BTW, that was my first time "in the zone" since 1991.

'Stick handling' as they call it, is a foul in some leagues. It's not in any serious tournaments though, and in the league I play in from time to time we've implemented a gentlemen's agreement to never call it. It's a dumb rule no question.

Laying your cue on the table is another dumb one, because if I'm leaving the table to go get a drink or something I always leave my cue on the table to let people know the table is in use. However laying your cue on the table to aid in measuring a shot, that is a foul I agree with.

Shooting with a piece of chalk on the felt is only a foul if a ball comes in contact with it.

As for unscrewing your cue while the opponent is shooting, this is a major breech of etiquette and in most tournaments I play in if you do unscrew it's accepted that you're conceding the match and you lose. Guys used to do that all the time as a shark move and they were right to bring in this rule.

As always it all depends on the actual rules of your league, because pool doesn't have consistent rules. Those are the generally accepted 'poolroom rules' though.

This.

Moving the cue ball with your stick is not a foul. If you move it with your tip I guess someone could nit it up enough to get a foul out of it but your word against theirs and those always go to the shooter so who cares.

Any league or tournament can add their own rules so keep that in mind. Unscrewing your cue is an old rule. Not sure if that can actually cost you a match anymore.

--I don't mind this first rule. Some leagues it is a rule others it's not. I'd have no problem keeping it as a rule at all times because it eliminates any possibility of there being a question as to whether a player hit the ball, even if by accident, or not. A good rule of thumb to follow is to never use your cue to line up a shot except before the break. There's really no reason to do so.

--I've never heard of this second rule before but again leagues can vary. It does seem kind of odd. As long as your stick doesn't touch a ball on the table I can't see a reason for this.

--The chalk rule I've only heard of coming into play if a ball actually touches it.

....one week later....guess who almost lost in similar fashion?

I was murdering this guy. Played a nice safety on the 8, but he cut it in from six diamonds out. Nothing to do but tip your cap and rack'em.

Then he sinks the 8 on the break.

Then he makes a ball on the break, and he suddenly can't miss, he's running out from the break on the last rack, an exact replay of what I did last week, its looking like I'm not gonna get to the table again (??!?)...but one of his balls is tied up, and he whiffed on two breakout attempts. He pushes it near a corner pocket and sits.

I've got two balls clustered right in front of the opposite corner, but if I can leave myself within an inch or two of the end rail, I can make one break out the other. I run the other five, wide open balls, trying to lag down to end rail for the last two... But miss my target zone by an inch or two. I play a rail-first safety behind these two balls, somehow leaving the cue ball an inch or two from the pocket and not scratching. Not only is he helplessly locked up, I've luckily nudged my clustered pair into a straight-in combo.

He fails to hit his ball--hell, he failed to get it halfway down the table--and I ran out. He told me that was the best safety he'd seen all year.

Speaking of rules nittery:

Open table. I make a 15-7 combo, then miss. As he steps up for his first shot, I let him know that he's stripes, in case he had looked away for a second.

He disagrees, contending that its still open.

It only took a minute for both teams to convince him that he was misinformed on that one...but God, how annoying. This is why I never played 8 ball growing up.

And.....the honeymoon is over. I practiced three times last week,shot like absolute dog****, showed up Tuesday night, and got trounced--almost shut out!--by an inferior player.

Back to basics.

Off nights happen. Lost 6 games in a row the other day to a guy I beat handily the week before. Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes the windshield. As long as it doesn't keep happening, I wouldn't worry too much.

Sometimes I have trouble shooting my best when my mind is just plain tired. I'm an IT Developer and after staring at code all day my eyes can sometimes deceive me on my aim and I have trouble thinking through strategies. When well rested I can shoot lights out.

Sometimes I need 3-4 beers in me in rapid succession to stop my mind from all the thinking and just let my auto pilot take over. Dead serious. Sometimes it works when I'm struggling. I can go from not able to run 4 balls to run out every game.

Yeah I'm often the same, especially at the beginning of a tournament. My mind is a whirlwind thinking about all kinds of nonsense, so usually a stiff belt of something will relax me just enough to focus on the job at hand.

Also here's a pro tip, a lot of times the thing that can get in your way isn't playing poorly, but actually playing really really well. You start thinking stuff like, 'I'm such a good player, how did I miss that/let that guy beat me' or stuff like that.

Trust me on this: the thing that makes you a good player isn't just your stroke and ability, it's also the ability to shut out distractions and get the job done.

Nice thread, just got around to reading it. I thought I'd post this situation I came across the other night during a friendly match to find out what others think about it.

Situation: 8ball, I'm solids, only 8 and 7 ball are left on table, both frozen together and on the endrail. My opponent snookers me on the 7ball with a safety, so I decide to just hand him the cueball to give him ball in hand, since kicking at my ball isn't a great move because a hit will likely develop the 8ball for my opponent to win the rack.

My opponent who was pretty pleased with the safety he just played was not amused to say the least and claimed I can't do this and it's loss of rack. My position was that it's just a foul and therefore he has ball in hand. Curious about your opinions, was I way out of line here??

Not at all. Your opponent is a douchenozzle.

That said, why didn't he take the ball in hand and win? He's in a great spot to move your ball a couple ball widths away from the 8 and snooker you again.

Of course your opponent was silly....but I see bar league players do this all the time, handing off the cue ball, and it never seems like a good idea to me. If you can't make the kick (or in your case, don't want to), there must be some shot that would make his position tougher than it currently is. If you're gonna concede ball in hand, get your money's worth, go down swinging.

Of course, you may have been in that 1/1000 case where he was already as hopeless as he could be.

