Carom Billiards: The Game With No Pockets
The billiard game with no pockets is carom billiards. It uses three balls on a table about 10 by 5 feet with an unbroken cushion all the way around, and you score a point by driving your cue ball into both of the other balls on one stroke. Nothing ever goes in a hole. If you came here wondering why a billiards table had no pockets, that's the answer: it was built for carom.
Three-cushion, the version streamed from pro events in Europe and Asia, adds one demand. Your cue ball has to touch the cushions at least three times before it reaches the second ball. Below are the rules as the world body (the UMB) and the U.S. association (the USBA) write them, the equipment, the other carom games, and how a pool player can try it.
Carom billiards at a glance
Here is the equipment and the core rule in one place. Table, ball and light figures come from the UMB's World Rules of Carom Billiard; cue figures are typical ranges, because the UMB leaves the cue up to the player.
| Item | Carom billiards |
|---|---|
| Table | About 10 by 5 feet overall; playing surface 2.84 by 1.42 m (about 9 ft 4 in by 4 ft 8 in), plus or minus 5 mm |
| Pockets | None |
| Bed | Slate at least 45 mm thick, electrically heated with a thermostat in official play |
| Cushion height | 37 mm at the nose, plus or minus 1 mm |
| Table height | 75 to 80 cm to the rail surface |
| Balls | Three, 61 to 61.5 mm across, 205 to 220 g each, no more than 2 g apart within a set |
| Ball colors | White and yellow cue balls, red object ball (older sets use a spotted white instead of yellow) |
| Cue | Usually 54 to 56 in, about 16.5 to 18.5 oz, tip 11 to 12 mm |
| Light | At least 520 lux across the whole bed |
| How you score | Cue ball contacts both other balls on one stroke (plus three cushion contacts in three-cushion) |
The 61.5 mm ball is the one most players notice first. A pool ball is 2 1/4 inches (57.15 mm), so a carom ball is about 4 mm bigger and noticeably heavier in the hand. Our ball size guide has every standard side by side.
Why some billiard tables have no pockets
Pockets would only get in the way. Carom scores by bouncing one ball off two others, so a pocket is just a hole that eats your object ball. The table instead has a continuous cushion, faster cloth and a heated bed so a ball travels the same way on every trip around it. Ask for billiards in France, Korea or Turkey and a pocketless table is usually what you get.
For the table side of the question (which tables have six pockets, which have two, and why you can't turn a pool table into a carom table by plugging the holes) see our pockets guide, which has a section on pool tables without pockets. The short version: a pool table has six pockets, a snooker table six smaller ones, a bumper pool table two, and a carom table none.
How to play carom billiards
These steps follow the USBA three-cushion rules, which also cover the basics shared by every carom game.
- Lag for the break: Each player puts a cue ball on the head string and shoots it to the foot cushion and back. The ball that stops nearer the head cushion wins. A lag that touches a long cushion before the foot cushion, hits the red, or jumps the table loses.
- Pick your ball: The lag winner chooses whether to break or make the other player break, and also chooses which cue ball to use for the whole game. You only ever strike your own cue ball. Shooting the wrong one is a foul.
- Set up the break: The red goes on the foot spot and the opponent's cue ball on the head spot. The breaker's cue ball goes on the head string 18.25 cm (7 3/16 in) to the left or right of the head spot.
- Break: The opening shot must hit the red first. Miss the red and the inning ends. After the break, either the red or the opponent's ball can be your first object ball.
- Score and keep shooting: Each count is one point and you stay at the table until you fail to score or foul. The next player plays the balls exactly where they stop.
- Play to a set total: Games run to an agreed number of points. At world level that's 40 or 50 (more on that below); club games are often shorter and handicapped.
Notice what's missing: ball in hand. A miss or a foul just ends your inning, and the other player has to deal with the balls as they lie. That's why carom players spend so much effort leaving a hard position when they can't see a point.
Three-cushion rules: what counts as a point
The rule fits in a sentence: your cue ball must touch both object balls and make at least three cushion impacts before it touches the second one. Beginners trip on the details, so here they are.
- The three impacts don't have to be on three different cushions. Two on one cushion and one on another counts. So does three on the same cushion, in theory.
- The cushions can come at any point before the second ball. All three before the first ball, all three between the balls, or any split (one, then the first ball, then two more) are all good.
- It's three impacts, not three rails touched in a row. A ball that rides along one cushion counts as one impact on that cushion, however long it stays there.
- Cushion contacts after the cue ball has hit the second ball don't help. They come too late.
- The shot isn't over until all three balls stop moving and spinning.
