Yesterday I played some snooker with a friend for the first time. Some questions rose:
1) What happens if a player pots a red on the break? Does he continue on the colour?
2) What happens if the ball on is a red, I hit the red and after that the cue ball accidently hits a colour and the colour goes in (both when I pot the red and miss)?
3) What happens if my opponent scratches and if I play from D I'm snookered? Can I let him play the shot?
4) What happens if I fluke a colour (pot it to another pocket)? Do I have to nominate colours or not?

Also I wanted to know are there some more beginnerish games at the sooker table? (Snooker is fine until we get to the part where there are only colours left, after that with relatively low skill it becomes a drag very fast).

Yes you are now on a colour.

This is a foul.

You have a free ball if you cannot hit both sides of an object ball (red or colour). You can nominate another ball to count as the object ball for that shot, so you could play the yellow as a red for example, and then continue with the break as normal.

If you are shooting with two colours close to each other you should nominate which one you are shooting at. If you fluke the colour you hit in a different pocket it is not a foul, but if you hit the black first and pot the pink for example, that is a foul.

Try Golf out.

Thanks.

That's that then.

Ball on is a red, I make the red but the cue ball cannons into another red and it also goes in to some random pocket. Is it a foul?

No, it's not. That should be 2 points for you.

addition to 3: If your opponent fouled, you always have the option of letting him continue. The free ball Wamy described is void in this case (your opponent has to play on a red).

I love Golf, haven't played it for years tho.

Anyone here play Crash?

There is a problem with #1: When I break and a red ball goes in? You don't slam the balls like a regular break. The snooker break is more of a straight pool break. You hit the corner ball on the back row to bring the cue ball back to where you were breaking from. In hopes to "snooker" your opponent. You don't crash into the balls on the break.

#2-This is a foul the point penalty is four points minimum unless the potted number ball is the 5, 6 or 7. Then the point penalty is the same as the number of the ball.

Like to gamble at snooker there are games called Liability, Skittles and Box Snooker.

Liability is where you only use the numbered balls in their respective positions. First designate what the unit is you are playing for. Most of the time it's either a quarter or a dollar a point (though I have seen the pros play for a $100 a point). Draw for the order of play (it can be as many players as you want). Whenever the previous player ends his turn, he must pay the incoming player when the players makes a ball. Say Player A misses the 4 ball. The incoming player makes it, so Player A owes the incoming player 4 units. Then the same incoming player makes the 5, 6, 7 and 2 ball (once you pot the 7, it goes back to playing the 2). Now Player A owes 20 units to the shooting player. Once that player ends his turn, the next player starts and the former incoming player has to pay his liability to the current shooter.

Skittles-These are small pins, almost like bowling pins but skinnier. Set them up as a diamond in the middle of the table. You play only red balls. No point balls. Rake them like a regular pool rack. Smash the break. If you knock over a skittle the penalty is what ever you decided the penaly was (quarter or a dollar). The penalty is per skittle. That penalty goes into the jar. Knock over all 5 skittles and win the money in the jar.

Box Snooker-Place the 2,3 and 4 balls on their respective spots. Rack up all the reds like a normal pool rack. Smash the rack. Make a red, then shoot a point ball. reds stay down, point balls come back up. A box (usually a billiard ball box) is placed on the center spot. Anytime the cueball hits the box you add the penalty (again a quarter or a dollar). Once all the reds are potted, shoot the numbers in order. Highest score wins the money in the box.

there is also a game called Russian Billiards that is played on a snooker table. It involves making balls and making the cueball off a ball. Might look it up in the encyclopedia of billards for a better set of rules. I only played this game once, then the bar owner sold the table.

Try playing only 1 point per foul at first. Also play tactically, if your potting a red on the break then your probably not playing very tactical. Put your opponents into difficult spots and only take on reasonable pots. You'll be surprised how fast you can clear up this way if both you and your friend is playing tactically. Your probably better than you think.

At first I thought you would just post to up your post count, but that is one hell of a controversial statement!

Another snooker question I have that I don't think I've seen come up whilst watching snooker;

Say you have a free ball (green ball is the one on) and go for blue, but then end up potting the green, is this a foul? Or is it a legal shot?

Just from memory, if you hit the blue first but knock in the green it's a good shot and you get three points. If you miss the blue altogether, though -- like say by miscuing -- and hit the green, then yes, that is a foul.

Interestingly enough, and if I remember right, if you have a free ball on the green, nominate the blue, and then after hitting the blue you pot both the blue AND the green, you only get three points, not six.

Though of course all of this should be moot, they need to eliminate the free ball rule. It's stupid

Question:

I just saw Mark Selby pot a black, and while he walked around the table he picked it out of the pocket and rolled it to the ref to respot it. The frame was well over, on a break of 80something, and I certainly wouldn't like to see it called a foul, especially with money going to charity for every century, but I was wondering if in the strictest sense of the rules it really should've been a foul?

I'm pretty sure it is, but i've never seen it called.

They had some trouble in the qualifiers a few years ago with players ball tampering and I think they reviewed the rules and made them a lot stricter.

No because a colored ball (or any ball really) that's been pocketed is not "in play" any more. In the case of colored balls they're not back "in play" until they're placed back on their spot, and in the case of the cue ball it's not until it's actually struck by the tip of the cue.

Think about it, if touching balls that are out of play is a foul, then if a pocket is full of balls and won't accept any more I wouldn't even be able to empty it! That would be idiotic.

He rolled it back to the referee along the table.

So? It's only in play once it's respotted.

Just having a chat with a qualified ref, and he says that the rule states that taking the ball from the pocket and placing it on the table is actually 'I concede frame' !!

Unlikely to ever be called though. Snooker rules are weird.

Another response from a qualified ref:

nah, once it's in the pocket it's not "in play" so it's not a foul to touch it....there is a foul for "using a ball off the table for any purpose", but you wouldn't really say he was using it for anything

Alex Higgins often used to take the cue ball back to his chair between frames and lick it clean!