Hi all. I hope everyone reading this is well. Here at A Rob Blog, I like to tackle the really important issues that the world faces in these crazy times. I don’t shy away from difficult subjects or controversial topics. And today is no different. My area of discussion for today: what the hell is up with pool? Enjoy.
Before anybody gets confused, I’m not talking about swimming pools or Liverpool or anything like that. I’m talking about the classic pub game, pool. You know, felt-like table top, balls, chalk, cues (the blog title making a bit more sense now…) etc.
It’s a game that I really enjoy, but it also infuriates me no end. The reason for my frustration is the bloody rules. More specifically, the lack of standardised rules.
You see, with most games – be they video, board, or some kind of sport – there is a defined set of rules to be followed. Granted, there can be small tweaks to sets of rules. With football, for example, anyone who has played competitive 5-aside will be aware of the ‘ball can’t go above waist height’ rule, which obviously doesn’t exist in 11-aside football.
And if you played football in the street as a kid, you obviously wouldn’t include the offside rule. How would you even enforce it? “Alright, lads, Jill in number 53 has agreed to be an assistant referee. She has a good vantage point from her bedroom window. Kevin in number 36 will be the other assistant ref. Let’s play!” Instead, there would just be a loose ‘no goal hanging’ rule.
However, broadly speaking, the rules of football remain the same, from the street to the 5-aside pitches and all the way up to the professional game.
Pool is a different beast entirely, and I don’t really know why. I get different countries, perhaps, having different interpretations of the rules, but the rules of pool seem to change from person to person. You could walk out of one pub playing a certain way, cross the road, enter another pub, and have the pool rules be wildly different.
Before I go any further, I want to make clear that I’m not talking about different types of pool here. I’m not talking about the different between UK and US pool, or the difference between 8-ball and 9-ball, for example. I’m talking about the exact same type of pool, but there being different rules depending on where/who you’re playing.
To be fair to all variations of pool, there are defined rules that can be found online. But these rules are largely ignored, particularly with casual players. Let me try to explain some of the weird variety you can get.
Let’s start where all games of pool start: the break off. And, for sake of argument, let’s say that you pot one of each colour from the break. I’m going to stick with UK pool unless I state otherwise, so for absolutely clarity, you break, and one yellow ball and one red ball go into a pocket. What happens in that scenario?
For me, that means that the person who broke gets to choose their colour. They can assess which colour balls are in the better positions and then choose that colour. For some other people, one of each colour being potted means that the table remains ‘open’, i.e., the next colour that someone pots determines what their colour is (so you can hit any ball, apart from the black, until someone pots a ball).
Even within the ‘table stays open’ community, there is division. Some will say that the breaker carries on and takes the next shot after the break. Others insist that play passes to the opponent of the person who broke. Some people will even suggest that potting one of each colour is a foul, and therefore, the opponent gets two shots (more on foul shots and the consequences anon).
The final controversy around the break is the fabled potting of the black directly from the break off. For those unfamiliar with pool (why are you reading this?), the black is always in the ‘centre’ of the pack of balls at the start of each game. The odds, therefore, of the black being potted from the break are vanishingly small. I’ve never seen it happen in the flesh.
It is such an unlikely outcome – requiring a combination of huge cue power and a boatload of luck – that most people would say potting the black from the break means you win the game. But, of course, there is some disagreement around this, with some people claiming that potting the black early – even directly from the break – results in the game being awarded to the opponent.
Ok, anyway, the break off is out of the way, and now the standard game is underway. To be fair, this is where there is the least controversy around the rules. One person takes a shot. If they pot one of their balls, they get to take another shot. If they don’t pot anything, their turn is over, and play transfers to their opponent. So on and so forth. Unless there is a foul committed. Then things get crazy again!
A foul can be called for any number of reasons. The common ones are: potting the cue ball, potting your opponent’s ball, hitting your opponent’s ball (or the black ball) with the cue ball before it hits your ball, or failing to hit anything with the cue ball.
Now, for most people, the standard penalty for committing a foul is two shots to your opponent. So, if I commit a foul, my opponent is essentially allowed one miss. They take their first shot, and if they don’t pot any of their balls, they then get their second shot. However, if they pot one of their balls on the first shot, they still have two shots remaining. The only time you don’t get your second shot is if you commit a foul on your first shot.
As I say, two shots for a foul is standard for almost everyone. But there are some variations. Some people play with the rule that you’re not entitled to two shots if the table is still open (i.e., no balls have been potted). More commonly still, a lot of people will say that you’re not allowed two shots once you only have the black left to pot.
One foul that is different from the others is when the cue ball is potted (or comes off the table). In these situations, the opponent is given what is known as ‘ball in hand’. For most people, this means that they can place the cue ball anywhere on or behind the break line. Although some people will say that the cue ball can be placed anywhere on the table.
Even for those who agree that the cue ball should be placed on or behind the break line, there is still yet another bone of contention. Because some people will insist that the cue ball must be played ‘forward’. So, if you had a ball that was touching the bottom cushion, you wouldn’t be able to play for that one with your first shot.
I’ve played pool for most of my life, and I still get confused by the different variations of the rules. God bless you if you’re not well versed in the minutiae of pool, and you’ve made it this far! But we’re not quite done yet!
A problem in pool (and snooker) is that sometimes someone will commit a foul but will leave their opponent ‘snookered’. This means that the opponent wouldn’t be able to hit one of their balls without bouncing the cue ball off of a cushion first. Which isn’t really fair. So, to combat this, the concept of the ‘free ball’ was born. This works slightly differently in snooker than in pool, but the basic principle is the same: you are allowed to hit any ball you like without giving away a foul. A simple solution for a somewhat complex problem.
