8-Ball Pool
Keep track of a pub frame of reds and yellows: whose visit, fouls, two shots and the black.
Reds
Yellows
Black
Tap a red or yellow each time one goes down for the player at the table.
Frame log and match
Rules
Your table
Rack and break
- Black in the middle of the third row, reds and yellows mixed, apex towards the breaker.
- Break from behind the baulk line. A legal break pots a ball or sends at least 2 balls to a cushion (World Rules: 4).
- Pot a ball on the break and you carry on. An illegal break is re-racked and the opponent breaks with the foul penalty.
- Black on the break: re-rack and break again in pub, World and Blackball rules; re-spotted in International Rules.
Colours
- The table is open until someone legally pots a red or a yellow; that colour is theirs for the frame.
- Pub rules count a ball potted on the break; World, Blackball and International leave the table open after the break.
- Every shot must hit one of your own colour first (any colour on an open table, never the black until your colours are down).
Fouls
- In-off, wrong ball first, no ball hit, a ball off the table, push or double hit, jump shot, touching a ball, both feet off the floor, shooting before the balls stop.
- Potting the opponent's ball: a foul in pub and World rules (allowed on a free shot), allowed alongside your own in Blackball, loss of turn in International.
- No cushion after contact is a foul in World, Blackball and International rules; most pubs don't play it.
After a foul
- Pub rules: two visits. The first shot is a free shot: hit any ball, and anything potted counts. The cue ball may be placed behind the baulk line.
- Pot on the first visit and you carry on; when you miss, you still have the second visit.
- World Rules: two visits, no free shot. Blackball: free shot then one visit. International: one visit, ball in hand anywhere.
The black
- Clear your colour, then pot the black to win.
- You lose the frame if you pot the black before your colours are down, pot it with a foul (black and in-off together), or knock it off the table.
- Stalemate: re-rack and the same player breaks again.
American 8-ball is different
Numbered solids and stripes, apex ball on the foot spot, you call the pocket for the 8, and every foul gives one visit with ball in hand anywhere. No two visits, no free shot.