The World Snooker Championship first took place in 1927. Joe Davis, a key figure and pioneer in the early growth of the sport, won fifteen successive world championships between 1927 and 1946. The "modern era" of snooker began in 1969 after the broadcaster BBC commissioned the television series Pot Black, later airing daily coverage of the World Championship, which was first televised in 1978. The most prominent players of the modern era are Ray Reardon in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, each winning at least six world titles. The World Snooker Championship moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has been staged ever since, and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to receive daily television coverage. In April 2013, Reg Bamford of South Africa beat Ahmed Nasr of Egypt in the final of the Golf Croquet World Championship in Cairo, becoming the first person to simultaneously hold the title in both association croquet and golf croquet. A Women's Professional Snooker Championship (now the World Women's Snooker Championship) was created in 1934 for top female players.

The main professional tour is open to both male and female players, and there is a separate women's tour organised by World Women's Snooker. Played in 1926 and 1927, the first World Snooker Championship-then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker-was won by Joe Davis. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional English billiards and snooker player himself, Davis raised the game from a recreational pastime to a professional sporting activity. Cigarette brand Embassy sponsored the World Snooker Championship for 30 consecutive years from 1976 to 2005, one of the longest-running deals in British sports sponsorship. A snooker ball set consists of twenty-two unmarked balls: fifteen reds, six colour balls, and one white cue ball. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls-a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black-collectively called the colours. Davis won all fifteen tournaments held until 1946, when he retired from the championships.

An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. There was a revival in the 1890s, but from then on, croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players. In the same year, the 1969 World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format, with eight players competing. In 1985, an estimated 18.5 million viewers stayed up until the early hours of the morning to watch the conclusion of the World Championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis, a record viewership in the UK for any broadcast on BBC Two or any broadcast after midnight. UK-the BBC dedicated 400 hours to snooker in 2007, compared to just 14 minutes 40 years earlier. Competitive snooker is also available to non-professional players, including seniors and people with disabilities. The popularity of snooker has led to the creation of many variations based on the standard game, but using different rules or equipment, including six-red snooker, the short-lived "snooker plus", and the more recent Snooker Shoot Out version.

Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128-player professional tour is financially unsustainable. Len Ganley, John Street, and John Williams together refereed 17 of the first 20 World Snooker finals held at the Crucible Theatre. In the same year, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in the World Snooker Tour, pledging to revitalise the "moribund" professional game. The World Championship, the UK Championship, and the Masters together make up the Triple Crown Series, what is billiards considered by many players to be the most highly valued titles. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. I’m writing a passage about Morgan Earp who became obsessed with billiards in his late twenties. In the 1870s, billiards was popular among British Army officers stationed in Jubbulpore, India, and several variations of the game were devised during this time. Byrne's Treasury of Trick Shots in Pool and Billiards. Each of the 76 shots has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a four-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an eleven-point maximum. These rules are similar to the ones used today, although rules for a minimal point penalty were imposed later.