3 Cushion Billiards is a game foreign to most pool players, but it’s still a part of the billiards family. The main difference between carom billiard games like 3 Cushion and pool is that 3 Cushion doesn’t have any pockets. For 3 Cushion there are 3 balls on the table and the aim of the game is to score a point by hitting the cue ball into the two other balls with 1 shot. When this happens the result is called a carom, hence why 3 Cushion is a carom billiards game.
Basic Rules of 3 Cushion
There are many carom games out there, but 3 Cushion billiards is the most popular. In order to score a point the cue ball must hit both object balls in one shot. However, the cue ball must hit at least 3 cushions and one of the object balls before hitting the second ball in order to score a point successfully. A player isn’t restricted to only using three cushions, in fact there are many common 3 Cushion shots that use four or five rails to score a point.
The cue ball doesn’t need to hit 3 different rails to score either. If the player is skilled enough they can use only one rail as long as the cue ball hits it at least three times before hitting the second ball.
Example 3 Cushion Point
3 Cushion has two cue balls, one for each player. The cue ball colors are white and yellow while the red ball is always an object ball. So if a players assigned cue ball is the yellow cue ball then the white and red balls are the object balls he needs to hit to make a carom.
3 Cushion Equipment
There are a few major differences between the equipment for a carom game vs. an American pool game. The main differences are the table, the cloth, and the balls.
The most obvious difference with the table is that it has no pockets. On top of that, professional billiards tables are 10 feet in length as opposed to a standard pool table which is only 9 feet. Because of the larger distance, 3 Cushion players need to be more accurate than those playing on a smaller table.
Often in 3 Cushion the cue ball has to hit many more than 3 rails sometimes the cue ball travels seven or eight rails during a game. This is extremely difficult to do on a pool table because the cloth is much slower. On a billiards table the cloth is exceptionally fast, for someone not used to playing on a billiards table it sometimes seems like the balls are floating because they travel so much farther than balls on a pool table.
Another difference that’s only on the best tables is that the tables are heated. Heat takes moisture out of the cloth on the table which makes the cloth even faster than it already was. It also makes the balls roll more consistently because there aren’t patches of hot and cold spots on the table that effect the cue balls trajectory ever so slightly over long distances.
Finally, the balls for 3 Cushion are larger than pool balls. A pool ball is 57mm in diameter while a billiards ball is 61.5mm. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s a big difference. The extra size gives them much more weight so the balls react differently to spin than pool balls because they have more mass. Using draw is particularly difficult because the spin takes longer to catch on and the balls are heavier so you need more spin to get the same reactions.
Why Play 3 Cushion
Aside from the fact that 3 Cushion is a lot of fun, there’s a lot of reasons to pick up the game. Once you start to play the game you’ll find it’s addicting. With only 3 balls on the table, the game is far more complicated than other games even though the rules are simple. Move a ball a half inch and an ordinary pattern requires a completely different solution than what you’re used to. This makes creativity a big part of the game.
And there’s no question that 3 Cushion helps improve your pool game. Efren Reyes, the best player at kicking and safeties that’s ever played, was a professional level carom billiards player and played carom games often in his youth. Kicking and position are the only skills that are used in 3 Cushion so learning to play this game will put any pool players kicks/position play on steroids.