional secondary tours have been contested over the years. A two tier structure was adopted for the 1997–98 snooker season; comprising six tournaments known as the WPBSA Minor Tour was open to all professionals, but only ran for one season. A similar secondary UK Tour was first played from the 1997–98 season, which was renamed the Challenge Tour in 2000, Players Tour Championship in 2010 and returned as the Challenge Tour in 2018. The Triple Crown tournaments are televised in the UK by the BBC,

The World Championship is the most highly valued title in professional snooker, He suggested that a "breakaway tour" with fewer events would be beneficial to the sport, but none was organised. Fred Davis and Donaldson would contest the next four finals. After the abandonment of the World Championship in 1953, with the 1952 event boycotted by British professionals, the World Professional Match play Championship became the unofficial world championship. Fred Davis won the tournament every year from 1952 to 1956, but did not enter the 1957 event.

Some versions of snooker, such as six red or ten red snooker, are played with almost identical rules but with fewer object balls, reducing the time taken to play each frame. The Six red World Championship, contested annually in Bangkok, Thailand, has been a regular fixture on the World Snooker Tour since 2012. The Snooker Shoot Out is a variant snooker tournament, first staged in 1990, featuring single frame matches for an accelerated format. The idea was resurrected in 2011 with a modified version that was added to the professional tour in the 2010–11 season and upgraded to a ranking event in 2017.