Pool hall rules

When two Brits end up playing pool against each other in a bar in America, should they stick to the local rules or quietly adopt the ones they’re familiar with back home? The situation arose last night, and my opponent and I opted for the ‘when in Rome…’ approach; in other words we played it their way. Not that we did so without privately believing our way was better...

In the States, it seems, a foul shot is regarded as nothing more than a minor inconvenience. No extra shots are awarded, and the only penalty suffered by the person committing the foul is that the break ends.

Even if the cue ball is returned to the table in a bad position for the innocent opponent, he or she just has to get on with it. I have since done some digging. According to a certain encyclopaedic website beginning with ‘w’, which isn’t always 100% reliable, the rules of pool are ‘the most contested of any billiard game’.

Variations exist in the US, Canada and Latin America for starters, but I was most alarmed to read the consequences of having a particularly bad game in Australia. If you lose a game and still have all seven of your balls on the table you are ‘pantsed’, which means you are required to hobble around the table with your pants around your ankles, or even fully naked.

Remind me to get some practise in before I go to Sydney in January…. Oh, and for the record, after a good run of wins playing alongside an American guy called Byron, we lost when I potted the black in the wrong pocket.

Comments

[Swiftlydoesit.com]

It's not just the one-shot or two-shots after a foul rule that seems to vary. There also seems to be a difference of opinion over whether:

1) After the cue ball is accidentally pocketed, the opponent is allowed to play the ball both forwards and backwards from the baulk line

2) Whether you have to nominiate the pocket you intend to put the 8 ball (black) into at the end, and thus if it accidentally ends up in another pocket you lose - even though you have really, some would say, won.

3) Whether you have to pocket your balls in sequence i.e. 1-7 or 9-15 before potting the 8-ball.

And of course the biggie...the most contentious of all...

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