Know Your Balls! Tips For Recognizing Billiard Games And Their Differences
When you want to shoot some pool, you go to a pool hall. If you would be considered a "greenhorn" at pool, you need to learn some things first. There is more than just the game "eight ball" to play on Diamond Billiards tables. There are other games you can play, but you have to be able to recognize the balls, the setup, and how to play.
Classic Eight Ball
Two players rack up a triangular form of balls, alternating solid-colored balls with striped balls and placing them in numerical order from bottom to the top of the rack form. The two players take turns after a "break," which involves a shot that separates the balls and sends them in different directions. Once you sink a striped or solid ball, that is your team pattern. You are either "stripes" or "solids," and you have to play until all of your balls are sunk. However, you cannot sink the solid white ball or the solid black eight ball until ALL of your own balls are in the pockets, otherwise, you lose.
Classic Nine-Ball
This game is so named because you only play with nine balls. You still rack in triangular form, but you put the one ball at the top and the nine ball in the middle. the other numbered balls, 2-7, you can place anywhere in the rack because their order does not matter in this game. Two players take turns trying to sink all nine balls in order. The person who sinks the most balls in order and sinks the nine ball is the winner.
Snooker
Snooker is probably the most complicated of all billiard games. You have a rack of fewer balls set up in either diamond formation or triangle formation at one end. Extra balls form a straight line at the other end of the table, while the black ball goes behind the snooker rack. Another ball, usually the white one, goes in the middle of the table. Snooker balls are very different from billiard balls as the ones you rack up are all the same color and the three balls lined up at the opposite end are three different solid colors. You have to "pot" the colored ball that is closest to your strike (or cue) ball in order to score a point. You can also score points off of your opponent's "foul balls." A special diamond-shaped rack sets up snooker balls.
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