The story of billiards in all it's varieties and with a complete lack of any accepted standards was far from clear up to this point but around now began drifting down several differentiable paths.


Around 1770, Port and King Billiards, which had seen astonishing success having survived for probably more than 3 centuries (Pool and Snooker enthusiasts take note - your games haven't lasted a century yet), began to be superceded in England by two new variations - 'the Winning Game' and 'the Losing Game' in which the Port and King did not feature. This was the first step in the convoluted process that led to English Billiards and Snooker. These games that were naturally exported to most of the British colonies (approximately a quarter of the world at the time) and indeed Snooker, the King of all Billiard games was invented in India.


Meanwhile, the French had also been creative - the game of Carambole or Carambolage had been invented by 1810 and not long afterwards the French started making tables without any pockets at all which was the start of the the second main branch of the Billiards family tree. The new concept of the Cannon, Carom or Carombolage was adapted by the English for their Billiards game and variations of Carambole would become popular across much of Europe, the USA and in some parts of Asia.


In the 1800s, Americans who up to now had been simply importing and copying what was happening in Europe had started down their own path with new games called One Pocket, Four Ball Billiards and Fifteen Ball Pool which was the first of many games in the American Pool family.


Finally, the Italians were playing Pin Billiards, a branch of the game that has found it's way through central and Northern Europe as well as to South America.