Five-pins Totally Explained

Everything about Five-pins totally explained

Five-pins (Italian cinque birilli), also known as Italian stecca, five-pin billiards, 5-pins, 5-quillas, Italian billiards (Italian biliardo all'italiana), and simply Italiana, with a variant known as nine-pins or goriziana, is a usually carom but sometimes pocket form of cue sport, popular especially in Italy and Argentina but also in some other parts of Latin America and Europe, with international, televised professional tournaments.

History

Until the late 1980s, the game (with some rules differences) was a form of pocket billiards, known in English as Italian skittle pool, and was principally played in pubs, with an object ball that was smaller than the two cue balls. billiards table, with standardized playing surface dimensions of 2.84 m (approximately 9-1/3 ft) by 1.42 m (approx. 4-2/3 ft), plus/minus 5 mm, from to cushion. The slate of the table must be heated to about 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) above room temperature, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes the table play "faster".
   Like most other carom games, five-pins requires three standard carom billiard balls of equal diameter: a red, a plain white for the first player or team, and a yellow or spotted-white cue ball for the second player or team.
   As the name implies, the game makes use of five upright pins called skittles in English (so-called since at least 1634) There are traditionally four white pins, and one red.
   Each player uses a cue stick to shoot the appropriate cue ball; average cue length is 140 cm (about 55 in.)

Rules

Though there are variants in Central and South America, the Italian five-pins rules are the best codified. Because the Italian-rules championships organized by the Italian Federation of Billiard Sport (FIBiS) are international, televised events, and often hosted outside of Italy, the FIBiS rules are the global de facto standard,

Play

The game is played by two players or by two teams (a pair of doubles partners most commonly, but also larger teams). Each player or team is assigned one of the two cue balls; this is the only cue ball they may hit with the cue stick. Determining who goes first can be done by any means (usually, but also coin toss, tournament stipulations about player order, etc.) The first player or team always uses the white cue ball. Unlike in many games, shots are always taken in rotation - the same player or team never shoots twice in a row even if they've scored (other than if the opponent fouled before actually shooting when their turn came up, such as by moving one of the balls accidentally). Play continues until one player or team wins by being the first to achieve or exceed a specific number of points (usually 50 or 60), either agreed upon beforehand by the players, or set by tournament organizers.

Each white pin is worth 2 points.
The red pin is worth 4 points, if white pins were also knocked over.
The red pin is worth 8 points, if it's the only pin knocked down (by the cue ball going between the set of pins narrowly missing all of the whites).
Knocking over pins with the object ball or one's own cue ball doesn't earn the shooter any points, and with the latter is a foul that awards points to the opponent. The acceptable means of knocking over pins include are any that result from hitting the opponent's object ball first with one's own, and not hitting the pins with one's own cue ball. For example, one can simply send the opponent's cue ball into the pins, send the opponent's cue ball into the red object ball and have the object ball hit the pins, or hit the opponent's cue ball and then the object ball with one's own cue ball and send the object ball into the pins.

The object ball itself is also worth points:

If struck by the opponent's cue ball (after the shooter strikes the opponent's cue ball with his/her own), it's worth 3 points (this is known as a casin or in broader terminology a combination shot).

If struck by the shooter's cue ball (after the shooter strikes the opponent's cue ball with his/her own), it's worth 4 points (this is considered a true / or carambola in this game's nomenclature).

If both a casin and a carambola are achieved in the same shot, only the earliest of the two to occur earns points; they're not combined, though either may still combine with points scored from pins. |- |1996 |Saint-Vincent, Italy |David Martinelli | |- |1997 |Todi, Italy |Gustavo Adrian Zito | |}

In popular culture

Five-pins is a major plot point of the Italian-produced, English-language drama/romance film Bye Bye Baby, which stars Brigitte Nielsen as a professional player. The movie doesn't focus on five-pins, but does demonstrate the game clearly in a few sequences.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Five-pins'.

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