Tell him he's wrong but if he prefers, you will shoot it instead. Line it up for like 3 minutes and then turn around and shoot the white into a pocket and call out "foul, ball in hand".

A little update for you guys: I found out since that we play according to WPA-rules and apparently my opponent was right after all! So YTF was spot on in his assessment that handing over the cueball is never a good idea. It's considered unsportmanlike conduct because this type of foul is made intentionally. The penalty on unsportmanlike conduct is apparently to lose the rack, however the ref may choose other penalties like ball in hand or other options, not sure what applies here lol, since we don't play with refs. Seems a bit silly, like falldown pointed out already. But good to know anyway.

Great suggestion Mick for the proper play my opponent should have made, I hadn't considered that. Neither did my opponent though . Nice to learn something from this situation.



6.6 Touched Ball
It is a foul to touch, move or change the path of any object ball except by the normal ball-to-ball contacts during shots. It is a foul to touch, move or change the path of the cue ball except when it is in hand or by the normal tip-to-ball forward stroke contact of a shot. The shooter is responsible for the equipment he controls at the table, such as chalk, bridges, clothing, his hair, parts of his body, and the cue ball when it is in hand, that may be involved in such fouls. If such a foul is accidental, it is a standard foul, but if it is intentional, it is 6.17 Unsportsmanlike Conduct.

6.17 Unsportsmanlike Conduct
The normal penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct is the same as for a serious foul, but the referee may impose a penalty depending on his judgment of the conduct. Among other penalties possible are a warning; a standard-foul penalty, which will count as part of a three-foul sequence if applicable; a serious-foul penalty; loss of a rack, set or match; ejection from the competition possibly with forfeiture of all prizes, trophies and standings points.
Unsportsmanlike conduct is any intentional behavior that brings disrepute to the sport or which disrupts or changes the game to the extent that it cannot be played fairly. It includes
(a) distracting the opponent;
(b) changing the position of the balls in play other than by a shot;
(c) playing a shot by intentionally miscuing;
(d) continuing to play after a foul has been called or play has been suspended;
(e) practicing during a match;
(f) marking the table;
(g) delay of the game; and
(h) using equipment inappropriately.

I don't read that rule as it is unsportsmanlike to foul on purpose. Stroke the cueball too lightly to hit anything. Ball in hand, no problem.

Handing the ball over seems more sportsmanlike.

Typically, you can do better than not hitting anything, but there are potentials where handing the ball over is better. (perhaps a frozen hanging 8 ball with your last ball hanging it?)

I have played APA, BCA and VNEA and have never heard of this "handing the ball over is a loss of a rack" stuff before.

[QUOTE=falldown;50039172]I don't read that rule as it is unsportsmanlike to foul on purpose. Stroke the cueball too lightly to hit anything. Ball in hand, no problem.

Bar games are different, where there are no table fouls just pocket fouls. An played behind the line. So the light tap hit is rude and can be done back and fourth with no requirements to meet for a good hit.

I don't think we are talking about "Bar games". In those we don't have rulebooks and the biggest drunkest guy at the bar gets to make up the rules as they go along.

Here is an example of "unsportsmanlike" in a decent sized team tournament.

It was VNEA rules (Valley) 8 ball a few years back. Basically the setup is each team has 5 players and you round robin your 5 against their 5 for 25 games total. Ball count is used to determine who wins. Each stripe/solid is 1 point, the black was 3 points. (winner usually had 10 points unless an early black and loser had ball count)

Anyways, we got to the final rack and I was breaking. We were up by 4 entering the final rack, so I needed 7 points to win the match. I made a big break and scattered everything nice except for two balls (one stripe and one solid) frozen to each other touching the top rail (behind the rack). Worked out my strategy and started to run the stripes. Made the first 5, leaving the frozen balls alone. The other team got all excited when I failed to make the break out of my last stripe.

In fact, I had played such poor position that I was mostly hooked behind the other frozen ball!

Naturally, I played the foul combo, potting my stripe. Giving up ball in hand and shaking my opponents hand, nice match. They all just stood there and felt like I had cheated. They called over the refs, the commissioner who all said the rules are the ball stays potted and opponent gets ball in hand, just as I knew they would.

Bad sportsmanship? Maybe. Playing by the rules? Absolutely. We ended up winning that tournament too.

you could go as far as worst player playing best player an just firing the 8 in to cap the high score of the good player ;/ so they dont get a 10

Falldown, heads up play.

Ryan, if you sink the 8 early your opponent gets credit for the win. A win is always 10 pts.

This is ridiculous nittery. The rules you posted are clearly not talking about conceding a ball-in-hand.

I guess next time you just have to indicate this concession by firing the cueball into a pocket.

I like it, falldown!

Nice post. I've always loved cue-sports, and seeing someone get the bug puts a smile on my face.

The above is simplistic, and often helpful to people with FPS, but also a very wrong way to think about shot selection.

Hitting the cue-ball center ball is still english - consider how much you can control the white with pace hitting center ball on most shots.

A better way to think of it is "Reduce the amount of work/english/effort you need on the cue ball over your entire run out" - cue ball control, precision, and reducing risk are key.

I often quote "Where were you trying to place the white on that shot?" to players in my team who duff the final ball in a league match

I think many of the misses are actually caused by a lack of focus on the shot itself, as they aren't playing position and are just trying to pot the ball. Much like your ghost-ball concept, you pick your aiming point and focus on the white. Do that and you give yourself fewer thoughts to choke on

I'd adjust this to "Plan your entire run out after every shot" - the ability to re-adjust for poor positional shots, or see better options as you work through the balls are skills that need work. Tunnel vision on your outs is pretty common while you are focused.