Billiard table ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer, Jr. The New York Times announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used..." A pool table, or pocket billiards table, has six – one at each corner of the table () and one at the midpoint of each of the longer sides ( or ). Pool tables come in different sizes, typically referred to as , , , or tables.
Billiard table less than thick. The flatness of the table must be divergent by no greater than lengthwise and across the width. A table designed for the games snooker and English billiards is usually called a snooker table today, though English billiards pre-dates snooker. The playing area of a tournament snooker table, as standardized by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA or World Snooker) and the amateur International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) which uses WPBSA rules, measures 11 feet 8.5 inches by 5 ft 10 in (356.9 cm by 177.8 cm) with a tolerance of ± 0.5 in (13