Anastasia Luppova, Russia, European Champion And Winner Of World Championship, As Well As Miss Billiards 2009 Tournament

A billiard table or billiards table (or more specifically a pool table) is a bounded table on which billiards-type games (cue sports) are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables, regardless of whether for carom billiards, pool or, provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole elevated above the floor. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
History
The earliest known billiard table, in the royal court of Louis XI of France (1461–1483), was simply lawn brought indoors and placed on a large, everyday table. Rail-bounded, cloth-covered tables specifically for billiards, with wooden beds rail cushions (made of layered felt, or stuffed with straw), soon evolved as the game's popularity spread among French and later other European aristocrats.