I take it that snooker isn't very popular in the US? In my little town in England, we have two large snooker clubs which is not uncommon at all...
I linked a list of rules at the bottom...If your new I would make some slight adjustments to the rules, for instance, any foul scores your opponent 4 points and if your not great players, the game becomes who can foul the least rather than who can score the most. So my friend and I would only score one point per foul until we got competent enough to not give away so many points. It can be a very cruel game for noobs, especially when getting your opponents into snookers and having them re-take their shots...
Another piece of advice which really helped me in learning snooker is to remember that it's a tactical game. This is especially true for beginners as it's very unlikely that you or your opponent will make an incredible pot. You may think because your opponent isn't very good, you can keep going for pots without fear of giving him a chance to make a good break. However, if you play tactically and only try to pot reasonably safe shots, your opponent will make mistakes and put you in good positions. We found we cleared up the table faster when we were trying to put each other in difficult positions than when we just simply went for pots every time. I guess when you play a good safety, your opponent is much more likely to leave you on an easy pot the next time round and vise versa. It's so much more fun when you are potting balls and making good safeties than when you both are struggling to clear up the table by taking on tough shots every time.
Anyway, snooker is a great game. I only play pool when I go out to a pub where they have a pool table. If you get reasonable at snooker, you'll destroy at pool. Have fun playing.
http://www.billiardworld.com/snooker.html
Last edited by Kombaiyashii; 08-03-2012 at 06:52 PM.