Eight-ball

This article is about the American-style game. For the British variation, see Blackball (pool). For other uses, see Eight-ball (disambiguation).

Eight-ball

One of numerous proper racks in standardized eight-ball: The two rear corner balls are of different suits, the 8 ball is in the center, and the apex ball is on the foot spot.
Highest governing body	World Pool-Billiard Association
First played	1900s
Characteristics
Contact	No
Team members	single competitors or doubles
Mixed-sex	Yes
Equipment	Cue sports equipment
Glossary	glossary of cue sports terms
Presence
Country or region	Worldwide

Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a pool billiards played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls: a cue ball and fifteen object balls. The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.

The game is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and is often thought of as synonymous with "pool". The game has numerous variations, mostly regional. It is the second most played professional pool game, after nine-ball, and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.

History

The game of eight-ball arose around 1900 in the United States as a development of pyramid pool, which allows any eight of the fifteen object balls to be pocketed to win. The game arose from two changes made, namely that the 8 ball must be pocketed last to win, and that each player may only pocket half of the other object balls. By 1925, the game was popular enough for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company to introduce purpose-made ball sets with seven red, seven yellow, one black ball, and the cue ball, which allowed spectators to more easily see which suit each ball belonged to. (Such colors became standard in the later British-originating variant, blackball.) The rules, as officially codified in the Billiard Congress of America's rule book, were periodically revised in the years following.

The Backrooms. These rooms are a

Variants

Blackball

Main article: Blackball (pool)

The British version of eight-ball, known internationally as blackball, has evolved into a separate game, retaining significant elements of earlier pub versions of the game, with additional influences from English billiards and snooker. It is popular in amateur competition in the UK, Ireland, Australia and some other countries.

The game uses unnumbered, solid-colored object balls, typically red and yellow, with one black 8 ball. They are usually 2 inches (51 mm) or 2+1⁄16 inches (52 mm) in diameter, the latter being the same size as the balls used in snooker and English billiards. Tables for blackball pool are 6-to-7-foot (1.8 to 2.1 m) long, and feature pockets with rounded cushion openings, like snooker tables.

The rules of blackball differ from standard eight-ball in numerous ways, including the handling of fouls, which may give the opponent two shots, racking (the 8 ball, not the apex ball, goes on the spot), selection of which group of balls will be shot by which player, handling of frozen balls and snookers, and many other details.

Internationally, the World Pool-Billiard Association and the World Eightball Pool Federation both publish rules and promote events. The two rule sets differ in some details regarding the penalties for fouls.

Chinese eight-ball

The version of eight-ball played in China uses rules that are essentially the same as standard WPA rules; and the game is played with standard 2+1⁄4-inch (57 mm) solids-and-stripes balls. However, the tables are constructed similarly to 9-foot (2.7 m) snooker tables, with rounded pocket openings, napped cloth and flat-faced rail cushions. This results in some differences in gameplay approach. The variant arose in the mid-1980s and 1990s as eight-ball gained popularity in China, where snooker was the most popular cue sport at the time. With standard American-style pool tables rare, Chinese players made do with playing eight-ball on small snooker tables. It has since become the most popular cue sport in China, and the major tournaments have some of the largest prize money in pool.

Eight-ball rotation

Further information: Rotation (pool)

The hybrid game eight-ball rotation is a combination of eight-ball and rotation, in which the players must pocket their balls (other than the 8, which remains last) in numerical order. Specifically, the solids player starts by pocketing the 1 ball and ascends to the 7 ball, and the stripes player starts by pocketing the 15 ball and descends to the 9 ball.

Backwards eight-ball

Backwards eight-ball, also called reverse eight-ball, is a variant in which, instead of shooting the cue ball at an object ball to force the object ball into a pocket, the player strikes the object ball with their cue so it caroms off the cue ball and into a pocket, in a fashion similar to Russian pyramid.

See also

• List of World Eight-ball Champions

References

• Dyer, R. A. (May 2005). Billiard Congress of America (ed.). Billiards, Revised and Updated: The Official Rules And Records Book. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-59228-744-4. Retrieved 4 September 2021.

External links

• World Pool-Billiard Association