The fundamentals of carom billiards
This app gathers the basics for improving at French billiards (carom, no pockets): stance and technique, typical shots, System 4 for calculating a return off the cushion, and a method for assessing how your own table behaves.
The sections of the course
Basic technique
Stance, cue grip, aiming, dosing your force.
Typical shots
Natural shot, retro, follow, side spin, finesse, kiss shot.
System 4
The gap method: gap + report always equals 4.
Conti system
Start minus end equals aim: calculating a three-cushion kiss shot.
One-cushion system
CD = 4 minus AB: where the ball lands on the opposite cushion, at half-ball.
Testing your table
Does the ball roll straight? The four Conti test shots, and a tool that calculates your setting.
Rules of the game
Straight rail, balkline, three-cushion, common fouls.
Glossary
Carom billiards vocabulary, term by term.
Quiz
Test what you have learned: random questions, corrected and explained.
Practice log
Log your sessions, track your average and your best run.
Carom billiards, in two minutes
French billiards is played on a table with no pockets, with three balls: one white, one yellow, one red. Each player owns one — the white or the yellow — and scores a point whenever it strikes the other two in the same shot. That is the whole game: no pockets, no ball to sink, only paths to predict.
As long as a player scores, they keep playing. When they miss, their opponent takes over. A run of points in a row is called a run, and the total points divided by the number of innings at the table gives the average: the two figures that measure a player, and the ones tracked by the practice log.
A competition table, called match size, measures 2.84 m by 1.42 m of playing surface; club tables are often half-match, 2.30 m by 1.15 m. The balls are 61.5 mm across. On the cushions, evenly spaced markers — the diamonds, seven along each long cushion and three on each short one — are used to count paths: every calculation system rests on them, starting with System 4.
Where to start
If you are a beginner, everything happens before the shot: how you stand, hold the cue and look. Start with the basic technique, even if it looks dry — it is what makes shots repeatable. Then move on to the typical shots to put a name on what you see happening.
If you already play and your balls land "almost" where you meant them to, System 4 is the next step: it turns intuition into a calculation you can check, and above all correct. The glossary and the rules are there whenever a word or a scoring point trips you up.
None of this replaces hours at the table. But knowing what you are trying to do makes those hours far more worthwhile.
⚠️ The System 4 presented here is a club method, passed on by word of mouth and checked at the table. Every table behaves differently: this calculation is a starting point, to be adjusted with experience on yours.