Game play and equipment[edit]

The exact rules of game play, and whether these rules were consistent from region to region, are
unknown. English rules recorded in Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester (1674), for an
indoor version played on a billiard table, indicate that the general offensive goal of the game is to
use a club-like cue, called the mace or tack, to drive one's own ball through a hoop, called
the pass, port, argolis, or ring, thus earning a chance to shoot at the upright king pin or sprigg,
and to use defensive position play to thwart an opponent's ability to do likewise, e.g.
by kissing an opposing ball to an unfavorable location.[11][12] Points were scored for touching the
king pin with one's ball, without knocking the pin over (which would cost the loss of a
point).[11] Games were played to a set number of points, such as 5 or 7, and could be between
two (or sometimes more) individual competitors or doubles teams, each with one ball.[11] Object
balls were not used, in Cotton's work or in any contemporary illustrations. Cotton's indoor version
made use of pockets in the sides of the table as hazards, with additional scoring
opportunities,[11] and some outdoor ground-billiards courts may have used golf-style holes for the
same purpose.[6]
An outdoor form of the game that survived, sometimes without a king pin, until the early 20th
century was trucco, among other names, with rules well-documented in works like
the Victorianadvice book Enquire Within upon Everything, which also called it simply "lawn
billiards" (and which covered the related game croquet separately). Trucco, in this well-
documented form, was played in a round area at least 8 yards (7.3 m) in diameter, by two
players (or more, in two teams). The game used large, heavy balls and iron-headed maces like
giant spoons which were used to toss rather than roll one's ball toward the port, by this stage a
freely rotating metal ring mounted on a stake, and almost flush with the ground. Scoring shots
included passing one's ball through the port, and striking an opponent's ball with one's own
(a cannon or carom shot, in billiards terms, or in croquet called a roquet). Part of the strategy of
this form of the game was using cannon shots to get close enough to the port for a shot at it to
be easier (failing to go dead-center would likely result in not just a miss but rotation of the ring to
an unpredictable position, or even in knocking the ring down, which was a foul with a
penalty).[13] A prior form, illustrated in an early-17th-century English painting, shows a smaller and
rectangular court, and only one ball between two players. Some continental forms did involve a
king pin.
The balls, mace, and other equipment were probably most commonly made of wood. The
Complete Gamester, covering only the indoor variant, favored by the well-to-do, recommended
hardwood such as lignum vitae for maces, and expensive ivory for balls and other
equipment,[11] but ivory's fragility would have made it impractical for the larger-scale and
necessarily more forceful outdoor version of the game. Enquire Within suggested lignum vitae
or boxwood for the balls. Some illustrations suggest port hoops made of decorative wrought iron,
while others are clearly of wood, stone, or another carved substance, and later examples are thin
and wiry, similar to modern croquet hoops (wickets). The nature of the mace appears to move
from crude to elegant over time, with earlier illustrations showing simple hammer-like
implements, with players stooping, while later woodcuts and tapestries show a long, thin device
more like a golf club, and in basic form very similar to later, more delicate and ornate maces
used for table billiards before leather-tipped straight cues became the norm in those games.
Similarly, the nature of the playing court appears to evolve from any informal patch of ground to
courts of turf or clay bounded by low (often wicker) barriers,[3]:4–47 though trucco, as an informal
game played mostly at pubs and country houses, could be played anywhere the ground was
relatively flat (the conventional Victorian rules simply called for at least 4 yards (3.7 m) from the
outer edge of the playing area to the ring).[13]
Most woodcuts and other illustrations of the game show two players. A few show more, but it is
unclear if these represent teams, doubles, or individual players.

Modern revival[edit]
A mid-20th-century version of ground billiards (aside from the aforementioned box hockey) has
been played on a 30 by 60 ft (approximately 9 by 19 m) clay court.[1]:117 This may have been a
croquet influence, as roque, an early-20th-century Olympic variant of croquet, used a court of the
same dimensions.[14]

"King pin"[edit]
The term "king pin" or "kingpin", which today may refer to essential components of any system,
from bosses of organized crime syndicates, to the main support bolt in the axle assemblies or
"trucks" of skateboards, appears to derive from its usage as a key component of ground billiards,
early skittle bowling, and related games.[15] There are some records that some of the early king
pins in ground billiard games were made of bone.[16]