Snooker ROOKIE ;)

JonTravisTaylor

JonTravisTaylor

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am new to the game and have a few questions...

If 2 people are playing for money is it winner breaks?

Is a "legal" jump shot a legal shot?

Do you have to hit a rail after contact?

If my oponent misses a red and freezes me behind a colored with no shot what are my options? Make him shoot again??

If I am snookered can I make a deliberate foul, pushing the cue ball long instead of risking a kick and giving up a shot on the red?

If my cuestick touchs a moving ball after a shot is it a foul?

Thanks in advance!! I love the game but not the rule snafu's! :)
 
JonTravisTaylor said:
I am new to the game and have a few questions...

If 2 people are playing for money is it winner breaks?

Is a "legal" jump shot a legal shot?

Do you have to hit a rail after contact?

If my oponent misses a red and freezes me behind a colored with no shot what are my options? Make him shoot again??

If I am snookered can I make a deliberate foul, pushing the cue ball long instead of risking a kick and giving up a shot on the red?

If my cuestick touchs a moving ball after a shot is it a foul?

Thanks in advance!! I love the game but not the rule snafu's! :)
Click to expand...

Welcome!

1. Alternating breaks is the norm

2. Jump shots are generally not permitted. There are exceptions depending on how you define jump shot. But you can not strike down on the cue ball or scoop the cue ball in an effort to jump directly over the offending colour.

3. Nope, just the legal object ball.

4. By miss do you mean, fails to make contact? If he/she commits any foul and leaves you snooker you can either,

a. Make them play from that position,
or
b. take a free ball (meaning shoot any colour as a red). This applies not only to full snookers but partial snooker as well. If you can see a red, but can not hit BOTH edges from where the cue ball ended up, it is a free ball scenario. But of course it must be the only red you can hit.

5. Nope, an effort must be made to hit the on-ball. Otherwise it is a foul and a miss, your opponent has the option to have the cue ball replaced and have you shoot again and they also receive 4 points if you did not contact anything, if you contacted a colour with a value higher than 4 then they will receive the value of that colour.

6. Yes, it is All Ball Fouls. But if it's a friendly game many people will play cue ball fouls only.
 
The Rules
http://www.worldsnooker.com/staticFiles/40/8d/0,,13165~167232,00.pdf

JonTravisTaylor said:
I am new to the game and have a few questions...

If 2 people are playing for money is it winner breaks?

I suppose a money game is whatever rules the two people agree upon. :D

Normal people flip a coin to determine the first break.
Alternate thereafter.
Also, flip if the game is tied when the last black is potted and the black is respoted.
Winner of flip can put opponent in or shoot himself

Is a "legal" jump shot a legal shot?
NO!!!! THERE ARE NO JUMP SHOTS IN SNOOKER, just like there is no crying in baseball.

Do you have to hit a rail after contact?
NO!!!

If my oponent misses a red and freezes me behind a colored with no shot what are my options? Make him shoot again??
Yes. Or you can shoot any other ball in lieu of a red.

If I am snookered can I make a deliberate foul, pushing the cue ball long instead of risking a kick and giving up a shot on the red?
Snooker is a gentleman's game. Players are expected to make an honest effort to contact a ball. Bear in mind that if you miss, your opponent can make you play the shot from where tbe cueball stops.

If my cuestick touchs a moving ball after a shot is it a foul?
Yes

Thanks in advance!! I love the game but not the rule snafu's! :)
Click to expand...
 
The Brits seem to take the easy route on this game. Where I play, it's ball and a rail on every shot, just like any pool game, and no free ball rule. And no jumps shots,,,,,,,,
 
Renegade_56 said:
The Brits seem to take the easy route on this game. Where I play, it's ball and a rail on every shot, just like any pool game, and no free ball rule. And no jumps shots,,,,,,,,
Click to expand...

WhAT YOU ARE PLAYING IS CALLED POOL!!!

Those rules save you from learning how to roll up delicately to a ball to accomplish the name of the game -SNOOKER - and how to escape and reciprocate. :grin::grin::grin:

And would save your from those safety battles that turn a frame from a potting fest to an extended brawl that tax your attention span.:grin:
 
Scaramouche said:
WhAT YOU ARE PLAYING IS CALLED POOL!!!

Those rules save you from learning how to roll up delicately to a ball to accomplish the name of the game -SNOOKER - and how to escape and reciprocate. :grin::grin::grin:

And would save your from those safety battles that turn a frame from a potting fest to an extended brawl that tax your attention span.:grin:
Click to expand...

I understand your point, but it's just plain too easy to just nudge up against a ball from behind.
Play a carom shot then one or two rails to nudge up behind a number ball, then you deserve the points if the incoming player can't make a good hit. As far as escapes, it's no harder to escape either way, behind a ball is behind a ball, no matter how you got there. It just takes more skill to shoot safe if you have to catch a rail is all.

your post seems like "potting fest" is the game strategy.....where I play defense is how you win. I can't think of any sport that would be better without the defensive team on the field as well as offense. Everyone can pot balls, and only good defense will deter that.
So not only is it more challenging to play some safe shots, it also becomes more challenging to escape because on the escape the ball and rail rule applies also. Every shot has a level of criticality, and the game is never simply a "potting contest", but a simple mistake and a good opponent is off to the races.

Call it pool, or whatever, but it requires another level of skills that you generally don't see employed in British Snooker.
 
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Renegade_56 said:
I understand your point, but it's just plain too easy to just nudge up against a ball from behind.
Play a carom shot then one or two rails to nudge up behind a number ball, then you deserve the points if the incoming player can't make a good hit. As far as escapes, it's no harder to escape either way, behind a ball is behind a ball, no matter how you got there. It just takes more skill to shoot safe if you have to catch a rail is all.

your post seems like "potting fest" is the game strategy.....where I play defense is how you win. I can't think of any sport that would be better without the defensive team on the field as well as offense. Everyone can pot balls, and only good defense will deter that.
So not only is it more challenging to play some safe shots, it also becomes more challenging to escape because on the escape the ball and rail rule applies also. Every shot has a level of criticality, and the game is never simply a "potting contest", but a simple mistake and a good opponent is off to the races.

Call it pool, or whatever, but it requires another level of skills that you generally don't see employed in British Snooker.
Click to expand...

I agree. ( I know some who don't and I respect that ) By playing rail after contact the game changes in several ways... 1) Getting out of a snooker and leaving opponent safe is much, much harder 2) There aren't as many tight/frozen snookers especially in the baulk area and 3) Getting these tight snookers is difficult at best.

It almost seems the offensive player is bailed out for his mistake. Example; Player A is playing position on the blue and overruns up towards the baulk line. No problem... just push cue ball behind green, yellow, or brown. Immediate tight snooker. That shot is a lot tougher if you play rail contact. Also, these O'Sullivan's and Selby's are so talented and so gifted, it seems like a waste to see them bump their way out. (On the opposite side of the coin, if they turn opponent lose, the game may not last long)

Overall, I believe most who have played the game both ways will agree it is much harder playing with the rail contact rule in place. ( Much like playing 3 rail billiards vs. straight billiards)

Remember: If all you're worried about is your snooker game, life ain't too bad.
 
Reply to Renegade _56

Hmm,
It's too easy to nudge to a colour ball you say.LOL.Have you ever tried it in the heat of the battle?Not as easy as you think.

Maybe you do not appreciate the safety play tactics of Snooker.Mark Williams plays some of the best forms of aggressive safety tactics,it's a joy to watch but then he get's in and the potting head is gone and mistakes creep in and he will miss a sitter.

Caroms is UK Billiards with no pockets.If you enjoy the game of Caroms,big up to you and it's not British Snooker,it's World Snooker.Have fun on the tables with no pockets dude.:p
 
Renegade and lucasi - I agree with Scaramouche...you are wanting to play pool. If you are of the mindset that the purpose of laying a snooker on an opponent is strictly to gain four points (or whatever the foul value happens to be), then you are not seeing the strategic nuances of the game. Often, one will lay a snooker in order to ultimately gain an OFFENSIVE advantage. When the opponent is well hooked behind a baulk color, sure he can escape easy enough off of one or two rails into the pack, but in doing so, he may very well leave a red open with an available blue, pink, or black, and potentially a large break building opportunity. That is why you sometimes see a professional in a particularly nasty snooker be called with "foul and a miss" two, three, four times (I have seen as many as six) before they finally barely touch the red to escape. Sure they could have hit the red easy enough with a stronger hit, but it is more important to NOT leave open the large break potential for the opponent.

To say that it should be "ball and a rail on every shot, just like any pool game" is akin to saying that baseball and football (American) are both ball games, so they should just both allow tackling the opponent. Hmmm, that could be interesting...
 
church66 said:
Hmm,
It's too easy to nudge to a colour ball you say.LOL.Have you ever tried it in the heat of the battle?Not as easy as you think.
Click to expand...

LOL, it's easy enough that I'll bet I can do it 100 times in a row. 1000 if you want to bet real high. Interested?

The bottom line is that the "tuck up" shot or whatever you call it is outdated and should be taken away. It makes no sense for a player to get to get such a huge advantage for a shot that a five-year-old could execute all day long, and for which he is only able to play because he made a position error.

I think the rule should be that you have to hit a rail if a colored ball is the ball "on". For reds I don't think there's any harm in being able to rest on a ball out of an escape when you are snookered, or kick into the stack or something, but being able to just roll up to a colored ball when you screw up is bad for the game and really is just something that appeals to cowards. I promise the game would be better off without it.

The "free ball" rule needs to go too, but that's a different discussion.

Maybe you do not appreciate the safety play tactics of Snooker.Mark Williams plays some of the best forms of aggressive safety tactics,it's a joy to watch but then he get's in and the potting head is gone and mistakes creep in and he will miss a sitter.
Click to expand...

I love watching snooker, but most pool players find the safety in snooker far less advanced than in pool games. Distance doesn't save you in pool, and no ducky little roll ups are allowed. You have to be creative and know your angles, and players are so good at kicking and jump shots that you often have to bury them too. It's no picnic.
 
Church66
To help you understand Americans:

In the U.S.A., they play the supremely complicated game - 9-Ball.

It is similar to the final red and colours of snooker, but with the added complications of:
Much smaller playing surface,
Much larger pockets (which they claim to be tight),
Markings on the rails to help distract from the proper line when playing around the rails.
A jump cue for players who flunked geometry.
Must hit a rail or sink a ball.

Improvement in 9-ball is proportional to the price of the cue.
A new more expensive cue is an excellent investment that will be repaid many times when gambling, the true competition, infinitely superior to tournaments that do not fully engage and challenge the American billiard mind.

The break in 9-ball is considered offense and players are most anxious to break, except that, statistically, it is a disadvantage.

Scoring in based on the last ball, avoiding all those complicated arithmetical calculations they failed to master when they dropped out of third grade.

Americans are so good at 9-ball that they lost the Mosconi
Cup to inferior Europeans, including failed snooker players.

In short, direct your efforts, not to enlightening Americans on the merits of snooker, but to tasks more likely to achieve success, such as converting the Taliban to Druidism.
 
Those damn Brits need to straighten out those pocket angles, get rid of the ash shafts, lower the table, number all those red balls, and get rid of that World Snooker Tour too!!!!

LOL!!! Why do all discussions on AZ lead to this nonsense. I love all cue sports, and want to keep them as is. No need to change anything. Except maybe go back to 14.1 as the Championship game in the States.

Mike
 
Hey Guys...I don't know enough about snooker to fight about it, but a few things I do know....it is very hard for me to lag up to a colored ball for a snooker, I am getting better but not there yet! Also banks are MUCH harder!!! I am also trying to learn the end game strategy, how many colors to leave when I still need to force a foul et.c But I am thouroughly enjoying my daily "lessons" :) And I am very proud of my hi run to date...six 7's,four 6's and two 5's..plus all the reds to go with them...math isn't my strong suit but it seeme like a good run! Darren Everret tells me to just run out and that eliminates my end game choices...LOL!
 
You have to bone up on the math skills if you are going to play this game. Looks to me like you are probably playing on a 5' x 10'. I think one side of this "fight" is a proponent of WPBSA approved 6' x 12' tables and the other side is familiar with the "American" version of the game played on a 5' x 10' table built to entirely different specifications. It's really apples and oranges to compare the two....different strategy, different tactics, and yes, different rules to govern game play (although, as far as I am aware, there is no "official" rulebook to govern American snooker; seems to be more of a pastime with local rules governing game play).

For anyone who believes that the 6' x 12' is not really that much bigger--the playing surface is about 44 % larger than the 5' x 10' (I wish my paycheck was 44 % larger), the pockets are a little smaller (though there is a large variation of this for either table depending on the specific venue), balls used on 6' x 12' are also a little smaller lessening the effective difference in pocket size, but, RELATIVE TO THE SIZE OF THE TABLE, the pocket openings of the 6' x 12' are only about two thirds the relative size of the 5' x 10' pockets. Anyone who has played on a 6' x 12' knows that because of pocket shape it is VERY difficult to run a ball down a rail more than about a foot or so effectively reducing one's "angle of approach" when potting balls thereby eliminating an entire repertoire of potential shots on the 6' x 12' that are available on the 5' x 10'.

