Blackball (pool) number "8" (a holdover from kelly pool), though numberless variants are not unknown. British pool tables come in 6 × 3 foot (1.8 × 0.9 m) or 7 × 3.5 ft (2.12 × 1.06 m) varieties, with 7 feet being the regulation size for league play. The table has pockets just larger than the balls and rounded, as in the game of snooker, whereas the international-style (or "American-style") table has pockets significantly wider, with pointed . Tournament rules may require the presence of more than one type of (mechanical bridge), as in snooker. There are two competing standards bodies that
1952 World Snooker Championship scored one of the early snooker maximum breaks in a practice frame at the Beaufort Club in London. An official of the BACC later examined the table and found it slightly over the standard size and so the break was not accepted as official. At the time Joe Davis held the record for the highest official break of 146. Lindrum did not play in the 1951/1952 News of the World Snooker Tournament, his last competitive tournament being the 1951 World Snooker Championship. In that championship he had lost to Walter Donaldson in the semi-final, Donaldson taking a winning 36–25 lead