When playing away from a touching ball, the player is not required to strike another object ball. If the cue ball finishes in contact with an object ball, a touching ball is called. The tip of the cue must only make contact with the cue ball and is never used for striking any of the reds or colours directly. Snooker accessories include: chalk for the tip of the cue, used to help apply spin on the cue ball; various sorts of rest, such as the swan or spider for playing shots that are difficult to play by hand; extensions for lengthening the cue stick; a triangle for racking the reds; and a scoreboard which is typically attached to a wall near the snooker table. At the start of a frame, the object balls are positioned on the table as shown in illustration A. Starting with the cue ball in the "D", the first player executes a break-off shot by striking the cue ball with the tip of their cue, aiming to hit any of the red balls in the triangular pack. If both players agree, the balls are returned to their starting positions and the frame is restarted (known as a "re-rack"), with the same player taking the break-off shot as before.

Certain other events, such as those in the Players Series, use the one-year ranking list to qualify; these use the results of the current season to denote participants. In the 2022-23 season, only two professional ranking tournaments were played outside the UK, the European Masters in Fürth and the German Masters in Berlin, while lucrative Chinese events remained off the calendar. 30 were seeking jobs outside the sport due to lack of earning potential from tournaments. Billiards is a cue sport played on a rectangular table with pockets, where players use cue sticks to strike balls into the pockets. As the site develops, features such as "Top 50 Players" and "MetroPool" will be reintegrated into the site. The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushions is 2 ft 10.0 in (86.4 cm). The first case is billiards, and we’ll consider a completely idealised billiard table: completely smooth, flat and rigid, completely round balls with completely known properties (so how elastic they are etc), and the same for the cushions. Most automobile "touch up" paints are still made from lacquer because of its fast drying, easy application, and superior adhesion properties - regardless of the material used for the original finish.

Players will often play on even when there are not enough points available for them to win, hoping to force their opponent into playing foul shots by laying snookers. The game continues until one of the players either pots the black ball to win the frame, what is billiards or commits a foul (losing the frame). Each segment of the string (bead) represents one point as the players can move one or several beads along the string. The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "snooker", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball. A traditional snooker scoreboard resembles an abacus and records the points scored by each player for the current frame in units and twenties, as well as the frame scores.

The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after they are potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. When the final ball is potted, the player with the most points wins the frame. Points in snooker are gained from potting the object balls in the correct sequence. If there are not enough points remaining on the table for a player to win the frame, that player may offer to concede the frame while at the table (but not while their opponent is still at the table); a frame concession is a common occurrence in professional snooker. The process of alternately potting reds and colours continues until the striker fails to pot the desired object ball or commits a foul-at which point the opponent comes to the table to start the next turn-or when there are no red balls remaining.