In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a 'gentleman's sport' until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas.

The word snooker was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In 1875, army officer Neville Chamberlain, stationed in Ootacamund, Madras, and Jabalpur, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls-a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black-collectively called the colours. Snooker (pronounced UK: / ˈ s n uː k ər/ SNOO-kər, US: / ˈ s n ʊ k ər/ SNUUK-ər) is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side.

Snooker table, snooker balls, cue, triangle, chalk, rests, scoreboard Four-time world champion Mark Selby playing at a practice table during the 2012 Masters tournament

Snooker balls