Erring too much in this direction is "missing on the professional side of the pocket." It is so called because experienced players understand that on a thin cut, overcutting the object ball to a corner pocket will far more often leave the object ball in an unfavorable position, i.e. along the short rail for the incoming opponent than will an undercut, which often leaves the object ball sitting in front of or nearby the pocket it had been intended for on a miss. The table has six pockets: one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the two longer side cushions. In this version of croquet, there are nine wickets, two stakes, and up to six balls. In the American game, roqueting a ball out of bounds or running a hoop so that the ball goes out of bounds causes the turn to end, and balls that go out of bounds are replaced only nine inches (23 cm) from the boundary rather than one yard (91 cm) as in association croquet. Croquet is popularly believed to be viciously competitive.

Several incomplete sets of this form of croquet are known to exist, and one complete set is still used for demonstration games in the West of Scotland. Are you intrigued by the art of billiards and eager to dive into this classic cue sport? Yale University Art Gallery. Oxford University Croquet Club. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73766. The format did achieve some success but was not afforded the same amount of press attention or status as the regular ranking tournaments. As well as club-level games, county-level tournaments, and leagues, there are regular world championships and international matches between croquet-playing countries. Watching professional players, reading books, and seeking guidance from experienced players or coaches are effective ways to learn advanced strategies. Table tennis is beneficial in so many ways such as improving coordination and balance, developing mental acuity, burning calories, and keeping your brain sharp. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club still has a croquet lawn, but has not hosted any significant tournaments. Croquet was an event at the 1900 Summer Olympics. Roque, an American variation on croquet, was an event at the 1904 Summer Olympics. The 13th Earl developed a variation on croquet named Captain Moreton's Eglinton Castle croquet, which had small bells on the eight hoops "to ring the changes", two pegs, a double hoop with a bell, and two tunnels for the ball to pass through.

In Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary, his definition of "pall-mall" clearly describes a game with similarities to modern croquet: "A play in which the ball is struck with a mallet through an iron ring". The image's caption describes the game as "a curious ancient pastime", confirming that croquet games were not new in early-19th-century England. As of 2023, the Golf Croquet World Champion was Matthew Essick (USA), and the Women's Golf Croquet World Champion was Jamie Gumbrell (Australia). The world's top 10 association croquet players as of October 2023 were Robert Fletcher (Australia), Robert Fulford (England), Paddy Chapman (New Zealand), Jamie Burch (England), Reg Bamford (South Africa), Matthew Essick (USA), Mark Avery (England), Simon Hockey (Australia), Harry Fisher (England), What is a billiards club and Jose Riva (Spain). The 2023 AC World Championships took place in London; the winner was Robert Fulford. The last person remaining is the winner. An alternative endgame is "poison": in this variant, a player who has scored the last wicket but not hit the starting stake becomes a "poison ball", which may eliminate other balls from the game by roqueting them. Croquet became highly popular as a social pastime in England during the 1860s. It was enthusiastically adopted and promoted by the Earl of Essex, who held lavish croquet parties at Cassiobury House, his stately home in Watford, Hertfordshire, and the Earl even launched his own Cassiobury brand croquet set.

There was a revival in the 1890s, but from then on, croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players. Individual World Championships usually take place every two or three years. It is contested every three to four years between Australia, England (formerly Great Britain), the United States, and New Zealand. Every four years, the top countries play in the World Team Championships in AC (the MacRobertson Shield) and GC (the Openshaw Shield). Egypt in top position, and with Spain at number six. The colours must next be potted in the ascending order of their values, from lowest to highest, i.e. yellow first (worth two points), then green (three points), brown (four points), blue (five points), pink (six points), and finally black (seven points); at this stage of the game, each colour remains in the pocket after being potted. Like association croquet, the object of the game is to be the first to pass each of their balls through all six hoops in both directions and to strike the central peg, for a total of 26 points. If, after a foul, it is not possible to cleanly strike both sides of the object ball directly, the referee may call a free ball, allowing the next player to nominate any other ball in place of the object ball they might normally have played.