Review: Danish Pin Billiards & Skomar

 Last night I had a chance to play the Danish games of "Keglebillard" and "Skomar", which I covered in a rules overview [here].

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.

Danish Pin Billiards: Kegler & Skomar

 Let's start this blog off with a game local to my own homeland: Denmark. Now, this game isn't esoteric within Denmark, but the wider world doesn't seem to know about it, so it bears mention.

It's a variation of the Italian game of Five-Pin Billiards, but aside from sharing the basic features of using three balls and five pins has basically nothing else in common.

Calling this one game is technically untrue, it's two. Both are played with the same exact equipment and setup, but the rules are quite different, the first one is simply called "keglebillard" or "kegler" (meaning "pin billiards" and "pins" respectively), and the other is called "skomager" or "skomar" (meaning "shoemaker")

Equipment

• A(n ideally heated) billiards table with six pockets roughly the same size as a standard Pool table. albeit with smaller pockets.
  
• 3 standard 61.5mm Carom balls 1 white, 1 spotted white, 1 red
• 5 wooden pins 12cm tall, which look like miniature bowling pins.

The setup should look something like this: (scale not exact) 

 

 You can see a real life photo here: (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Though that table is red with a yellow ball, the standard is teal with a red ball.

Kegler

Kegler is the most basic version with the simplest rules:

The game is played in a series of innings that only end once a player either misses or fouls.

The object of the game is to reach a pre-determined number of points in as few innings as possible. Usually between 200 and 800 depending on the skill level.

Unlike most 3-ball carom style games, the red ball is the cue-ball and the two white balls are the object balls. In a game like 3-Cushion or English Billiards, this is exactly the oppsite.

The game is "broken" (i.e. a "break" is shot) from behind the baulk-line at the ball on the opposite side of the pins, from there there are just two ways of scoring points:

• Hit a pin with a white ball (2 points per pin)
• Hit both white balls with the cue ball, called "making red" (4 points)

For a maximum of 14 points per hit.

The challenge of the game lies in its quite frankly absurd number of ways to foul a shot:

• Hitting a pin with the cue ball (at all)
• Causing a ball to jump off the table
• Pocketing the cue ball (gives ball in hand)
• Making red 3 times in a row without hitting any pins
• Not hitting a cushion in at least every other shot
• Knocking over the pins with something other than a ball
• Shooting with both feet off the ground
• "Touchéing", meaning to either hit the cue ball with somehting other than the tip of the cue or the cue still touching the cue ball when the cue ball makes contact with another ball.

Originally, causing a foul would lose you the points for the inning, but per modern rules, any points earned in the inning, except for any points earned during the foul shot are kept.

Missing altogether is not considered a foul.

Pocketing a white ball doesn't do anything. It is simply re-spotted on the oppsite side of the other white ball.

Here's a tournament in Kegler for those interested in watching.

Skomar

The "cousin" game to Kegler. According to one source I found, it was once regarded as a low-brow lower-class game associated with drinking and smoking. Danish Billiard Union players who were found playing this game supposedly had their memberships terminated on sight because they didn't want members in those circles.
The game is now officially recognised by the billiards union on equal footing with its older cousin.

The game is called Skomager or Skoma'r, Skomar, Skomagerpot, etc. depending on region. It essentially just translates to "shoemaker".
I had to look up the etymology of this, and it apparently stems from a time when calling someone a shoemaker was a bit of a slur.
Because being a shoemaker didn't require any real formal training or education of any sort, it was seen as low-class work. Thus anything and everything low-brow in Denmark was referred to as "shoemaker-something"; like "shoemaker-bass" being a simple repetitive bass-line, "shoemaker-rhyme" being bad poetry, "shoemaker-numbers" being approximations, and "shoemaker-rules" being simplified rules.

Either way the name stuck and the game is still played in pubs all over the country.

I call it a "cousin" because the game is quite different.

Returning from the other game are the following two rules:

• Hit a pin with a white ball (2 points per pin)
• Hit both white balls with the cue ball, called "making red" (4 points)

New to the game are the following:

• Game is no longer played in innings, turns change between every shot.
• It's now required to hit a cushion on every shot, instead of every other.
• Hitting a white with another white is called "making pale", and is also worth 4 points, though it can't be combined with "making red".
• Pocketing a white ball is worth 2 points.
• Hitting the centre pin alone without hitting anything else is 6 points.
• Hitting every pin all at once is 16 points.

Fouls are also much more punishing.
Instead of simply ending someone's turn, they also award the opponent points.
The amount of points awarded this way varies depending on the severity of the foul.

• Red ball topples pins having hit a white and a cushion: Scored points for the round are converted to penalty points.
• Red ball is pocketed: 2 penalty points + any other points for the shot.
• Red ball hits pins after hitting white but no cushion: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• Red ball hits pins after hitting cushion but no white: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• Topple pins with cue: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• Hitting the pins with any ball directly without hitting a cushion first: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• No ball hits a cushion: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• Cue-ball doesn't hit any other balls: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
• White ball hit with cue: 6 penalty points + points for the shot.
  

Personally I find Skomar to be the more interesting game of the two.
The scoring opportunities are plentiful, and the simple act of having to change sides between shots both makes it a more interesting spectator sport, but it also makes for a more interesting game, since each shot has to both score a lot of points, but also put the opponent in a tricky spot.

Here's a video of Skomar in action: