Know The Rules

June 12, 2007 in Misc | 4 comments

postimage.jpg Pool. A game that no one seems to know the rules to. House rules be hanged, people should learn the real rules if they’re going to play. Here they are: Here are the main highlights most people get wrong for 8-ball.
  • Racking the balls. The 8 is in the center, a solid on one corner point and a stripe on the other. The rest of the balls are randomly placed.
  • What to call. Only the ball and pocket need to be called. Banks, cushions, combinations, kisses, “clean/dirty”, do not need to be called.
  • What to do when someone scratches. If the scratch is on a break, the other player gets ball in hand behind the head string. If the scratch occurs during regular play, the opposing player gets ball in hand anywhere on the table. No ball is spotted. If a player scratches while shooting at the 8-ball, they do not lose automatically unless they also sink the 8-ball.

  1. Scott the Hobo on June 12, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    This always annoys me when I play pool with people who don’t know the rules. I’ve pretty much given up on trying to set them straight and just play with whatever stupid rules they want to use. The third item in your list is the worst. People think if all of your object balls are behind the head string, it’s a good defensive strategy to intentionally scratch because you have to bank the ball down the length of the table.

    Rule 4.11 of 8-ball is another that most people don’t know. The first ball the cue ball hits must be one of your object balls, and after that some ball must either go into a pocket or contact a rail. Failure to do this is a foul. This one just takes too long to explain to the local pool hall yokels.

  2. Jordan on June 12, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    Yeah, the foul thing is tough to convince people of. I would be happy if we could just settle on racking, breaking, calling and scratching rules. It seems ridiculous to try to play a game when you don’t agree on such fundamental rules.

  3. Kludgeless on June 17, 2007 at 6:27 am

    Under APA rules, a scratch while playing the 8-ball is a loss:

    http://www.poolplayers.com/8-9-ball-Rules.pdf

    They also offer a very concise, relatively easy to understand explanation of the rail rule: “Any ball (including the cue ball) must go to a rail AFTER
    LEGAL contact.” Not that that will make any difference in convincing yokels :-)

  4. Brian Adkins on June 19, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Hmm… didn’t know you liked pool. We should play some time and you can teach me. Maybe we can even have a friendly bet ;)