5 birilli, Italian billiards
Five-pin billiards online
- Cue
- 3 balls
- 5 pins
The most played billiards game in Italy, and the heart of this Italian billiards game. The five-pin table has no pockets; on it are three balls — yours, your opponent’s and the small red ball — and five pins standing in a cross in the middle.
You never aim at the pins directly: you hit your opponent’s ball and send it, often off one or more cushions, into the pins or onto the red. A white pin is worth 2 points, the red centre pin 4, and 10 if it falls alone. Knock pins down with your own ball and the points go to your opponent. Players take one shot each, and the first to reach the target score wins.
It plays straight away in your browser, with nothing to download. To play without a connection too, download and install it as an app, on phone, tablet and computer: free, and without going through an app store.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Online multiplayer
- Plays in your browser
Five-pin rules
- Sets to 25–100
- FIBiS rules, art. 7–24
Italian billiards on a table without pockets: three balls and five pins in a cross in the middle. Each player has a cue ball (white or yellow); the other player’s ball is the object ball, the red is shared. One shot each, whatever happens.
Red centre pin: 4 with other pins, 10 if it falls alone.
Scoring
- 2White pinEach of the four outer pins
- 4Red centre pinWhen it falls with other pins
- 10Red centre, aloneWhen it is the only pin down
- 4Your ball on the redYour ball hits the red after the object ball
- 3Object ball on the redOnly the first contact with the red counts
Fouls
Points of the shot + 2 to the opponent, who gets a free ball.
- Wrong first contact
- Missing the object ball, or hitting the red first (the red then counts 2).
- Pins or jumps first
- Knocking pins, or jumping over pins or the red, before touching the object ball.
- Ball off the table
- Any ball leaving the table.
- Ball in hand
- From the opening or a free ball, your ball must not hit a cushion of its own half before reaching the opponent’s ball.
- Your own pins
- Pins knocked by your own ball in a valid shot: every point goes to the opponent (no penalty).
Free ball and opening
- After a foul the opponent places their ball anywhere in the half opposite the offender’s ball (in the lower half if that ball lies across the centre line), and may have the offender’s ball put on the opening spot near the upper short cushion (the lower one if the red is on it). Not when the offender’s ball left the table: it is already spotted near the short cushion of the half opposite your ball.
- The first shot of each set is played from the lower half and cannot score: any points go to the opponent.
- Your ball must hit the opponent’s ball first (directly or off cushions); then the object ball knocks pins or hits the red, or your ball hits the red after it.
- The first to reach the target wins the set; points beyond it are lost: a 4-point stroke at 48, in a set to 50, ends it at 50.
The official rules
The rules above are the ones Biliardo Plus applies in a match, in short, and they are in the game too, in the Rules window. The full text is the federation’s (in Italian for FIBiS):
