Pool
Sports · Cue sports
Also Eight-ball, 8-ball, Nine-ball, 9-ball, Blackball, Pocket billiards, Pub pool
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How you play it
Solids and stripes, then the black. The one most people mean.
Summary — 2–4 players
Pool is a cue sport for two players or two pairs, won by potting your own group of balls and then the black. There is no score inside a game, so a game is one tap on the winner, and the app counts games won across the session. Eight-ball, blackball and nine-ball are the three tabs, played on the same table.
- Scored by
- a game is won by potting your group and then the black, or the nine; the app records who won each game
- Origin
- Pocket billiards grew out of English billiards in the nineteenth century; eight-ball is American, from the 1900s, and blackball is the British pub game.
Rules — Eight-ball
How to play
Players and equipment
Two players, or two pairs taking alternate shots. A pool table with six pockets, a cue each, a cue ball and fifteen object balls: seven solids (1 to 7), seven stripes (9 to 15) and the black 8. A triangle to rack them, and chalk.
SquareScores keeps count of games won. There is no score inside a game of pool: you win it by potting your group and then the black, so a game is one tap on the winner.
The deal
Rack the fifteen balls in the triangle on the foot spot with the 8 in the middle and a solid and a stripe in the two back corners. Lag for the break: each player strikes a ball up the table and back, and the one that stops nearest the head cushion breaks. The loser of a game usually breaks the next.
Break from behind the head string. A legal break drives at least four balls to a cushion or pots one; otherwise the other player may have the balls re-racked and break instead. The head string is the line across the table level with the second diamond from the head cushion, and the cue ball may be placed anywhere behind it.
Play
The table is open after the break. The first player to pot a ball cleanly takes that group, solids or stripes, and the other player has the rest. Potting the 8 on the break is not a loss under most rules: it is spotted, or the breaker re-racks.
On your turn you must hit one of your own balls first, and then something must be potted or reach a cushion. Pot one of yours and you shoot again; miss, and the turn passes. Most tables ask you to call the pocket for the 8, and some for every shot.
Calling a shot means naming the ball and the pocket before you play. The path does not matter: a ball that rattles in the jaws, or goes in off another ball, is good so long as it is the ball you named in the pocket you named. Anything else that drops on the same shot stays down. Potting one of your opponent's balls after a legal hit is not a foul; it stays down and your turn ends, unless you potted your called ball on the same shot.
Fouls
- Scratch
- Ball in hand for your opponent
- The cue ball goes into a pocket or off the table
- Wrong ball first
- Ball in hand
- You hit your opponent's ball, or the 8, before one of your own
- Nothing to a cushion
- Ball in hand
- No ball is potted and none reaches a rail after contact
- Touching a ball
- Ball in hand
- Any ball moved by a hand, a sleeve or the cue other than by the shot
Ball in hand means your opponent places the cue ball anywhere on the table.
House rules to settle before the first rack
- The 8 on the break
- Spotted or re-racked under the standard rules; an instant win on many pub tables
- A scratch on the 8
- Only a foul while the black stays up under the standard rules; a loss on many pub tables
- Call every shot
- Some tables call the 8 alone, some every ball and pocket
- Behind the head string
- Some tables play every foul from behind the line rather than ball in hand anywhere
Scoring
Scoring
- Win
- One tap on the winner
- Pot every ball of your group, then the 8 in the pocket you called
- Loss on the 8
- The other player wins
- Pot the 8 early, pot it in the wrong pocket, or scratch while potting it
- Un-enter
- —
- Tap a marked cell to take it back, while the match is still open
A worked rack
Cara breaks against Dev.
- The break
- Table open, Dev to shoot
- Nothing drops, but five balls reach a cushion, so the break stands
- First shot
- Dev on stripes
- Dev pots the 13, a stripe, so stripes are his and Cara has the solids
- Dev's run
- Turn to Cara
- Dev pots the 9 and the 15, then plays a safety that sends the cue ball to a cushion
- Cara's visit
- Ball in hand to Dev
- Cara pots the 2, then hits the 12 before any solid
- Ball in hand
- Stripes gone
- Dev places the cue ball, pots the 10, the 11, the 12 and the 14, and is on the black
- The black
- Tap Dev
- He calls the 8 in the side pocket and it drops
- The board
- Dev 1 · Cara 0
- One rack played
The foul that decided it was hitting the wrong ball first: Cara's cue ball touched a stripe before a solid, and Dev had the cue ball in hand with four open stripes. Nothing about the rack is scored except its end. Tap Dev, and the sheet is ready for the next rack; a tap made in error is taken back by tapping the cell again while the match is open.
