Four-ball billiards orfour-ball carom (often abbreviated to simplyfour-ball, and sometimes spelled4-ball orfourball) is acarom billiards game, played on apocketless table with fourbilliard balls, usually two red and two white, one of the latter with a spot to distinguish it (in some sets, one of the white balls is yellow instead of spotted, while in others, one of the red balls is blue instead of spotted). Each player is assigned one of the white (or yellow) balls as acue ball. Apoint is scored when a shooter's cue ballcaroms on any two other balls in the sameshot (with the opponent's cue ball serving as anobject ball, along with the reds, for the shooter). Two points are scored when the shooter caroms on each of the three object balls in a single shot.[1] A carom on only one ball results in no points, and ends the shooter'sinning.
A variant of four-ball is theEast Asian gameyotsudama (四つ玉,Japanese for 'four balls'), orsagu (四球,사구,Korean for 'four balls').
The game is played with two red object balls, one white cue ball and one yellow cue ball (or sometimes both cue balls are white, one having a red spot). Each of the two players is assigned a white or yellow cue ball; whether the opponent can use it as an object ball is a difference between the Japanese and Korean versions. A point is scored when the shooter caroms on two balls. A carom on only one ball results in no points, and ends the shooter's inning.
There are a few differences between theKorean and theJapanese variants:
A variation of four-ball calleddesítkový karambol (Czech for 'tenfold carom') is popular inCentral Europe, especially in theCzech Republic. It is played with white ball, a blue ball, a yellow ball and a red ball which serves as the cue ball for both players. Players score a point by hitting two of the other three balls with the cue ball. A carom off all three object balls in one shot, however, scores 10 points. The score is doubled by hitting a cushion before hitting any of the other balls for a total of either two or 20 points in one shot.
