Snooker / Pool Rules

The rules above cover snooker's ball values and sequence, but most casual cue-sport leagues are actually playing pool, where the rule set differs substantially. World Rules, Blackball and American pool disagree on what happens after a foul, whether the opponent gets ball in hand, and how many shots a free shot is worth.

Name your rule set explicitly in the league description and keep a printed summary of the fouls near the table. Almost every mid-season cue-sport argument is two players confidently applying two different rule sets they each learned somewhere else.

Snooker frames are long and unpredictable: two club players can take forty minutes over one frame, which makes a best-of-five match impossible to schedule reliably. A points limit, a shot clock or a simple best-of-three keeps the evening inside its booking.

Pool is the opposite problem. Frames are short enough that a best-of-five match takes half an hour, which means one table can host a full round-robin for eight players in an evening.