Ending
A game ends the moment the black goes down, one way or the other. Tap the winner, and the sheet is ready for the next rack; the leaderboard counts games won across the session. Play a set to a number of racks if you like, three or five, and end the session when it is done.
Strategy
The break
Hit the front ball of the rack full in the face with a firm, level stroke, from a little to one side of centre so the cue ball has an angle to come off. Power matters less than a full hit: a break that clips the rack sends the cue ball flying and the balls nowhere, while one that hits square spreads them and leaves the cue ball near the middle. A scratch on the break hands your opponent ball in hand on a wide-open table, so hold back a little rather than swing at it.
Choosing your group
When the table is open, do not grab the first pot you see. Look at both groups and ask which has the problems: a ball frozen to the 8, two of one group tied up together, a ball on the cushion at the far end. Take the group with fewer of them, even if that means passing up the easier shot now. One bad ball in your group costs more than one good shot gains.
Cue-ball control
Where the white stops matters as much as whether the object ball goes in. Struck below centre, the cue ball spins back towards you after contact; struck above centre, it rolls on through; struck in the middle and firmly on a straight shot, it stops dead. Play every shot with the next one in mind: pot this ball, and land where the ball after it is a simple shot. Softer shots leave the cue ball near the ball it hit.
Safety play
When there is no pot worth taking, do not take a bad one. Roll the cue ball to where your opponent cannot see any of their balls, or leave it tight behind one of your own, and remember that something must reach a cushion or the shot is a foul. A foul gives ball in hand, which is far worse than handing over the turn, so a safety needs to be legal before it is clever. Leaving a long shot along the cushion is often better than leaving a snooker: they miss the long ones too.
Running out
Before starting a run, look at all seven balls and find the awkward one. Deal with it early, while you still have other balls to play position off, rather than saving it for last and finding no way to get to it. The ball before the black is the key: pick one that leaves a plain, straight shot at the 8 and keep it until last. And do not pot a ball that is doing a job for you — one blocking a pocket your opponent needs, say — until you have to.
FAQs
What counts as a foul in pool?
Potting the cue ball or knocking it off the table, hitting a ball that is not one of yours first, potting nothing and sending nothing to a cushion after contact, and touching any ball with your hand, your sleeve or the cue other than in the shot. Potting the 8 before your group is gone is worse than a foul: it loses the game. A foul costs you the turn and gives your opponent ball in hand; the balls already potted stay potted.
What does ball in hand mean?
Your opponent may pick the cue ball up and place it anywhere on the table before they shoot. It is the standard penalty for a foul under most rules, and a good player with it will find a pot every time. The old rule of playing from behind the head string survives on some tables for a scratch on the break, and on a few for every foul, so agree which you are playing before the first rack.
Do you win if you pot the 8 on the break?
Not under the standard rules. The breaker chooses either to have the 8 spotted and carry on shooting, or to re-rack and break again. Many pub tables treat it as an instant win, and some as a loss if the cue ball also went down, so settle it before you start.
What counts as a called shot?
You name the ball and the pocket before you play; how the ball gets there does not matter. It can go in off a cushion or off another ball and still be good, and anything else that drops on the same shot stays down. If the ball you named misses the pocket, or goes into a different one, your turn is over and every ball stays where it fell. Obvious shots need not be called on most tables, but the 8 always is.
What happens if you pot the 8 and the cue ball goes in too?
You lose the game. Scratching while potting the 8 is a loss under every set of rules, as is potting the 8 into a pocket other than the one you called, and knocking it off the table. A scratch while shooting at the 8 that leaves the black on the table is only a foul under the standard rules — ball in hand to your opponent — though many pub tables call that a loss too.
Do you have to hit a cushion in pool?
After the cue ball has hit one of your balls, something has to happen: a ball must be potted, or some ball, the cue ball included, must reach a cushion. A shot where everything stops dead in the open is a foul. The rule is what stops a game becoming an endless series of gentle nudges, and it is the one that catches out players used to the British pub game, which mostly does without it.