The cue ball hitting the first object ball, which then knocks into the second ball, doesn't score. Your cue ball has to make both contacts itself. That separates carom from pool, where object balls hitting other balls is the whole game.
Fouls in three-cushion
A foul ends your inning. Under USBA rules there's no point deduction and no ball in hand; the incoming player shoots the balls as they lie (a ball that left the table gets spotted). The fouls that matter in a casual game:
| Foul | What happens |
|---|---|
| Touching any ball with your hand, clothing, cue or chalk | Inning ends; the moved ball stays where it went |
| Shooting with neither foot on the floor | Inning ends |
| Shooting the wrong cue ball | Inning ends; points made before that stroke stand |
| Jumping a ball off the table, or a ball stopping on top of a cushion | Inning ends; the ball is spotted |
| Push shot or double hit | Inning ends |
| Shooting while any ball is still moving or spinning | Inning ends |
| Shooting straight into a cushion your cue ball is frozen against | Inning ends (a masse away from it is allowed) |
| Missing the red on the break | Inning ends |
One rule pool players don't expect: when your cue ball comes to rest touching another ball, you can either play away from it or have the touching balls spotted. Under the USBA rule, the red goes to the foot spot, your cue ball to the head spot, and the opponent's ball to the center spot.
Straight rail, balkline, one-cushion and other carom games
Three-cushion is the main game today, but it's the last step of a longer story. Each newer game was added because players got too good at the older one.
| Game | What scores | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Straight rail (free game) | Cue ball hits both balls, nothing else required | The oldest form. Experts could nurse the balls along a rail almost forever. |
| Balkline | Same as straight rail, but lines divide the table and you may only score once or twice inside a zone before a ball has to leave | UMB versions use lines 47 cm or 71 cm from the cushions; the American 18.2 game used 18-inch lines |
| One-cushion | Cue ball touches at least one cushion before the second ball | A middle step that's good practice for three-cushion |
| Three-cushion | At least three cushion impacts before the second ball | The game the UMB and USBA run world and national titles in |
| Artistic billiards | Set trick shots, each with a point value | Played mainly in France, Belgium and the Netherlands |
| Four-ball | Cue ball contacts two other balls (all three scores two points) | Four balls (usually two reds). Big in Japan and Korea, where Korean rules penalize hitting the opponent's cue ball. |
| Five-ball | A numbered five-ball carom game | Developed by Aramith's maker and the Dutch federation to bring beginners into carom |
If you just want to try carom with a friend, start with straight rail or one-cushion. Three-cushion is so hard at first that a brand-new player can go many innings without a point.
Match length and what good averages look like
Carom players judge each other by average: points divided by innings. Run three points, then miss twice, and you've scored 3 in 3 innings, an average of 1.000.
In three-cushion, an average around 1 is national-class play and 1.5 or better is world-class, according to the long-standing figures on Wikipedia's three-cushion page. Most new players' averages start with a zero: one point in five innings is 0.200. The best single-run records sit in the high 20s.
World events are short by pool standards. Under the UMB's 3-cushion World Championship rules (December 2025 edition), group matches go to 40 points with an equalizing inning, so the player who broke second always gets the same number of turns. Knockout matches from the last 32 go to 50 points with no equalizing inning. A 40-second shot clock runs on every shot, with two time-outs per player that add another 40 seconds. Equipment is tightly controlled too: the 2025 rules name Simonis cloth and Aramith balls for the whole event.
Raymond Ceulemans of Belgium won 21 UMB world three-cushion titles, the record. Dick Jaspers and Frederic Caudron are two names you'll hear in almost any modern broadcast.
Carom vs pool: the differences that matter
| Carom | Pool | |
|---|---|---|
| Pockets | None | Six |
| Table | 10 by 5 ft, heated slate | 7, 8 or 9 ft, unheated |
| Balls | 3 (61.5 mm) | 16 (57.15 mm) |
| Cue | Usually 54 to 56 in, tip 11 to 12 mm | Usually 58 in, tip 12 to 13 mm |
| Scoring | Cue ball contacts both balls | Object balls into pockets |
| After a miss | Opponent plays the balls as they lie | Same, but scratches and fouls give ball in hand in most games |
| What it trains | Cue ball paths, speed, spin off cushions | Potting, position for the next ball |
The cloth matters more than the table size. Carom tables use fast cloth made for the job (Simonis's current carom cloth is the 330 Rapide), and the heat keeps it dry so a long three-rail route rolls the same in the last game as the first. Our pool vs billiards vs snooker page covers snooker and English billiards as well.
Can you play carom on a pool table?
