User talk:Fuhghettaboutit/Finger billiards

This page is about the sport played on a billiards table. For the family of tabletop games, see carrom.
Poster for a March 12, 1889 exhibition by Yank Adams, the "Digital Billiard Wonder,"[1] considered by his professional peers the world's best player of finger billiards and the "greatest exhibition player who ever lived."[2]

Finger billiards, sometimes called hand billiards, hand-stroke billiards,[3] digit billiards[2] or digital billiards,[4] is a form of billiards in which a player manipulates the balls with his or her hands directly, instead of with an implement such as a cue stick.[3] The typical method of manipulation in finger billiards is by twisting the ball between the thumb and the middle finger. A finger billiardist normally has the privilege of placing the cue ball in any position he may desire prior to "shooting".[5]

A carrom board

The name finger billiards has sometimes been borrowed and applied to games that involve similar manipulation of round objects such as for the game of Shove-Goat, a game popular in Shakespearean England,[a] which employed a coin with similar properties to an American half dollar;[6] and Carrom, which refers to a family of tabletop games[7] originating in India,[8] which have been described as a cross between "tiddlywinks and snooker"[9] or "marbles and pool".[10]

Spectacular amounts of spin, and notably side spin (sometimes called english) can be imparted with hand manipulation of billiard balls.[3] In billiard's early days, before the cue tip was invented[3] reportedly by François Mingaud,[11] little spin could be intentionally placed on balls with the tool then predominantly in use, called a mace,[12] which consisted of "a square-fronted box-wood head, attached to a fine ash pole, of some four of five feet in length",[12] nor by the first cues which predated the innovation of of cue chalk, and which had a flat-fronted end, which made slippage without a central hit inescapable.[13] Since finger billiard was practiced for many years prior to the cue tip's invention, it is probable that it the placing of such spin was known through finger billiards long before there was any way to impart it with implements.[3]

According to the Brooklyn Citizen Almanac, Finger billiards came into professional vogue in or about 1855, and that the principal players in its early years, at least in the United States, were Yank Adams and Louis Shaw.[14] The game never caught on with the masses as a pastime, and was mostly relegated to exhibition and challenge matches by top practitioners. In the realm of exhibition, however, it was a popular attraction.

  1. ^ "Finger Billiards: Yank Adams to Give and Exhibition at the Standard To-Night". The Saint Paul Daily Globe. April 26, 1888. p. 5.
  2. ^ a b "All Done With the Fingers: The Manner in Which Yank Adams Toys With the Spheres". The Sun (New York, NY). June 14, 1891. p. 16.
  3. ^ a b c d e Shamos, Michael Ian (1993). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards. New York, NY: Lyons & Burford. p. 94. ISBN 1-55821-219-1.
  4. ^ "Yank Adams, of Chicago". Omaha Daily Bee. November 2, 1889. p. 2.
  5. ^ "The New Billiard-Player". The New York Times. September 21, 1875.
  6. ^ Arnold, Karen South (1993). Playing Grandma's Games. Ouray, CO.: Western Reflections. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-890437-47-3.
  7. ^ Muthiah, S. (2000). At Home in Madras: a Handbook For Chennai. Madras: Overseas Women's Club,. p. 288. OCLC 47893485.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  8. ^ Fernando, Leslie. "Carrom boss Jayasinghe determined to make Sri Lanka No.1". Sunday Observer.
  9. ^ Richard Plunkett; Brigitte Ellemor (August 1, 2003). Sri Lanka. Paris: Lonely Planet. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-74059-423-3.
  10. ^ Naomi Gaede-Penner (July 26, 2011). From Kansas Wheat Fields to Alaska Tundra: A Mennonite Family Finds Home. Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-61777-202-3.
  11. ^ Byrne, Robert (1998). Byrne's New Standard Book of Pool and Billiards. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. ISBN 0-15-100325-4.
  12. ^ a b Phelan, Michael (1858). The game of billiards (11th ed.). New York: H.W. Collender. pp. 31–32, 44. OCLC 38536192.
  13. ^ Johnson, Alvin A. (1893). Robert Lilley (ed.). Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia: A New Edition. Vol. 1. New York: A. J. Johnson Co. OCLC 68137336.
  14. ^ Brooklyn Citizen Almanac. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Citizen. 1893. p. 141. OCLC 12355298.