But is that good enough for everyone? Of course not! Some people act as if free ball isn’t an option. They will insist that if, after a foul, someone is snookered, they should be allowed to pick up the cue ball and move it (again, some behind the break line, others anywhere on the table).
Other subsets will claim that being snookered isn’t even a prerequisite; if your opponent commits a foul, you have carte blanche (carte blanc?) to move the white ball at your discretion. And even then, there will be disagreements, with some people saying that you still get two shots after you move the cue ball, while others say that moving the cue ball counts as one of the two shots.
It’s exhausting. And, just when you think you have a handle on it all, something else crops up to bite you on the arse. A few years back, I was playing pool in Antigua. One of the locals asked me if I wanted a game, which I accepted. We traded a couple of shots each, and then the defining moment happened.
I was lining up a shot into one of the corners. I got it all wrong and missed the pocket by a proverbial mile. However, luck was on my side, and the ball bounced off the two jaws of the pocket I was aiming for and then flew into the opposite pocket. I put up a hand to apologise (kind of an unwritten rule for when you fluke a shot) and went to take my next shot. The Antiguan man stopped me and said it was his shot. I was confused until he explained that I didn’t pot the ball in the pocket I intended. You had to nominate a pocket before your shot. The Antiguans had an anti-luck rule!
Suffice it to say I lost that game. One, because that man was a good player. Two, because I apparently am not, unless I have a large slice of luck on my side. I’m just glad we weren’t playing for money!
So, why is pool like this? Why are there so many variations in the rules? I have a thoery. Unless you happen to regularly frequent a dedicated place for pool – like a pool hall or billiards club – your first introduction to pool will likely be in a pub.
In a pub, you’ll pick up the rules of whatever the ‘locals’ play. But, as we’ve established, these rules vary from place to place. So, you then pass along those rules onto someone else, thinking they’re all official rules, that person passes it along to someone else, so on and so forth. Before you know it, word of mouth has disseminated a load of bogus rules.
The only other game I can think of where people apply different rules is Monopoly. Most of those rule tweaks are because a lot of people find Monopoly boring and they want to speed things up. “Let’s just say that we can buy properties on our first time around the board.”
Pool is a relatively fast-moving game which can finish quite quickly (depending how good/bad the players are), so I don’t think people change the rules to make the game more exciting or fast. I just think people have a hard time remembering a somewhat complicated set of rules. And I’m sure pool regularly being played in establishments that sell alcohol has nothing to do with that at all…
Thanks for reading. I appreciate that pool is a pretty niche subject, so this likely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But, it is a subject, and it gave me something to talk about.
Truth be told, I’ve been finding inspiration hard to come by recently. You can probably tell by how infrequently I’ve been posting. Hopefully, I’ll have a couple more ideas on what to write about and there won’t be quite as big a gap between blog posts. Until next time, whenever that may be, take care.
Rob Recommends
aka Charlie Sheen – Documentary – 7/10
Netflix have gone pretty heavy on documentaries in recent years. This one is a good, if imperfect, recent one they have released.
It gets off to a bad start. Well, hang on, that’s not exactly true. The first five minutes are great. If the goal of the opening of a documentary is to get you excited to watch it, then this one passes with flying colours. It gives you a glimpse of what’s to come, with various recognisable celebrities getting makeup and lighting set up, preparing to spill the beans on one of Hollywood’s most notorious bad boys.
Then the unfortunate bombshell: “Martin Sheen and Emilio Esteves refused to take part in this documentary.” Charlie Sheen’s father and brother, both of whom are also actors and therefore might have had unique insights into how or why things happened, didn’t want to take part. Charlie Sheen, or the filmmakers of this documentary, would probably say, “We offered them more money, we offered them creative control over what was included, they just kept on saying “No”, what do you want us to do?” And that’s fair. If people refuse to take part, what can be done? But I think a documentary worth its salt gets those two onboard, by hook or by crook. They’re both so integral to the story, it’s a real shame that they wouldn’t contribute.
And that isn’t the only area that feels undercooked. At one point early on, Sheen tells a story about Michael Jordan. It was a genuinely surprising and heartwarming story that I had never heard before, so I won’t spoil it here. However, at the end of the story, Sheen says something to the effect of, “Michael Jordan would end up being a through line throughout my life.” The clear inference, based on the videos being shown during this voice over, was that Jordan would be making more appearances throughout the documentary. He doesn’t get mentioned again. Things like this make the documentary feel rushed, or a little slap dashed.
I couldn’t escape the feeling during this that the filmmaker was going a little easy on Sheen. Don’t get me wrong, they cover a lot of controversial stuff, with plenty of embarrassing episodes that I’m sure still haunt Charlie Sheen. But, my overriding thought about the interviewer throughout was, “he’s not exactly Louis Theroux, is he?” I just felt he let Sheen off the hook too many times.
I’ll give you one example of a question not asked. It’s not even a particularly difficult one. I had heard of the TV show Spin City. I knew that it starred Michael J Fox, but I thought the show ended after Fox’s parkinson diagnosis. However, it turns out Charlie Sheen stepped in and took Fox’s place as the star. Fast forward nearly two decades and the shoe was on the other foot. It was Sheen leaving a show, to be replaced by Ashton Kutcher as the star. Does Sheen get asked a single question about Kutcher, or how he felt being replaced? Of course not. It felt like such an interesting avenue for questioning just got completely ignored.
I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about this, so much so that you might think I hated it. While I definitely think the were various ways this could have been improved, it is still a solid documentary on a very interesting person. If you have any interest in Sheen, or on the Hollywood scene of the late 80s/early 90s, you should definitely check this out. You’ll probably be entertained. If you’re looking for a top-class Netflix documentary, however, may I suggest The Last Dance? That one does have Michael Jordan in it throughout!
A Rob Blog 