Billiards
Balls are driven with a cue around a cushioned table; the tighter the pockets, the dearer precision becomes.
Nine-foot table
A smaller table, with wide pockets.
Nine feet (2.74 m) long. The pockets are noticeably wider than the ball and the table is shorter. Potting is easier, and so the game is less about making the ball than about where the cue ball will stand for the next stroke.
Pool balls
Under these rules: Fifteen numbered balls and a cue ball.
Fifteen numbered coloured balls and a white cue ball.
The numbers and the colouring here are not decoration but rule: pool games are built on which ball is legal at any moment — by number, by group, or by call. Solids run from one to seven, stripes from nine to fifteen, with the black eight between them.
Cue
A long tapering stick used to strike the ball.
The stroke passes through the tip at the thin end — it decides where the ball goes after the collision and how it spins. Spin is exactly what separates billiards from simple pushing: a ball can be made to draw back, to stop dead, or to run off sideways after it has hit its target.
Rules of eight-ball
The balls
Fifteen numbered balls and a . The run from one to seven, the from nine to fifteen, with the black eight between them.
Starting
The game begins with the . Groups are assigned to the players after it.
Playing out
Having taken a group, a player pots all of its balls. Only then do they play the eight, calling the pocket.
Losing by the eight
Potting the eight early means losing. So does potting it together with the cue ball.
Worth knowing
A common form is given. The rules on fouls, on a cue ball leaving the table and the procedure for calling a pocket are not opened up in the record, whereas tournament codes set them out in detail.
Glossary of terms
- Cue ball
- The ball the cue strikes. In pool it is always the same white ball; in free pyramid any ball on the table can become the cue ball.
- Object ball
- The ball aimed at with the cue ball and played towards a pocket.
- Solids
- The pool balls from one to seven, coloured all over.
- Stripes
- The pool balls from nine to fifteen, carrying a white band.
- The break
- The first stroke into the racked pyramid, with which a game begins.