It's interesting to see what different countries call the same game. These differences can become more confusing when looking at playing the game online because the internet is such a global place and everyone wants to call the game by the same name that they know locally. Yesterday I saw a Womans Billiards Championship on TV which was also promoting itself as a pool game when the players were playing what I would call 9 ball.

9 ball is the game played mostly in the US and is very differnt to the 8 ball or pool game as it is known in most other countries (e.g. the UK).

Billiards has become more of a generic term to cover all of the pool / 9 ball games although billiards was originally a game where only three balls are on the table and points are scored for different combinations of things happening to the balls on the table (not always based around sinking the balls).