You might think perhaps it's weird I even posted a rules overview for a game I haven't had the chance to properly play, but this blog is mostly born out of a fascination for the subject matter, rather than experience.
Game 1 - Keglebillard
We started out playing "Keglebillard", regular Danish Pin Billiards, as the rules for this variant are by far the most straightforward and the least punishing.
To summarise, the only things that score points in Keglebillard is toppling pins and making carom shots on the two object balls. Fouls don't result in any penalty points, you simply don't get to retain your score for the inning.
Despite the fact that we're both complete novices to the game, I'd say it went quite well. We played a 100 point game, which took us the better part of two hours to complete. I'd chalk the length of this game up to the fact that we both had trouble making points at all, and if we did manage to make a good handful points, we'd inevitably make a foul at the end and lose it all.
Now, we both played Eight-Ball Pool a lot in our youth, a game that is notably filled to the brim with balls. Pin billiards, like many carom games, only uses a measily three balls. This, paired with the fact that there are pins in the way, means you are much more reliant on bank shots to get anything done, as you need to manoeuvre the cue-ball around the pins to hit the object ball on the other side.
If all you (like us) have ever played is Snooker or Pool, this game provides a delightful level of challenge.
My partner left me in a rather unfortunate situation...
Game 2 - Skomar
After finishing our game of Keglebillard, we moved onto Skomar.
The game uses all the same equipment and setup as Keglebillard, but modifies the rules to make for a quicker game. Among the major rule changes are
- Penalty points awarded to the opponent when making a foul.
- Being forced to hit a cushion before hitting the pins.
- Changing sides between every shot.
- Being awarded points for pocketing the object ball.
- Being awarded points for getting the two object balls to make contact.
Changing sides between every shot made for a much much more interactive game.
The game went from trying to just hit the pins over and over, to playing defensively, as leaving the object ball in a good spot would make it much easier for the opponent to make points on their turn.
Fouls rewarding the opponent points also made the game a lot quicker. Mostly because we just kept fouling.
The pockets being smaller than on a Pool table also made the otherwise rather trivial task of pocketing an object ball a bit more of a challenge:
Pool table pocket on the left, Pins table pocket on the right.
The balls would often just rattle straight out instead of falling in, but this also worked to our advantage, as some trickier shots could be bounced on the corner of a pocket's cushion and out around the pins.
Due to the shorter frames of Skomar compared to Keglebillard, Skomar is usually played best-of-3 or best-of-5.
More scoring opportunities means it's easier to find something that scores points, combined with the defensive play that comes from switching sides between shots makes this a very fun and interesting game to play. I wouldn't say it's better than Keglebillard, just different. It's certainly the better spectator sport of the two.
All in all, I think everyone should try these games if given the opportunity. Finding a table outside of Denmark is going to be a struggle for most. But the same could be said for Russian Pyramid.
