Full Size Snooker Table

Yes You Can Have a Snooker Table in Your Home

If you go into any pub chances are there are two sports items that you automatically know you will find, a dart board and a full size snooker table. Snooker and the English pub are an iconic part of the scenery, but few of us have the space to have a full size 12 foot long snooker table in our den or family.For those of us who do it can be a great way to get the guys to spend a lot of time at your house, in fact you may never get rid of the especially if you keep plenty of beer handy. When you play on a full size snooker table you get the chance to play with a full set of 15 red balls as well as the 6 coloured snooker pool balls, normally this is something you only get to do when you are in the pub.

If you really want to fit a full 3.6 m (12 feet) table into your home you are going to need a room that measures at least 6.7 m (22 feet) by 4.8 m (16 feet) to be able to have enough room to maneuver around for any shot using a full length snooker cue.

While full size snooker tables are all well and good the simple fact is that very few people have a home with the room to have one. However there are alternatives to having a full size table, you can buy them in smaller sizes that will fit in most homes with a larger family room or den. You can buy snooker tables that are 2.1 m (7 Feet) or 2.4 m (8 feet) long as well as smaller fold up versions that you can slide out the way when they are not being used.

One thing to remember is that standard snooker and pool cues are 145 cm (57 inches) long so in order to give players enough room to make any shot you should have at least ten feet of open space on all sides of the table. If you do not allow for this much room it may make it impossible to play certain shots and can make the game a lot less fun to play.

The design of your snooker table will have a lot to do with how much you have to pay for it. Unless you intend to buy one of the folding tables all snooker table have a slate felt cover slate playing surface the only real difference are the thickness, which ranges from 2.5 cm (1 inch) to 4.4 cm (1.75 inches), also the smaller table usually come with a one piece slate be while the full size snooker table comes in two or more pieces to make it easier to assemble.

Each piece of slate is carefully cut and fitted to make sure that there are no seams that will affect the perfectly flat playing surface once the table is assembled.

Where the real price difference comes in, is the frame itself and how fancy you want it to be. Full size snooker tables generally have 8 legs, while the smaller ones only have 4.

You can choose to keep the price down by settling for plain straight legs with a veneer surface or you can opt for solid hardwood that has been carved and finished with varnish and pay as much as you can afford.

One thing to consider in all of this is the weight of the table and how strong your floor is, the full size table weighs in at around 453 Kg (1000 pounds) and the 2.4 m (8 foot) table weights about half of this. The good news about this is that since the table sits on a number of legs all of that weight is spread out and the average floor should have no problem supporting the weight, but you should probably have your floor checked before you buy your new snooker table.

Other than the table itself there are a few other things you will need to purchase to play snooker and to get the most out of your new table. You will of course need a full set of snooker balls, and yes even though you can play with only ten balls on the smaller table you can still play with a full set if you want to. You are going to need a selection of full length snooker cues and a shorter one for the break, you will of course need a snooker cue rack to store them all in. Lastly you will need a bridge or two for those really difficult shots and some cue chalk to keep the snooker cue tips ready at all times.