ar X iv : m at h / 05 08 08 9 v 1 [ m at h . PR ] 4 A ug 2 00 5 Position play in carom billiards as a Markov process

Using certain techniques a billiards player can have long series of easy shots — each shot leading to another easy shot— and very high scores. As the usual model for carom billiards assumes a Bernoulli process which does not account for such correlations, it cannot capture this important feature of the game. Modelling carom billiards as a Markov process, the probability to make a shot can be made to depend on the previous shot. The improved agreement with data is an indication that a Markov process indeed captures the effects of position play better. Moreover it is possible to quantify how much a player plays position. Given two players with the same average, one can tell the good shot-maker from the good position player. This can be useful for players (and their coaches) to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.