A new game of Pyramids!

I was recently invited by my friend Vladimir Nikiforov, President of the Russian Federation (FBSR) to have the opportunity to visit for my first time, the beautiful and historical city of St Petersburg.

During 4 days, the International Pyramids Federation have organised the first « Dynamic Pyramids World Championship »

I was informed that this is a new version of the traditional Pyramids game.

Its creator, Alexandre Pukhlenko, explained to me of the reasons of such an evolution of the game.

« The traditional game of Pyramids is a game for players, but not for spectators, as sometimes the players are often looking for safety shots that can result in the game maybe become boring to watch.

The Pyramids game was in need to be changed for the overall improvement of the sport, to allow all players and spectators a far more dynamic game, with the result of a quicker frame. »

The TV Channels, in my opinion, have also influenced this decision to propose changed rules for a new game.

To complete the modifications, Alexander has in fact mixed the rules of Pyramids and Pool, to form a game with a cue ball which is always the same ball, possibilities of an in off with the cue ball in hand and the possibility to pot the object balls.

As there are 15 white balls in the triangle at the start of the frame, the first to pot 8 balls wins the frame.

I am sure that our own IBSF Billiards Champions, after a few adaptations due the size of the balls and the pockets very narrow openings, could be brilliant players !

According to Alexander, it’s become far more attractive and it’s possible now with such rules to control in a better way the duration of matches and the competition.

This new Pyramids game has been tested since 1996, first in St. Petersburg (white nights tournament) in Russia, then exported to all the countries where Pyramids Billards is popular.

21 countries representing 61 players were participating in this first Championship.

Many countries here are not yet IBSF members, even though Snooker is appreciated by players and transmitted all over Central Asia by Eurosport.

Alexander also advised me that in the near future, a time limit (35 seconds per shot and between 15 and 20 minutes per frames) could be in the rules, to ensure the maximum duration of a match.

However the problem is not yet solved, as with this new version of the game, there are now 5 different versions based around Pyramids.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to fully appreciate how popular Pyramids has become, as Alexander and Vladimir took me to a leisure complex with more than 8O tables (together with 4 Snooker tables and 1 Carom )

Then I visited a huge casino, bar restaurant and billards complex, that was part of a group, which had more than 150 tables !

This is the kind of images and figures which are indeed very impressive, and pushes me hard to find the link that can be established between our two sports, and of the best way forward to one day get all these players playing both sports.