Snooker The sport has become increasingly popular in China. The origin of snooker dates back to the latter half of the 19th century. In the 1870s, billiards was a popular activity amongst British Army officers stationed in India and several variations of the game were devised during this time. One such variation originated at the officers' mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in 1875, which combined the rules of two pocket billiards games, pyramid and life pool. The former was played with fifteen red balls and one black positioned in a triangle, while the latter involved the potting of designated coloured
Snooker who played. In 1959, Davis introduced a variation of the game known as "snooker plus" (see the "Variations" section below) to try to improve the game's popularity by adding two extra colours, but it never caught on. A major advance occurred in 1969, when David Attenborough commissioned the snooker television series "Pot Black" to demonstrate the potential of colour television with the green table and multi-coloured balls being ideal for showing off the advantages of colour broadcasting. The series became a ratings success and was for a time the second-most popular show on BBC Two. Interest in the game increased