Russian Pyramid — Quite possibly the best billiards type game I’ve played.

I consider myself fortunate these day, I’m my relatively new rental home in Central Asia, lurking in the basement is a full size tournament spec snooker table.

While I’m not the most naturally gifted player to ever pick up a cue I do enjoy cue sports, billiards, whatever you want to call them.

Being a brit I’m used to playing snooker or pool. Over the years I’ve also played billiards and bar billiards a couple of times and thought I’d seen just about everything that could be played with a cue and a billiards table.

As they say every day is a school day and what I was lucky enough to find is a game very specific to Russian and ex Soviet countries called Russian pyramid.

I believe the game is known to some in the states and there is a world championship which is won predominantly by Russians or players of russian descent.

So what makes it worth writing about and sharing with the world?

Well for several reasons it’s a real challenge.

The game has roughly three same rules as pool when it comes to foul play, and like all billiards games the objective is to put more balls than your competitor.

That’s where the similarities end. The game starts with a yellow cue ball and 14 white object balls, there is no black.

The winner is the first to put 8 balls, there is no preferred sequence and no need to nominate pockets.

So far so easy right? Well it’s about to get challenging.

Those balls, well they are 25 percent larger than a standard snooker or pool ball.

The pockets, well they are 5 percent smaller than those on a standard snooker or pool table.

This is where the challenge, the fun and to be honest the utter frustration comes in.

Potting balls and playing well becomes a real art. Every pot has to be 100 percent lined up with the pocket.

If it’s not then you simply either leaving the pot on for your opponent or watching helplessly as the ball bounces back out of the jaws.

So far its provided hours of fun, frustration, triumph, challenges and learning.

If you have an interest in billiards in general and access to a table, check what’s availible, balls are generally cheap, it’s real challenge and one thing I can guarantee is when this quarantine situation ends it will provide hours of fun with friends.