Pool Table Felt Colours Explained — Why Green, Why Blue, and What’s Standard

Why Is Pool Table Cloth Green?

The short answer: history. The earliest billiard tables in 16th-century Europe were designed as indoor alternatives to lawn games like croquet and bowls. The green cloth was chosen to mimic grass, and the convention stuck as the game evolved over the next 400 years.

Green remains the traditional and most widely recognised colour for pool and billiard tables worldwide. For many players, a green table simply looks and feels “right” — and familiarity matters in a sport where your visual reference points for distance and angle are constant.

When Did Blue Cloth Appear?

Blue cloth became widely associated with professional snooker in the 1980s when broadcasters began airing matches in colour. The problem: under the high-intensity studio lighting required for TV cameras of that era, traditional green cloth created excessive glare that was difficult for cameras to handle cleanly. The BBC trialled a speedier blue-green cloth called Strachan 6811 — informally known as “tournament blue” — which reduced glare while photographing sharply in standard definition.

The colour caught on. By the 1990s, blue cloth was associated with high-profile professional events, and many amateur clubs adopted it to give their tables a tournament feel. Today, both green and blue are widely used at all levels.

Standard Colours by Discipline

• Snooker (professional): Tournament blue or blue-green (Strachan 6811 or equivalent) is standard for major televised events. Traditional green is still used at club level and in non-televised competitions.
• American pool (professional): No single mandatory colour — the WPA does not specify cloth colour in its equipment standards. Competition tables appear in green, blue, and occasionally red or charcoal.
• English pool: Green or blue, depending on the club and equipment manufacturer. There is no governing-body mandate on colour.
• Carom billiards: Green is traditional and remains the most common, though blue cloth is used in some major European tournaments.

Does Cloth Colour Affect Play?

Colour itself does not change how the cloth plays — what matters is the cloth type (napped vs. worsted) and quality. However, cloth colour has real practical effects:

• Chalk residue visibility: Blue chalk shows up less on blue cloth; blue chalk on green cloth leaves very visible marks. Match your chalk colour to your cloth colour where you can.
• Ball visibility: Yellow balls are high-contrast on green cloth; they can be harder to read on blue. Tournament organisers sometimes choose ball sets based on cloth colour.
• Lighting interaction: Very dark cloth colours (burgundy, black, charcoal) look striking but absorb light, making it harder to read subtle roll lines at low light levels.

Buying Considerations

For home tables, colour is largely personal preference — choose what you like. For club or commercial tables, green or blue are both safe choices that will look professional and feel familiar to most players. Niche colours (red, gold, black) are eye-catching but can feel gimmicky over time and may affect resale value.

Cloth quality and type matter far more than colour: a fast worsted cloth in any colour outperforms a slow napped cloth of any colour for serious play. Our pool table buyer guides cover both new tables and replacement cloths in detail. For more on table specifications, see our standard pool table size guide and our full range of billiards equipment articles.