All in all, different tables equal different games so it is no wonder that there is dispute as to what the rules should be. I am with tksix (Mike) on this; at least his second statement (since his first was obviously tongue in cheek).

Jon, if you are serious about learning more about this game, Scaramouche posts a ton of great links to videos to learn from the best. However, if you are playing on a 5' x 10', you probably will need to have a different perspective than what you see the pros doing on the 6' x 12's.
 
Scaramouche said:
Americans are so good at 9-ball that they lost the Mosconi
Cup to inferior Europeans, including failed snooker players.
Click to expand...

Gosh, if the European player are so good they must just be lining up to play Shane some races to 100. Why, just think of the cash they could make!

Oh wait, but they're not.

Hmm, I guess it must be because they know they would get absolutely SLAUGHTERED, as in fact all of them have when they try that format.
 
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acesinc1999 said:
You have to bone up on the math skills if you are going to play this game. Looks to me like you are probably playing on a 5' x 10'. I think one side of this "fight" is a proponent of WPBSA approved 6' x 12' tables and the other side is familiar with the "American" version of the game played on a 5' x 10' table built to entirely different specifications. It's really apples and oranges to compare the two....different strategy, different tactics, and yes, different rules to govern game play (although, as far as I am aware, there is no "official" rulebook to govern American snooker; seems to be more of a pastime with local rules governing game play).

For anyone who believes that the 6' x 12' is not really that much bigger--the playing surface is about 44 % larger than the 5' x 10' (I wish my paycheck was 44 % larger), the pockets are a little smaller (though there is a large variation of this for either table depending on the specific venue), balls used on 6' x 12' are also a little smaller lessening the effective difference in pocket size, but, RELATIVE TO THE SIZE OF THE TABLE, the pocket openings of the 6' x 12' are only about two thirds the relative size of the 5' x 10' pockets. Anyone who has played on a 6' x 12' knows that because of pocket shape it is VERY difficult to run a ball down a rail more than about a foot or so effectively reducing one's "angle of approach" when potting balls thereby eliminating an entire repertoire of potential shots on the 6' x 12' that are available on the 5' x 10'.

All in all, different tables equal different games so it is no wonder that there is dispute as to what the rules should be. I am with tksix (Mike) on this; at least his second statement (since his first was obviously tongue in cheek).

Jon, if you are serious about learning more about this game, Scaramouche posts a ton of great links to videos to learn from the best. However, if you are playing on a 5' x 10', you probably will need to have a different perspective than what you see the pros doing on the 6' x 12's.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I have been watching a ton on you tube...the table I am playing on is a 5x10 and I found out today it was originally a billiard table that was converted to snooker...so the pocets are even tighter!! It is virtually impossible to make a ball that is frozen on the rail...there is another one here that is a "normal" 5x10 snooker table and it is much easier to run balls on. One thing for sure is all this snooker is making me Killer in my bar box tap league :) LOL
 
gromulan said:
Gosh, if the European player are so good they must just be lining up to play Shane some races to 100. Why, just think of the cash they could make!

Oh wait, but they're not.

Hmm, I guess it must be because they know they would get absolutely SLAUGHTERED, as in fact all of them have when they try that format.
Click to expand...

Like i said, tournaments don't engage the American billiard mind. :grin:

Gambling is the way to better play and better pay. Beats the hell out of instruction, coaching, and added money. That's the American mantra.

To me, pool players betting amongst themselves is a zero sum proposition.
If you tack on travel, hotel, and meals it becomes a sinkhole.

If you are playing in a tournament, it is the tournament you are trying to win. To say, after you've lost, that there is another match, some time, some place in the future where an American victory is guaranteed, is pure BS. There was money up for grabs in the MC. According to your theory, for the rich American players, it wasn't worth the effort, just a dump to suck them in, the hustler's approach to pool.
 
How about take a bit of the snobbery out of your posts and I might like you a bit better?? A gentleman's game?? Show some class in that case.

Don't forget there was a time when the Brits were all very ready to welcome American input.

Scaramouche, I'm just an old hillbilly from the American Ozarks but I willl play you snooker by world rules and kick your tail. :D
 
gromulan said:
LOL, it's easy enough that I'll bet I can do it 100 times in a row. 1000 if you want to bet real high. Interested?
Click to expand...

I'm skint and don't bet, but this is an absolute nail-on for those that aren't and do.

1000 perfect roll ups? That I'd like to see (if it wasn't so crushingly dull). Even the big boys struggle with them.
 
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