…in a pool game.
Does this reuslt in a win for the person who broke?
Yes
Just FTR…
The black ball is the eight ball. All of the other balls are aither solid colors (the one through the seven–aka the little ones) or stripes (nine through fifteen–the big ones). If you don’t make the eight on the break, and you usually won’t, and you do make, say, the four, then solids are yours. You have to make all of the solids and then you can go for the eight ball. If you make the eight by accident before you’ve made all of your balls, you lose.
Sinking the eight off the break is a win as long as it is JUST the eight.
I once came uncomfortably close to getting my ass kicked for doing it twice in a row, people get funny when there’s money on the table.
So sinking a black, and a color, means a loss?
I know sinking the balck and white is a loss… but a color?
Just to let you know about my qualifications, I used to play in pool leagues and tournaments, and the pool hall I managed used to run 5-8 tournaments a week.
The short answer is: depends on what rules you are playing by.
The longer answer is that in our league and our tournaments, it was a win. We played by International Eight Ball rules, and an eight ball break was a win as long as you didn’t scratch (sink the white) on the break. If you did scratch, it was an automatic loss. It did’t matter if any other balls went down, unless it was the white.
Another league that we often came in contact with had its own rules, which were identical to ours, except for them, an eight ball break meant a re-rack. No win or loss.
We used to run jackpots on our tournaments for an eight ball break. The pot would run rather high, as they occurred far less often than a nine ball break did in 9 Ball.
lologranola is right - it depends on the rules you’re playing. In all the tournaments I’ve played in used BCA rules. My BCA rule book says that
This is a 1991 rule book that I got when I bought my home table, so they could possibly have changed since then. I know they changed since the previous book I had, which was around 1984.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MadHatter *
**…in a pool game.
Does this reuslt in a win for the person who broke? **[
/QUOTE]
Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but this only applies in a game of “Eight Ball”. In other pool games, the eight ball is just another ball with an eight for a number.
As mentioned before, scratching when the 8 goes in is a loss. I have had the misfortune to lose 3 9 ball games by pocketing the 9 ball on the break and hopping the ball off the table.
err, hopping the cue ball off the table.
I would like to say I have played for about 4 years now – we have played by the BCA rules – make the 8 on a break and it either gets spotted or you rebreak.
but it does depend on what rules you are playing with – usually it is best to talk over what rules you are going to play with
By the rules I play (BCA’s 1997 World Standardized Rules for 9 Ball), pocketing the 9 ball on the break, and fouling (jumping the cue off the table) is not an automatic loss (perhaps Bill H. is playing by a different set of rules). The 9 ball is simply spotted (as it always is when jumped from the table), and the opposing player has ball-in-hand anywhere on the table. In such a situation, there’s still very much a game to play, unless your opponent can regularly run the table with ball-in-hand off the break.
The 9 ball rules classify any jumped ball (9 ball, other numbered object ball, or cue ball) a foul, and according to rule 6, “If a player commits several fouls on one shot, they are counted as only one foul.”
good catch sterwill – I had missed that in the previous posts
sterwill wrote
Damn! Where were you when I was playing these back in college 15 years ago? Well, those were the rules we played by. Of course, there were also occasional mandatory drinking rules, which I suspect aren’t mentioned in the BCA text.
15 years ago I spent most of my time watching He-Man and playing in the back yard. These days I play pool at work, and sinking the cue on the break (or otherwise fouling) usually means you’ve got a rough game ahead of you. A few of the co-workers are good enough to take ball in hand and run the table out (assuming a few dropped on the break, you might only have 6 balls on the table), or at least get the easy ones in the pockets and try to trap you with the three fouls rules.
Of course, if it really isn’t your day, you’ll give the guy ball in hand after the break, and the 9 will be sitting pretty right near the edge of a pocket, just waiting to be pushed in off a carom or combination. 9 ball can be a very short game.
We used to play (and I thought it was standard rules) that if you sunk a ball (say the four) on the break, the table was still open but you had the shot again. So you weren’t automatically solids if you sank the four - the very next ball that goes in the pocket determines who is solids and who is stripes. You still had to sink one to determine the sides (and if you missed, table still was open and your opponent went on his turn with the ability to determine sides).
The reasoning behind this is that if you sink a ball on the break, you still may actually want to play out the set that still has all the balls on the table - it all depends on how the remaining balls lie.
Ring a bell with anyone?
Shylock: I don’t play 8 ball much, but those are the rules I play by (and I believe they’re the BCA rules). The table is always “open” after the break (shooter can choose any legal object ball to pocket), assuming the break was legal (number of balls driven to rail, no cue pocketed, etc.). Often one set of balls (stripes or solids) will have a much more favorable placement on the table, and having to shoot the balls that dropped off a (lucky) break could be a significant disadvantage. I’ve seen people play by “you shoot at the first ball that drops” rule, and they’ll intentionally foul (moving balls into strategic position) to thwart their opponent’s chance at taking the favored set of object balls. It can be argued this is part of the game, but it can really screw up the pace when it turns into a safety match.
Safeties are for 14.1, my game of choice.
When you think about it, all the balls are stripes. It’s just that the stripes on the 1-7 are wider. :D:D:D
In APA rules sinking the eight on the break is an automatic win unless you also scratch. you really have to ask about what rules you are playing by as I’ve played where people say that if you hit any ball at any time that you did not intend to hit you lose your turn. WTF is up with that?!?
Re: hitting any ball at anytime that you didn’t call SHOULD result in a loss of turn. That is, if the cue ball hits an unintended ball BEFORE striking the object ball, or the object ball hits another before it falls into the pocket.
It doesn’t matter what the cue ball does (other than going into a pocket or leaving the table) after it hits the object ball.
Anything else is called slop.
CandyMan