Top 10 free online pool & snooker games

The distinction between pool and snooker is tremendously complex, but it can be summarised for convenience's sake as follows: the former game is played by Americans, the latter by the British.

Both involve wacking a number of coloured orbs into each other with a pointy stick, in the forlorn hope that they might end up in one of the pockets round the edge of the table. And both are rather popular in Flash-based form on the internet.

Here are the 10 most engrossing cue sports hits we've come across, arranged in no particular order. Hit the jump for exploding billiards, rounded pool tables and breathless head-to-head matches.

You'll notice that some of the entries strain the definitions of "pool" and "snooker" slightly. You may even care. We don't.