We've all played pool, or billiards or whatever you want to call it, and it is a game screaming for variety. So why not revolutionize the table? Make it round. The angles would change. It would be a new challenge for the game's master. You would have four pockets instead of six, and the balls would be placed in the center instead of at one end. The circular table might bring about the triangular one, and after that the varieties are infinite. I'd just like to see the faces as people walk into a pool hall and come across the circular table amid all the sameness.
-- dredcat7, Mar 01 2001

Round, hexagonal, zigzag, right-angle, fluorescent.... http://www.prime-leisure.com/models.htm
If you had a glow-in-the-dark tabletop and glowing balls lit from the inside, would you be able to see the shots as lines on the table? [jutta, Mar 01 2001]

Round pool table at O'Malley's, New Zealand http://www.skynet.i...02-nov23-nov10.html
Scroll down past two thirds. (Note picture of a Zorb on the way!) [jutta, Oct 17 2004]

(??) Round pool table at Crooner's, Victoria, Australia http://www.crooners...Rows_galleryList=82
The only one in Victoria, or so they say. [jutta, Oct 17 2004]

(?) Aristrocrat tables, Australia http://www.musichir...istocrat/tables.htm
Makers of pretty much any shape you want. [jutta, Oct 17 2004]

Round Pool Table http://www.webspawn.../airyago/index.html
I started building them in my basement about a year ago. What da ya think? [airyago, Jan 02 2006]

The Y-shaped tables are pretty good actually - some of the snookers you can put your opponent in are truly bizarre!

The circular one is a bit strange to play on though - due to the curvature of the cushions, the balls never go where you think they should go!

There are L-shaped tables as well, although I've yet to try one.
-- cjlove, Mar 01 2001


At my Alma Mater High School, some sophomores built a beautiful elliptical mini-pool table in 1977, it is still in the classroom as an example of putting theories into 3 dimensions. Only played elliptipool twice myself. Seems the Teacher wanted us to study 'n' stuff.
-- thumbwax, Mar 02 2001


Elliptical pool is still two-dimensional.
-- centauri, Mar 02 2001


I'm a conservative. Change = bad. We might as well make circular basketball courts, hexagonal boxing rings, and triangular ping-pong tables.
-- DonutBox, Apr 10 2002


Played on a hexagonal table, in a round frame. The table was pushed right into the corner, but the top could be spun(slowly) round, so you could take a shot. Table was in a pub in rhosneiger, on Anglesea in North Wales.
-- bear4tiger, Apr 24 2003


Evidently bakes, but I am all for new chapes being commonly available for pool. I seem to recall an old video game which your progressed through like a puzzle game, where each level was a new shape of pool table. There wasn't any competition, you lost if you got 3 scratches on one table.
-- 5th Earth, May 28 2004



random, halfbakery