Yes, as practice, with a catch: the pockets keep swallowing balls and the cushions break at every pocket mouth. Use three pool balls (the cue ball, a second cue ball or a marked solid, and a red-ish ball like the 3), set them on the head spot, head string and foot spot as in the break setup above, and play straight rail or one-cushion. A ball that drops just comes back to its spot, which is our house rule, not an official one.
Three-cushion on a pool table works too, but pick shots that stay away from the pockets, because a pocket mouth is a gap in the cushion that kills a route. The real payoff is the diamond systems. Three-cushion players invented them to calculate three-rail paths, and the same arithmetic gives you your kicks in pool. Start with our diamond system guide, then kick shots.
Practicing alone? Our list of pool games to play alone has drills that build the same cue ball control.
Where to play carom billiards in the US
Carom tables are rare in the US, and you'll mostly find them in a few dedicated rooms in big cities. The United States Billiard Association is the US governing body for carom. It formed in 1988 when two older groups merged: the Billiard Federation of the USA, founded in 1966 and accepted that year as the UMB's North American affiliate, and the American Billiard Association, founded in 1968 to run three-cushion tournaments around the Midwest. The 2021 USBA national three-cushion championship was held at Carom Cafe Billiards in Flushing, New York.
One warning: the old USBA web address, usba.net, no longer belongs to the association and now shows unrelated gambling pages. Don't send money or personal details through it. A room that keeps a carom table or a local three-cushion player is the most reliable lead to tournaments near you.
Buying a carom table for home is a specialist order from a carom table maker. It needs a 10-foot table, room to cue around it, and a heater circuit, so for most pool players a session at a carom room is the better way to try the game first.
Sources
- UMB World Rules of Carom Billiard (table, balls, heating, lighting, balkline, one- and three-cushion definitions)
- UMB competition rules, including the 3-Cushion World Championship rules (match length, shot clock, equipment)
- USBA Three-Cushion Rules, revised 2009 (archived copy: lag, break, scoring, fouls, frozen balls)
- History of the USBA (archived copy)
- Aramith carom ball range (61.5 mm sets, five-ball game)
- Simonis carom cloth
- Wikipedia: Carom billiards and Four-ball billiards (cue ranges, history, regional games)
Our picks
Links open the current selection and price on Amazon so you can compare real reviews before buying.
Aramith Premier Carom Ball Set
A 61.5 mm three-ball setReal carom needs carom-size balls: a white and a yellow cue ball plus the red, at 61.5 mm. Aramith is the ball brand named in the UMB's world championship rules, and the Premier set is part of its 61.5 mm carom range. Pool balls are the wrong size for a carom table, so this is the first thing to buy.
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Predator 1080 Pure Chalk Set
Chalk for heavy-spin strokesThree-cushion is played with a lot of side spin, and a miscue ends your inning on the spot. Good chalk on a small carom tip is the cheapest insurance against it.
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Predator Second Skin Billiard Glove
Smooth bridge on fast clothA stretch three-finger glove that keeps the shaft sliding the same way through a long session. On a heated carom table, where you're stroking long follows and draws across 10 feet of cloth, an even bridge hand makes a real difference.
Check price on AmazonFrequently asked questions
What is the billiard game with no pockets called?
Carom billiards. It's played on a pocketless table with three balls, and you score by making your cue ball contact both other balls. Three-cushion, straight rail, balkline and four-ball are all carom games.
Why do some pool tables have no pockets?
A table with no pockets isn't a pool table; it's a carom billiards table. Carom scores by contact between balls, not by pocketing, so the table has a continuous cushion instead of pocket openings.
How many balls are used in carom billiards?
Three: a white cue ball, a yellow cue ball (each player uses one for the whole game) and a red object ball. Four-ball carom, popular in Japan and Korea, adds a second red.
Do the three cushions have to be different rails?
No. Three-cushion counts impacts, not rails. Two impacts on one cushion and one on another is a legal count, as long as all three happen before the cue ball touches the second ball.
Is there ball in hand in carom billiards?
No. A miss or a foul ends your inning and the next player shoots the balls where they stopped. Balls that leave the table, or balls frozen together if the player chooses, are spotted on fixed spots.
Why are carom tables heated?
The heater dries the slate and cloth so the balls roll the same way all session. UMB rules require a thermostat-controlled electric heater for official tables but don't set a temperature.
Is three-cushion harder than pool?
Point for point, yes. Scoring once per inning on average is national-class play in three-cushion, while a good pool player expects to run several balls per turn. The games reward different skills.
Are carom balls bigger than pool balls?
Yes. Carom balls are 61 to 61.5 mm and 205 to 220 g. American pool balls are 2 1/4 inches (57.15 mm), so carom balls won't play properly on a pool table and pool balls are too small for a carom table.
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